10 Hairstyling Hacks to Hide Thinning Hair

Thinning hair can be incredibly frustrating, especially if it’s completely out of our control. Though our hair naturally starts thinning as we age, there are also genetic conditions that affect the way hair grows. If thinning hair is something you’ve dealt with for a while, you might already have some tips for how to hide thinning hair or how to cover thinning hair. If this is a new experience for you, though, we’re here to help with plenty of hairstyling tips and tricks to cover crown thinning, wide hair parts and other sparse patches. Here’s how to hide thinning hair.

Hairstyles to Hide Thinning Hair

1. Try TikTok’s Double Ponytail

Kudos to TikTok for taking this hairstyling hack mainstream—because it’s now one of our favorite ways to hide thinning hair. It’s super-simple, too! Rather than slicking all your hair back into one ponytail, simply create two on top of each other to help create the look of a fuller ponytail.

To begin, pull the top of your hair up into a ponytail as if you were going to wear it half up, and secure it into a ponytail on the back of your head. Then, take the rest of your hair and sweep it back into a second ponytail, securing it directly below the top ponytail so you have two ponytails stacked. Finally, fan out the top ponytail so it mostly covers the ponytail holder of the bottom one. This will make your ponytail look much larger and thicker.

2. Wear a Bun Over a Thin Spot

If your hair is long enough to style into a bun—even a small one—and you have some crown thinning, put the bun right there! Sweep your hair back and position it in a ponytail right on top of the thinning spot and knot it into a bun. You might need some extra clips to secure your hair where you want it, especially because there isn’t a lot of hair in that spot to hold everything together. Take advantage of your ends by leaving them out for a purposefully undone look that can help create the illusion of fuller hair.

3. Opt for a Lower Ponytail

Pulling your hair up into a severe high ponytail can really accentuate thin patches around your hairline. Instead, you might try pulling your hair back into a looser ponytail that’s lower on your head. This allows the hair around your head to fall more naturally down, rather than being pulled up and back. If this still doesn’t hide the thinness how you want it to, you can pop in a cute headband or headscarf to disguise the thin patches.

Styling Tips to Hide Thinning Hair

4. Volumize with Hair Thickening Products

Tackling thinning hair starts from the moment you wash it. After treating your tresses to a volumizing shampoo and conditioner so you’re giving them the best chance of appearing fuller, go in with Better Not Younger’s Lift Me Up Hair Thickener to add more volume when it’s time to start styling. This thickening spray is designed to wrap around thinning strands to deliver allover volume and lift at the roots!

5. Blow-Dry Your Hair with a Round Brush

Blow-drying your hair with a round brush naturally helps create volume—it’s that simple! After spritzing strands with a heat protectant, start blow-drying your hair, making sure you’re giving your hair lift with the round brush. Pull the brush up and away from the roots, rather than dragging the brush down your hair. As your hair dries, start molding your hair into place by guiding it to cover any thinning hair spots. Once it’s dry, you can set it with a little volumizing hairspray to hold your look in place with added fullness, and you’re done!

6. Add Volume and Length with Clip-In Extensions

Extensions can be very expensive to get installed, but clip-in extensions that you can do yourself at home are more affordable. If you want to hide thinning hair and add volume, clip in a few extensions here and there to cover any thinning hair spots and pump up the volume. Depending on the location of the thin spots that you want to cover, you might have to play around with different types to see which work best.

You can also use halo hair extensions as a full piece that sits on your hair and adds volume and covers your scalp. These extensions don’t use glue, tape or clips, which makes them one of the least damaging types of extensions.

If you’re feeling fancy, you can even get extensions in rainbow colors to add a little more pizzazz to your look! Rainbow-colored hair is fun for all ages and can help make you excited about your hair.

7. Use Your Curls to Your Advantage

If you’ve got naturally curly hair, you can use that volume to your advantage. In this video, you can see how the woman pulls her natural hair up into a puff and allows it to fan out over her head. This allows it to camouflage some of the thinness around her face. This style works especially well with curly hair that has a lot of body to it already. She also filled in her edges with product to further camouflage the thin areas. Once she’s done, you can’t even tell she has any thin patches!

How to Hide Thinning Hair in the Front

8. Wear a Wiglet

Clip-in hairpieces or hair toppers, also known as wiglets, can be a wonderful (and easy!) way to hide thinning hair on the front of your head. You can try clip-in bangs or a larger hairpiece that will add some volume to the front of your head. If this is something you might want to wear often, consider getting a few different clip-in hairpieces and color them to match your hair so they blend seamlessly. This way, you’ll have a bunch of looks from which to choose!

9. Fill in a Wide Hair Part and Thinning Spots

On days when you don’t want to mess with styling your hair but you still want to hide thin areas around your hairline or hair part, you can use a little bit of makeup that matches your hair color, such as eyeliner, brow pomade or even eye shadow, directly on your scalp. (This technique works well on other areas of your scalp, too.) You can also try a root spray or even a tinted dry shampoo to fill in some of those blank spots. A little spritz of one of these can often hide thinning hair areas, even pretty extreme ones.

Pro tip: If you’re adding color to help conceal a wide hair part, make sure you don’t completely cover your part so it still looks natural! You want some of your scalp to show through. Eyeball it or put the tail of a comb into your part to guide you in making a natural-looking part.

10. Switch Your Hair Part

If you’ve got thin areas in the front, try switching where your hair parts. If you sweep your hair over to the other side where there are thin patches, you might be able to cover them. Switching your hair part can also help to add a little lift since your hair might not be used to laying in that direction. Parting your hair differently or adjusting some strands and securing them with some cute clips or even a hair scarf will all help to add an extra bit of coverage to thin patches.

Tell Us: What are your favorite ways to hide thinning hair? Share in the comments below.

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Better Not Younger has all your thinning hair concerns covered, from crown thinning to a wide hair part. Specifically created for aging hair with signs of thinning, our products are designed to nourish strands at the scalp while offering volume, hydration and strength to keep your hair looking its best through midlife and beyond.