I’m a Caucasian who has stringy hair – lots of thin, light strands that love standing upright and shunning their neighbour strands, creating lots of volume.
It’s not that my hair doesn’t look good, it’s that it refuses to be shaped like I want to. Can’t do the short-haired “head-hugger” look, for example. If I cut my hair shorter than ~1.5 inches, it becomes an involuntary crew cut. If my hair is longer, it becomes floppy to the extreme, refusing to be combed anywhere, and I look like a guy who should wear cardigans and live with his mother.
I believe the main problem is stringiness – if it were soft and heavy enough, it might obey gravity and lie down.
I have tried softening and weight-adding conditioners (eg., Redken All Soft), softening treatments, oil-based products (extra virgin olive oil, petrolatum-based pomades, coconut oil-based pomades), and of course things like gels, creams, “clays”, etc. I’m not a big fan of stuff that turns my hair into a razor-sharp weapon, nor of stuff that makes it so sticky that people go “Eww! That’s the last time I’m ever gonna do that!” when they try to give me a friendly ruffle (true quote).
So far the best solution I’ve found is to start with a deep-cleansing shampoo, followed by a conditioner, followed by olive oil.
The olive oil is good at softening my hair, making it pack tighter, and imparting a nice shine. One particular downside is that any other products (creams, for example) become ineffective once the oil has been applied, which means my hair is now basically just hanging downwards, and there’s no way I can ruffle it or make parts of it stand up a little. So now it’s still floppy as hell, but at least the volume has been reduced somewhat, and I can to some extent part it to one side.
And should anyone want to make a joke about shaving everything off – that’s not my style.
I welcome ideas and product recommendations.