When I was growing up my mom always used to remark on how thick my hair is. She was a hairdresser ( so obvs she was MY hairdresser) and she swore I had some of the thickest hair she’d ever seen. Deceptively thick in fact because its very straight and smooth so it doesn’t necessarily look big, ya know what I mean? I honestly never really took what she said super seriously though because she also told me I was the most beautiful thing that ever lived and that the only reasons the boys I like didn’t like me back was because they were intimidated by my beauty. So I was pretty sure that my mom was both hardcore team Nicole, and a tiny bit prone to exaggeration.

As I have gotten older, I realized that on the topic of my epically hick hair, she wasn’t really exaggerating because this thing is a beast that needs to be tamed. Now that I’m old enough to pay for my own color when she is nice enough to still do it for me, I realize it’s not normal to need three tubes of color for a single process, mom wasn’t full of shit after all…maybe all those boys WERE intimidated. Ok ok let’s not get carried away.

This entire rambling lead up is basically just to say this: If you have thick hair problems, I feel you. I can never get through a workout without stopping to re-adjust my 12lb ponytail. Every leave in conditioner makes it weighed down, but you simultaneously need to use practically the whole bottle. And trying to put it in a cute bun is a cruel joke, especially if you have layers. Which you probably do because thick hair without layers usually looks like a wig.

So in the interest of helping out my other thick haired ladies here are three products that have helped me deal with my thick hair problems a little bit better.

I originally picked these Goody Finishing Touch Hair Ties up in Target on a whim just because I thought they were pretty cute. At first glance you may be thinking they are like those ribbon ones with the knot in them…not so! The package says specifically for thick hair so I had pretty high hopes that these would hold onto the hair nicely, but I had no idea how nicely.

To be honest you cant really see the cuteness of the metal details most of the time because they sorta just get lost in the hair, but the way these keep my hair in place makes it entirely worth it. I have one in my hair right now that I tossed in when I woke up this morning. I have eaten breakfast, gone on a run, changed my clothes and been working for a few hours now and I haven’t had to touch it one time. Not once! And I only wrapped it two times. It’s like a very comfortable ponytail vice grip. It also doesn’t pull my hair when I take it out which is a huge deal because a lot of those rubbery ones that they make for thick hair take half of my hair out with them and I’m not about that.

I keep meaning to get a bunch more in case they stop making them, because goody tends to do that with all the hair ties I love, so next time I’m there I think I’m going to hoard about five packs just in case.

The major claim for spin pins is that they “hold as much as twenty bobby pins” but I think thats a terrible tag line because they hold WAY more than that. Have you ever put 20 bobby pins in your hair? If you are reading this you probably have because you know the thick hair struggle, and you know they they all start falling out after about 25 minutes. Let me tell you, if you put your hair up in a messy bun, or some cute up-do that I’m not creative enough to think of and you pop a few of these babies in there rather than bobby pins, it won’t budge…also you won’t see a mess of ugly pins in there because once you screw these into the hair just the tiny end of it is exposed. There are hair stylists out there who are magicians with a pack of bobby pins but for the rest of us, these are a savior.

When the It’s a 10 leave in conditioner first became popular I tried the original formula because literally everyone was raving about it. I wasn’t that impressed. My hair was moisturized enough but it felt heavy and hard to manage and it was definitely kinda limp and lifeless. Then I tried the keratin formula thinking maybe that would give a little more texture to my hair. Nope it was worse. It was heavy and lifeless and now also sticky on top of it. Gross. I resigned myself to the fact that I just didn’t like this stuff and went on with my life.

Then I got a trial size of the Lite formula in my Glossybox, and I almost didn’t bother to try it, but the stars must have been aligned because I was out of my other leave in and I gave it a go. I am SO glad I did because now I get what everyone was raving about. The other formulas were just too heavy for my. With this lite formula I only need a few spritzes, and I can comb through my hair easily, it’s shiny and smooth and over time using I feel like it has stayed extra healthy. It also isn’t weighed down and I don’t need to use half the bottle to get it to work. It’s the perfect balance of potent enough to get all of the hair conditioned, but still light enough not to weigh it down.

I also find that this, combined with my Bumble & Bumble Surf Infusion Spray is the perfect combo for air drying. Thats a little bonus tip though because I don’t think that’s only for thick hair.

I hope this points you in the right direction if you suffer thick hair problems like me. Ok suffer is definitely not the right word, there are definitely WAY worse problems to have in this world than thick hair, but having a few awesome products that help out is a huge plus.