If you have fine, flat hair, without body, without movement, and without any desire to comply with your styling requests, you must be familiar with the concept of volumizing shampoos. In fact, you may even be shopping for some and feeling overwhelmed by the wide range of options on the market. Formulated for hair that needs a boost, volumizing shampoos use a range of ingredients to create volume where none exists: from natural extracts to high-tech polymers, these formulas can be a little challenging to understand. To help you choose the shampoo that best suits your needs, we’ve selected eight of the best volumizing shampoos on the market. Let’s get to know them!
Volumizing Shampoos for Fine Hair: Our Top 8
Based on our experience and feedback from our Care to Beauty community, we chose eight volumizing shampoos that get the job done. Which one will you pick?
Redken Volume Injection Shampoo
Best to create volume from the inside
Redken Volume Injection Shampoo
What it is: a volumizing shampoo that provides lift and body to fine hair. The formula combines Redken‘s exclusive Bodifying Complex with Filloxane. Filloxane is a customized molecule developed by L’Oréal that penetrates the hair fiber and thickens it from the inside out. Immediately after use, it creates the feeling of “fuller” and thicker hair.
Why we like it: Redken is a tried-and-tested brand in the world of hair care, and this shampoo is a perfect demonstration of their know-how. With a lightweight texture, the formula fulfills the basic function of a shampoo, by gently cleansing the hair without over-stripping it, while offering an immediate volumizing sensation. Thanks to the combination of Filloxane and select polymers, this shampoo manages to create volume from root to tip, leaving the hair soft and shiny, with a polished finish.
Pantene Pro-V Miracles Lift’n’Volume Silicone Free Shampoo
Best for fine hair that lacks nutrition
Pantene Pro-V Miracles Lift’n’Volume Silicone Free Shampoo
What it is: a silicone-free shampoo that nourishes fine hair in order to restore its body, movement, and softness. In addition to the Pro-V complex that features in all Pantene products, this formula also contains biotin and rose water. While biotin helps maintain healthy hair, rose water replenishes moisture. The hair is nourished, gains strength and resistance, and acquires a fuller and healthier appearance.
Why we like it: if you have any reservations about volumizing shampoos that use silicones or polymers to create volume, this shampoo is the ideal option for you. With a formula that focuses mainly on strengthening and nourishing the hair, this shampoo brings body and movement to your hair by promoting its health and overall condition. If you have thin, lifeless hair that is also dull and undernourished, this is a great option for you.
Phyto Volume Volumizing Shampoo
Best French pharmacy
Phyto Volume Volumizing Shampoo
What it is: a volumizing shampoo from French pharmacy brand Phyto, made with 90% natural ingredients. Its minimalist formula provides gentle cleansing and, at the same time, provides more volume, softness, and a touchable texture to the hair. Main ingredients include waterlily extract to lend body and volume to fine hair, and organic white mallow extract to polish the hair to a healthy, natural shine.
Why we like it: we have worked with Phyto for many years here at Care to Beauty and have been fans of the Phyto Volume shampoo through its many versions. This one continues to do exactly what it says on the bottle: it provides a gentle cleansing action, without leaving the hair overstripped and squeaky clean, and offers a feeling of added body and volume that is noticeable from the very first uses.
L’Oréal Professionnel Série Expert Volumetry Shampoo
Best for 72-hour volume
L’Oréal Professionnel Série Expert Volumetry Shampoo
What it is: a professional-grade shampoo that offers a “push-up” effect for up to 72 hours. With a lightweight formula, this shampoo cleans the roots in depth and provides root lift, while hydrating the lengths without weighing them down. The formula combines Intra-Cylane™ and Hydralight; while Intra-Cylane™ tones and creates lift in the hair, Hydralight retains water, helping to create hydration without added weight or greasiness.
Why we like it: when looking for a volumizing shampoo, it’s not always easy to find options that can balance out oilier roots and drier lengths. Typically, the hair ends up feeling either too light and dry (almost like cotton candy, floating in the slightest breeze), or too heavy and lifeless. With its focus on hydration without weight, this shampoo manages to provide that balance, ensuring cleanliness and lightness in the roots and smooth shine, full of body and movement, all the way down the lengths.
OGX Thick & Full + Biotin & Collagen Shampoo
Best for a fragrant hair wash
OGX Thick & Full + Biotin & Collagen Shampoo
What it is: a volumizing shampoo formulated with vitamin B7 (aka biotin), collagen, and wheat protein. Together, these ingredients help maintain hair health, strength, and elasticity, prevent breakage, and promote increased shine. The result is a shampoo that helps maintain healthy hair and gives fine hair a more dynamic and voluminous appearance, restoring its softness, shine and movement.
Why we like it: for those looking for a sulfate-free shampoo that pumps up the volume but, at the same time, is super pleasant to use, this shampoo is perfect. The perfumed formula with bergamot, jasmine and vanilla aroma is absolutely spa-worthy, and brings results right after the first applications, leaving the hair with a fuller and more voluminous appearance, with that movie star bounce and shine.
Kérastase Volumifique Bain Volume Shampoo
Best for fine hair that is difficult to style
Kérastase Volumifique Bain Volume Shampoo
What it is: a shampoo that helps thicken the hair fiber, working through each hair strand to create an appearance of fuller, more voluminous locks. This powerful formula combines the lifting action of Intra-Cylane™, with the densifying effects of cellulose powder and the texturizing effect of cationic polymers. It is through this all-encompassing approach that this shampoo is able to create lift and body in the hair, thus making it easier to shape and style.
Why we like it: for those with fine hair that is hard to shape, this shampoo may be the solution. Through the action of cellulose powder and cationic polymers, this shampoo is able to affect the thickness of the hair fiber itself, making it thicker and more robust and, consequently, more manageable. The action of Intra-Cylane™ lifts the roots, helping you create the perfect base for your hair styling adventures.
Moroccanoil Extra Volume Shampoo
Best for a luxe experience
Moroccanoil Extra Volume Shampoo
What it is: a nutrient-rich shampoo that gently cleanses and adds volume to fine, limp hair. The formula combines nourishing and antioxidant-rich argan oil, moisturizing glycerin, and revitalizing linden bud extract. Together, these ingredients help keep the air clean and healthy while restoring body, volume, and shine.
Why we like it: there are shampoos that are almost globally appreciated for being a shortcut to full, luscious locks, and this is one of them. Indeed, this might as well be the perfect shampoo for anyone who wants to try a volumizing shampoo but doesn’t want to give up their usual luxurious shampoos. With its gentle, sulfate-free cleansing base and fragrant formula, this shampoo doesn’t have to work too hard to restore smoothness to thin and lifeless hair, giving it a new lease on life with extra body and movement.
Lazartigue Volumize Volume Shampoo
Best rice-based shampoo
Lazartigue Volumize Volume Shampoo
What it is: a volumizing shampoo, enriched with rice protein, that helps restore body and volume to fine hair. The lightweight formula gently cleanses and conditions without weighing the hair down. Furthermore, the key ingredient in this formula, rice protein, provides volume to the hair by “sticking” to the outer surface of the strand, bulking it up without weighing it down.
Why we like it: rice water is a very popular hair treatment, and there are people all over the world who swear by it. If you use this shampoo, you don’t have to do any DIY experiments: you can benefit from the moisturizing and volumizing effect of rice protein with every wash, without much effort. By sheathing the hair strand from root to tip, this shampoo creates the appearance of fuller hair from the first few washes, and helps maintain volume and movement for longer.
We’ve shown you eight of the best volumizing shampoos out there–some are sulfate-free, some are polymer-rich, some are extremely professional, others are worthy of a day out at the spa. Select the best one for your needs or, if you’d like, explore our full selection of volumizing shampoos in the shop!
Can’t quite get the volume you want using just a shampoo? Then make sure to complement your volumizing shampoo with a plumping styling foam. The sky’s the limit!
