Do you dream of a good hair day—but aren’t quite sure how to get there? If you have fine hair, then finding the right type of hair products for your locks can make a huge difference.
So, what is fine hair? Having fine hair means your strands are on the thinner side, smaller in diameter than other types of hair. This can sometimes come with challenges: you might notice your hair looking oily, flat, weighed down, or tangled.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. There are also some advantages to fine hair, such as faster drying times, less shedding, and going through hair products more slowly, saving you money.
Advertisement
Yet even among those of us with fine hair, there are still many different types of textures and temperaments. That means it may take a bit of experimentation to get the best out of yours. But don’t give up! There are so many amazing products that can help bring out the best of every hair type—fine locks included.
If you want your fine hair to dazzle and shine, finding the right shampoo and conditioner combo is a great place to start. It can help tame those locks and get you one step closer to the good hair days of your dreams.
Advertisement
To get you started in harnessing the beauty of your hair, we’ve compiled a list of 25 of the best shampoos and conditioners for fine hair. Check them out below!
In this sleek shampoo bottle, you might just find the secret to strong hair. The ingredients work hard to bring your tresses to life, with coconut cleansing the scalp and aloe vera soothing it. Saw palmetto and vegan biotin then combine to fortify fine strands, while jojoba protein helps to repair any damage that may be present.
If you love a nutty, fruity scent, then be sure to choose the coconut apricot flavor. Otherwise, go for the original scent—after all, you can’t beat a classic.
Want to feel extra good about getting this shampoo? It’s also vegan, cruelty-, paraben-, and sulfate-free, and a whopping 99% of its ingredients are from natural origins such as plants, fruits, and minerals.
To get started, simply use a quarter-sized amount of shampoo, massage it through the scalp, and rise it out. The formula is also suitably gentle to use every day.
2. Essano Clarify & Balance Micellar Conditioner
Some people with fine hair struggle with conditioners weighing their locks down, contributing to an oily look. This conditioner counters this by using rose water and aloe vera to gently moisturize and soften the hair using a lightweight formula. It provides hair with plenty of vitamins and body—without any of the heaviness.
Using natural-origin ingredients and no sulfates, you can also treat your hair with this conditioner daily.
Advertisement
To get those light, soft and silky strands of your dreams, simply apply this conditioner to your hair, especially onto the ends. Leave the product to absorb into the hair for a couple of minutes before rinsing it out. Then enjoy the beautiful rose and aloe vera scent for the rest of your day.
3. Kiehl’s Rice and Wheat Volumizing Shampoo
Sometimes fine hair can feel a bit flat, making you feel a bit flat! Bring the best out of your hair and pump up the volume with a shampoo like this one from Kiehl’s. It was designed specifically with fine hair in mind, so it can address many of the common complaints of people with finer strands.
Its formula draws on lightweight proteins from wheat and rice to bring body and life back to hair without weighing it down. That means you'll be proudly flipping those locks in no time.
Advertisement
4. Kiehl’s Rice and Wheat Volumizing Conditioner
Follow up your Kiehl’s shampoo with this targeted conditioner that has been formulated for fine hair. This conditioner will add moisture and smoothness to your tresses, while helping to gently detangle any pesky knots.
Shiny, more voluminous, healthy-looking hair—what’s not to love?
5. Pureology Hydrate Sheer Shampoo
Give yourself a beauty spa experience at home with this shampoo, which boasts a lovely lavender, bergamot, and patchouli scent. Another gem designed for thin and fine hair, it moisturizes hair strands without making them oily.
Scalp health is incredibly important for healthy hair, but it often gets overlooked. This shampoo doesn’t forget it! Instead, it ensures the scalp is cared for with its blend of jojoba, sage, and green tea, which all work together to cleanse, moisturize, and stimulate it.
Advertisement
This shampoo is also a great option for those specifically with colored or dyed hair. It helps to protect and lock in the color while giving the strands the extra nourishment they need.
6. Lush Angel Hair Shampoo Bar
You heard that right—shampoo comes in bars now! These fun, eco-friendly hair bars have taken the world by storm and are here to stay as a new option for washing our hair.
The angel hair bar is designed for sensitive scalps and hair, which can be a challenge for some of us fine-haired folk. It uses rose water and witch hazel to gently cleanse and soothe the scalp, roots, and body of the hair, without causing irritation.
Advertisement
If using a shampoo bar is a new experience for you, don’t worry! We have the scoop on how to use them. First, wet the bar in the shower and then either rub it between your hands to create a lather, or gently apply the bar to your strands directly. Then massage the shampoo into your scalp as normal, and rinse out. To add additional moisture back to your hair, follow it up with a conditioner of your choice.
To store your shampoo bar, leave it in a cool spot to dry off for the next use. For extra ease, pop it to the side of your shower in a container that can drain out.
Advertisement
7. Philip Kingsley Body Building Weightless Shampoo
Welcome to the Arnold Schwarzenegger of shampoos, Philip Kingsley’s Body Building hair formula. This shampoo is packed full of goodies to plump and lift fine hair to new heights.
Ingredients like copolymers tackle those troublesome flyaways, while natural cellulose fills out the texture of the hair. Finally, keratin proteins get to work strengthening weak strands. Your hair will look shinier and more voluminous—and will be easier to style.
Let’s face it, after using this shampoo, ‘’you’ll be back’’!
8. Philip Kingsley Body Building Weightless Conditioner
Advertisement
Treat yourself with this conditioner, the ultimate follow-up to the body building shampoo. While it moisturizes, thickens, and smooths hair, it won’t weigh thinner locks down.
This product will work best for those with fine or short hair that has experienced little to no processing with dye, bleach, perms, or other chemical treatments.
If you have dyed or treated your hair significantly, check out one of the other conditions on this list—there is something for every hair type.
9. Virtue Recovery Shampoo
This shampoo is great for fine hair that has been treated with dyes or other processing. While cleansing the hair, it also helps to fill cracks in your hair’s cuticles for smoother and thicker looking locks. It uses Alpha Keratin 60ku®, which is identical to the keratin in our bodies. This means it can tether straight on to any damaged areas of the hair shaft to perform a deep repair.
Advertisement
If your hair is feeling a bit worse for wear from too much heat styling, chemicals, or coloring, give this shampoo a try to restore your hair.
10. Virtue Recovery Conditioner
Pair your recovery shampoo with this powerful conditioner. Once again, this product focuses on repair. Your tresses will come out of the wash with shine, volume, and stronger, smoother ends.
To use, pour a dollop onto your hands and apply from the middle to the ends of your wet hair. Leave in for one to three minutes before rinsing the conditioner out. Enjoy the shiny, voluminous result.
Advertisement
11. Andrew Fitzsimons Body Volume Shampoo for Fine Hair
This bold red bottle has the ability to lift your hair to new heights! Formulated with caffeine, it’s designed to give fine hair that extra boost it’s been looking for—just like your cup of coffee in the morning.
As a bonus, this shampoo also smells delicious; it’s like a perfume in itself. You’ll be able to skip your usual fragrance or cologne to enjoy these fruity top notes of pink grapefruit, apple, and berries, mixed with creamy caramel and coconut, as well as cedarwood and sugared amber. This is one memorable shampooing experience that will enchant all the senses.
Advertisement
12. Andrew Fitzsimons Body Volume Conditioner for Fine Hair
Add another of the Body Volume collection’s striking bottles to your collection with this conditioner.
It will give your fine tresses a full-bodied look and feel without leaving any dreaded residue or heaviness. Its fruity scent profile pairs perfectly with the shampoo, amplifying the lovely aromas as you go about your day.
13. Eufora Enhancing Shampoo
Not all fine hair is straight—it comes in many different textures, shapes, and styles. This shampoo is specifically designed for those with fine wavy or curly hair. While cleansing and strengthening the strands, its formula also works to enhance and repair the structure of the waves and curls themselves, so they shine and bounce like never before.
Advertisement
Aloe vera gel works to improve the structure of the hair shaft while adding moisture and nourishment. Expect to see newfound volume and shine. Ride the wave—without the frizz!
14. Eufora Enhancing Conditioner
This conditioner is full of nutrients that will help lock moisture into your waves or curls while keeping them full, bouncy, shiny, and light.
With a detangling and smoothing effect, this enhancing conditioner’s ingredients of tomato fruit ferment, rice, and keratin amino acids, and abyssinian and moringa oils work a treat on perfecting those fine waves and curls. Give your curls some love after your shampoo with this nourishing conditioner.
Advertisement
15. Volu Shampoo
This shampoo is all pumping up the volume, lifting those roots, and getting your hair to look and feel its absolute best. If your locks are leaning more toward the limp side of life, try this shampoo formulated from Caprauna Turnip extract.
Turnip in your hair? We know it sounds strange, but it works, treating your hair with minerals like phosphorus, iron, calcium, and Vitamins A, B, and C. Volume and shine to the max—now that’s a great result.
16. Aveda Pure Abundance Volumizing Shampoo
Do you wish your hair had a bit more zhuzh? If it’s feeling flat, then check out this shampoo from Aveda, which is designed to help enliven fine hair.
It’s formulated with kaolin clay and acacia gum to transform the look of your locks from sparse to abundant. Give it a try for a healthy and fuller-looking crown of hair.
Advertisement
17. Aveda Pure Abundance Volumizing Clay Conditioner
Pair this conditioner with Aveda’s volumizing shampoo and watch that hair bop and bounce with newfound volume. Once again designed specifically for fine hair, its targeted ingredients work to give your hair a thicker, fuller feel.
Clay is the star ingredient here, moisturizing and filling out fine strands of hair for a strong, healthy look and feel. Your hair will go from flat to fabulous, pronto.
18. Bumble and Bumble. Thickening Volume Shampoo
Don’t confuse this shampoo with the dating app! This buzzy blend will help your hair feel soft, nourished and a whole lot more voluminous. What else could someone with fine hair ask for from a shampoo?
Its funky bottle comes in a number of sizes, so you can choose which one best suits your level of usage.
Advertisement
19. Bumble and Bumble. Thickening Volume Conditioner
After using your Bumble and bumble. shampoo, follow it up with this creamy conditioner. Luxuriate in how it infuses your hair with moisture and nutrients to leave a soft, silky feel without residue. It also provides lift and volume sans any heaviness.
In addition to this, it has fabulous detangling qualities—as well as a lovely scent.
20. HairStory New Wash
This unique product has quickly become a cult favorite—and its popularity is growing. It’s technically less of a shampoo and more of a shampoo alternative or replacement, a new approach that is taking the industry by storm.
Advertisement
HairStory uses a sulfate-free, creamy formula made from essential oils to cleanse and give nutrients and moisture back to the hair. It’s perfect for fine hair that needs washing often because its gentle composition ensures the hair isn’t being stripped of much-needed nourishment. Most notably, it replaces both shampooing and conditioning, streamlining your hair care into one step.
It also has a lovely scent mixed with rose, ylang-ylang, clove, and other essential oils. So, if you’re feeling daring and are open to switching up your usual shampoo and conditioner routine, this is one to try. It might just become your new favorite hair care product.
Advertisement
21. Kérastase Bain Volumifique Thickening Effect Shampoo
It’s amazing how many shampoos are now designed for those of us with fine hair in mind. This Kérastase shampoo uses its “Amplifex System” to restore hair fibers and thicken strands, which is just what some of us with fine hair dream of on the reg.
The Amplifex System uses cellulose powder, cationic polymers, intra-cylane, and stylight texture to restore, strengthen, and add volume to fine hair without weighing it down. That’s a pretty powerhouse combo of ingredients! To see just how voluminous and strong your hair can yet, give this a try.
Advertisement
22. Kérastase Gelée Volumifique Thickening Effect Gel Treatment
Kérastase’s matching conditioner for fine hair also harnesses Ampliflex technology to work in tandem with the shampoo, infusing your locks with fresh volume and strength.
Expect to see plenty more lift at the roots as well as softness and shine galore.
23. John Freida Volume Lift Lightweight Shampoo
Flat hair no more! If you’re looking for a lift worthy of Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing, this shampoo is a fantastic place to start.
John Freida offers up some of the best shampoo and conditioners for fine hair with this formulation that cleanses and detangles hair while adding volume and vitality. This product is all about soft, bouncy, and lightweight hair, without any of the frustrating residue.
Advertisement
24. John Freida Volume Lift Lightweight Conditioner
Enhance your hair’s buoyancy even further after shampooing by following it up with this lightweight conditioner from John Freida. After washing your hair, this gives back the perfect mix of moisture and protection as you go about your day.
Watch as your hair is transformed from fine to fabulous—head out on the town and swish those new locks around!
25. Ethique Sweet and Spicy Shampoo Bar
If you have joined the shampoo bar revolution, then you must try Ethique’s sweet and spicy serve. If you haven’t yet tried a shampoo bar, this is a great one to start with. Designed for fine hair, it lathers and cleanses well without adding any heaviness to your strands.
Advertisement
It also smells delicious, with notes of orange, cinnamon, and ginger, which help to revitalize your scalp and energize you throughout the day. Paired with cocoa butter, coconut oil, and just a little sprinkling of salt, your hair will be perfectly moisturized, all the while bouncing with beachy-beautiful volume.
Follow up with a conditioner bar, or any other conditioner of your choice.
After reading through this list of amazing shampoos and conditioners, do you still have some questions? For some extra facts about fine hair and how to best care for it, check out our handy FAQ below.
Frequently asked questions
Advertisement
What is fine hair—is it the same as thin hair?
Fine hair refers to strands that are smaller in diameter compared to thicker strands of hair. Thin hair, however, refers to when there are fewer hairs growing on the scalp. This can range from very subtle to visible patches without hair.
Because fine hair refers to having smaller strands, you can still have many strands that all together create a more full appearance, even though the texture is finer. There are many combinations possible: for example, you can have thin, fine hair, a dense head of fine hair, or thin hair with thick strands.
Advertisement
What are some common complaints from people with fine hair?
Some people with fine hair may feel their hair looks flat, dull, or oily and weighed down. Luckily, the best shampoos and conditioners for fine hair can help with some of these concerns. If you’re unsure about how to get the best from your fine looks, it’s also worth getting advice from a hair stylist who can analyze your hair’s specific texture.
How often should I wash fine hair?
There’s no one rule for washing hair, as everybody’s levels of scalp and hair oil can differ. For example, fine wavy or curly hair can often go longer between washes than fine straight hair. Experiment with a few different routines to see which suits you best. Then, whether you decide to wash your hair every few days, weekly, or even daily, choose a shampoo and conditioner that suits your unique hair’s needs.
Advertisement
How can I prevent my fine hair from tangling?
A few simple tweaks to your routine can help protect your fine hair from knotting or tangling.
First of all, keep your hair well-moisturized. That means using a nourishing shampoo and conditioner and considering other additional products like hair masks and oils.
Another tip is not to rub your hair dry after washing it. Instead, gently squeeze the water out first with your hands, then pat it down gently with your towel.
Be sure to wait until your hair is completely dry before combing or brushing it. Your hair is much more vulnerable when it is wet, so if you try to brush out any tangles, you may damage it.
Advertisement
How can I prevent my fine hair from breakage and split ends?
First of all, try not to expose your hair to too much heat. That means minimizing the use of hot styling tools—and if you do use them, make sure you apply a heat-protecting product first.
Consider turning down the dial on your shower temperature when you wash your locks, aiming for a lukewarm temp. Then, try rinsing the conditioner out of your hair using cold water. This helps to close the cuticle and lock in the moisture you’ve just given it.
If possible, sleep on a silk or satin pillowcase. Rubbing up against cotton is harsh on hair and can contribute to breakage—after all, we spend a lot of our lives in bed! So, switch to silk or satin and give your tresses a good night’s sleep too.
Advertisement
What types of ingredients should I look for in a shampoo or conditioner?
Shampoos and conditioners can feature many different ingredients. Some people prefer to use all-natural products, ones that are cruelty-free and vegan, or that are free from ingredients like parabens, sulfates, or synthetic fragrances. Some people aren’t fussed at all, as long as it does the job for them!
Take a look at the ingredients list of shampoos and conditioners you’re considering to ensure they are the right fit for you and to avoid any ingredients you know you may be allergic or sensitive to.
What’s the best hair length for fine hair?
Advertisement
Not sure whether to rock a pixie cut or grow your hair down to your waist? The good news is that any style can work well for fine fair. The main thing is to ensure you have a good hair stylist and that the cut is well balanced, allowing for volume and movement that helps fine hair look amazing. A stylish bob is always a good option as it provides enough weight for the hair to sit well while being light enough to keep lift at the roots.
We hope you enjoyed the tips and tricks in this FAQ that will assist you to work with your tresses to bring out the best in them.
Advertisement
So, there you have it: 25 of the best shampoos and conditioners for fine hair. Which ones caught your eye? We hope you’ve learnt that you can enhance the natural beauty of your fine locks and really make them shine in just a few easy steps. Get ready for plenty of good hair days to come!
