Adrien: Oh, My Hairs.

As Marianne can attest, I am never, ever quite satisfied with my hair. It's just a thing, having short hair. Every cut is slightly different and sometimes I go through phases where I want to grow it out for absolutely no reason. (I'm currently in one of those phases right now.) One thing I never seem to learn is that products that work great when my hair is super short are going to be a sad disaster when it gets longer. Like, I am a pretty big fan of Bumble & bumble Styling Creme...until my hair starts grazing my jawline. Then it frustrates me and just seems to make my hair angry. It's bad, y'all.

So, right now I have a short, shaggy bob thing going on:

Super flattering, those camera phone pics.

I like it, but it's a struggle to have it do anything but just lay there all sad and flat. (This is the part where all the ladies with curly hair sigh with envy and all the ladies with fine, straight hair are like "YES, RIGHT? UGH.") Anyway! I thought I'd tell you about what products I've been using lately. What's working and what's not.

I go to an Aveda salon and I bought the Volumizing Tonic a while ago to try to bully some life into my hair:

It smells really nice and when my stylist uses it my hair is GIGANTIC but when I use it? Eh. It's fine. I think this has more to do with my lack of blow-drying skills than it does with the product itself. Or maybe I'm not using enough of it? I don't even know. I should experiment, I guess. But it smells good and it also seems to help detangle, since I don't generally use conditioner. One other thing I really like is John Masters Organics Sweet Orange Styling Gel:

Again, mostly because it smells really, really good. I'm picky about product scents and this one is so nice without being overwhelming. The gel itself does a fine job but I'm pretty sure the drugstore stuff I used to use would do just as well. But it's smells so nice! (Did I mention that?) So, I spray the Aveda tonic on my roots, run some gel through the rest of my hair and then blow-dry with a round brush. Then I straighten my bangs and the ends with a flat iron. I piece out the ends with a tiny bit of Aveda Defining Whip:

It's like a pomade but much, much lighter. I don't know that it does a whole lot, but it's nice for taming flyaways and static and doesn't weigh my hair down. (Really, if you're going to buy a non-wax pomade Bumble & bumble Sumotech is probably the way to go.) Finally, if I remember I spray the whole shebang with some really embarrassingly named hairspray. Whee. Usually this looks great for approximately half an hour and then the whole thing falls flat and sad. I don't even know why I bother sometimes.

When all this fails and I am desperate for a little volume I'll occasionally use the Oscar Blandi texture spray which I got in a Birchbox:

I spray it on my roots and it definitely works, but it leaves my hair feeling weird and stiff. I can't imagine using it every day, but it does work. One thing that absolutely does not work is Living Proof Thickening Mousse:

I had such high hopes but if I use a big blob it makes my hair kind of lank and stringy and if I use a little blob it makes my hair sort of lank and stringy. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. What I do know is that, even though I bought the trial size, it's getting returned. I really liked some of the other products from this brand but this is not one of them.

So that's it! Do you have any secrets for fine hair volume? And, can anyone recommend an awesome round brush? Mine is some hard plastic jank I bought at Target and it seems to wish death upon my head.