How To Backcomb Your Hair

We all want a bit more “lift”, a bit more “volume”. When back combing your hair, you can either choose to have as little or as much volume as you would like added to your ‘do.

Backcombing is a popular method as it can be done right then and there. You don’t have to spend a ton of time rolling your hair with Velcro rollers, trying out tongs, breaking out a hair straightener or trying to blow dry your hair into a particular shape. You also won’t need to use cans and cans of hairspray trying to achieve that look that you want. All you need is a comb and a few seconds.

How to Start

To begin, all you will need is a bit of patience and either a thick bristled brush or a rat-tail comb. You may also want to find some clips to help clip away the sections of hair that you will be backcombing.

A lot of women also swear by only backcombing when they haven’t washed their hair for a day or two. This helps prevent the hair from being so soft and it will greatly reduce the amount of fly-aways you may otherwise experience.

The Technique

The best place to start any type of backcombing is to start off at the highest point of your head, the crown. The crown will naturally give you the best lift and volume out of any area on your head, because it is the highest and because you can get the most height by using the least amount of hair.

Take a small section of hair, hold it upwards, and the with a densely bristled brush or a rat-tail comb, focus on the root of the hair up to a quarter way up the length of hair. Brush in a downwards motion, so that you are brushing against the grain of the hair. You want to make sure that you are brushing in very small strokes, and brushing in a fairly quick manner.

Your hair may look a bit scraggly after you finish this process. Before you panic and think that you have made the biggest mistake, don’t worry – this is exactly how you want your hair to look.

Take a comb, or a natural-bristled brush, and very lightly smooth it over the top of the backcombed hair. Use very little pressure so that you do not lose the volume to your hair, but you are able to smooth it out properly. If you apply too much pressure to a particular area, simply backcomb that section again and then try to smooth it again.

The Finishing Touch No backcomb is complete without the appropriate product being used to hold the look. The best product to use to hold the volume of any backcombing job is to use a hairspray that has either light or medium hold. It isn’t necessary to go for the extra strength of “freeze” hair sprays. As a matter of fact, this will leave your hair feeling crunchy and may even completely ruin the look that you were going for!