11 Remedies for Naturally Thicker Hair

how to get thicker hair

Whether you’re a man or a woman, it’s normal to wonder how to get thicker hair.

Thicker hair often carries a shinier luster and can feel better to the touch in addition to keeping your head warm. There’s a lot of information out there instructing you how to get thicker hair. However, many of these methods aren’t great because they involve blasting your hair with a bevy of weird chemicals. These can often irritate your scalp, causing more harm than help. You don’t have to risk damaging your hair or skin to make hair thicker, thankfully.

In this article, we’ll show you how to get thicker hair using natural thinning hair remedies. You’ll likely have access to these products in your home already. Then, we’ll teach you about a few habits that you should avoid if you want to make the most out of the thickening techniques. First, we’ll take a look at reasons why your hair might be thinning.

Why Does Hair Lose Its Thickness?

Hair loses its thickness for quite a few reasons, and not all of them have to do with aging.

Aging-related hair loss

Let’s get this one out of the way first. Menopause and male pattern baldness both predictably bring along thinning hair and subsequent hair loss. Nobody is surprised. Thankfully, these processes often take years for their damage to your hair to add up. You can slow this degeneration process with a little effort. 

Dehydration

Dehydration is a common cause of thinning hair that has a wide number of different causes itself. If your hair is thirsty, any method you try to get thicker hair will have a hard time succeeding. Dehydration of your hair can happen in a few different ways, but many involve your showering or hair care.

Taking showers that are extremely hot or showering too frequently both cause water to evaporate from your hair roots after you hop out. This means that your hair follicles will shrink and become thinner as a result. Showering with shampoo or conditioner also strips your hair’s natural protective oils away, which weakens their ability to retain moisture even more. 

Teaching yourself how to make your hair thicker requires changing your shower habits. Try taking cooler showers and using shampoo less often—or a less harsh shampoo—and your hair will bounce back quickly. While you’re at it, try being a bit more respectful of your hair after the shower, because rough treatment with a towel tends to cause hair to thin as well.

Dry skin

If your scalp is dry, your hair roots will be deprived of essential oils which they need to shore up your hair stalks. Dandruff is often the telltale sign of scalp dryness. Where there’s flaking, there’s hair that’s suffering. For many people, the best way to thicken hair naturally is to hydrate their scalp.

Many shampoos can help keep dandruff under control by hydrating your scalp, and it’s a good idea to use these every other day. 

Home Remedies for Naturally Thicker Hair

Sometimes your hair is going to need outside assistance to get thicker, and that’s perfectly fine. Even healthy hair needs a helping hand occasionally. 

The following items are all natural, and you should have them already. Just stick to trying one at a time until you find one method that works for your hair. Remember, these are just a few of the natural ways to make your hair thicker. There are quite a few others out there, so keep looking around if you don’t find something that works for you.

Egg

Surprisingly, eggs are effective supplements for your hair in multiple ways. If you eat eggs, you’ll get their nutritional goodness which will help sustain your hair from inside with fats and proteins. If you create a hair pack with eggs, your hair will be directly coated by the emulsifiers within the eggs. Once emulsified, your hair will retain moisture much better and have a natural and protective coat—assuming you can tolerate the mess.

Orange Juice

Orange juice is a popular home remedy for thinning hair because it’s tasty, nutritious, and easily accessible. You can rinse your hair with orange juice directly to give it a boost to softness and thickness. Just make sure that you don’t leave behind any pulp.

Indian Gooseberry

Indian gooseberry, also known as amla, is broadly useful for your hair health. The Indian gooseberry will help you get thicker hair when included in your diet in small quantities.

Coconut Oil

Coconut oil is a great hair thickener because it is super-moisturizing for your hair, cheap, and can be used for many other purposes. Coating your hair with coconut oil will be quick, easy, and won’t smell bad or feel icky on your scalp like many of the other hair thickening methods. Some people leave the oil in their hair, whereas others wash it out after a few minutes of soaking.

Aloe Vera

Most people will be familiar with aloe vera for its moisturizing properties, which can also be applied to your hair. There are a few products made specifically for use with hair, but most aloe products should do if you’re just looking for a quick thickening. You shouldn’t eat aloe, as it’s intended for external use only. 

Typically, the smell of aloe is an acquired taste, so you’ll want to wash it out of your hair after a few minutes of soaking. Don’t hesitate to apply another coat of aloe if you find that your hair is still a little bit dry—aloe tends to wash out of hair much more easily than skin, so it tends to need a thicker and repeated application.

Flaxseed

Flaxseed is a great food to add to your diet for hair thickening. Aside from being delightfully crunchy and tasty, flaxseed contains many essential oils that your body will be able to replace into your hair once you’ve ingested the seeds. Flaxseeds are also beneficial for your digestive tract and tend to make your hair shinier as well as thicker.

Olive Oil

Olive oil might not be as effective as coconut oil at moisturizing your hair, but it’ll do in a pinch. These oils tend to absorb into your hair a bit more than other vegetable oils might, which can leave it with a beautiful shine and thickness—or potentially a smelly greasy mat.

Our advice is to use a very small amount of olive oil, perhaps a teaspoonful, and rub it gently into your hair until it’s evenly distributed. Reassess if you need more to hydrate your hair, then continue if needed. Ingesting olive oil with your meals will also ensure that your body has a good supply of fats to use to supplement your hair growth.

Fenugreek seeds

Fenugreek isn’t well known, but it’s an effective hair thickener in multiple formats. While it’s possible to eat fenugreek seeds and gain their nutrients—vitamin C and iron, among others—many people make it into a mask for their hair and scalp. Fenugreek tends to be a bit difficult to work with on its own in a mask format, but thankfully it combines well with other hair thickeners. You’ll be able to whip up a batch of fenugreek seed mask when combined with other natural remedies and have a great tool to thicken your hair.

Castor Oil

There’s some debate over whether castor oil is effective at thickening your hair, but many people have success by using it as a rub. By rubbing the oil into their hair, much like with olive oil, the hair gets nourished and thickened substantially. You also risk the same hazards of olive oil: making your hair into a greasy wad that doesn’t smell good. If you think you can handle the potential downside, castor oil is cheap and easy to sue.

Avocado

Avocado and avocado oil are popular and tasty options for hair thickening, provided that you’re willing to gamble with how to thicken your hair. Avocados are always rich in nutrients and fatty acids which your hair needs to grow, but many avocado oils aren’t made with a high manufacturing standard and won’t be that effective at restoring moisture to your hair.

At its best, avocado oil performs better than the other vegetable oils we’ve discussed and has a lower chance of resulting in a mess. At its worse, you’ll smell like avocado for a while and might not thicken your hair at all. The choice is yours, but remember that eating avocados is typically harmless but has a large upside for your hair, unlike the oils.

Henna Leaves

Weirdly enough, it’s possible to use henna leaves for your hair. Henna contains many of the nutrients that hair needs, and if you rub it into your hair, you’ll immediately see the difference in thickness. Be aware that henna also colors hair, so some of the thickening it seems to cause may be illusory.

Is There Anything That I Should Avoid?

There are a few hair care and lifestyle things to avoid if you’re interested in how to get thicker hair. In general, the single idea which unifies the things you should avoid is dryness. Dryness is kryptonite for your hair’s thickness, which is why we’re going to summarize a few the most common things which prevent you from attaining thicker hair.

Putting tension on your hair regularly

Pulling on your hair and putting tension on the hair roots via tight hairstyles or rage is sure to make your hair much thinner. Hair needs a secure and unstressed root to shore up its sidings and attain a thick hair look. You don’t need to treat your hair with kid gloves for it to thicken, but remember that stress on your hair makes your hair more reluctant to grow.

Aggressive chemical styling products

Using chemical styling products is a surefire way to thinner hair much of the time, unfortunately. Many chemical hair products contain alcohol or other desiccants, which suck the moisture out of your hair and leave your stalks a frizzled mess for far longer than the product itself sticks around. If you’re unwilling to cut chemical products out of your hairstyle altogether, even using less will be better for your hair’s thickness.

Using blow dryers and other heat-based hair products

Blow dryers and other heat based hair appliances dry your hair out by subjecting it to heat which causes the moisture to evaporate from the inside of your hair stalk and your scalp. As much as we’ve harped on the damage that dryness can do to your hair in the previous items, blow dryers bear special mentioning because they dry your hair out extremely quickly and to a far greater degree than the other common suspects. Keep your hair dryer use brief and infrequent if you suffer from thinning hair, and your hair will thank you. 

Sun baking

Much like your skin becomes sunburned, your hair also takes offense to extended time spent in the sun. UV rays damage your hair just like your skin, and, though you won’t feel the burn, your hair will slough off and stay thinner as a result. Sunburned hair is also heavily dehydrated.

Certain shampoos have SPF which you can lather on, but wearing a hat is probably a better choice to avoid putting too many products on your hair. Sun damage to your hair remedies itself quite quickly, and you’ll be back to having thicker hair in no time. 

If you avoid these things and make use of a few of the natural hair thickeners that we’ve mentioned, you’ll be well on your way to thicker hair. There’s not much point in applying a thickener if you’re still subjecting your hair to the dryness that’s thinning it out. Just remember: stop drying your hair out to prevent it from thinning first, then try adding the thickeners that we’ve discussed.