How to Get Longer, Thicker Hair
The latest hair products borrow from skin creams and lash-growing serums to give you long, lusciously thick locks without extensions.
Would you get injections for longer hair? Read about the popular European technique here.
By Ning Chao
Photo Credit: PM Images/Getty Images
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Greatest body? Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jennifer Aniston, and Blake Lively are all strong contenders. And we're not talking about their figures. What really sets these beauties apart are their follicles. Who cares if Hollywood's manes are often enhanced with stylists' dirty little secret (and true best friend)—hair extensions? The dream of having lust-worthy locks is enough to fuel a billion-dollar body-building hair industry.
For women who want to grow their own mega-mane, beauty companies like Jan Marini and Revitalash are taking the same peptides in their best-selling lash growth serums and adding them to leave-in hair treatments. And after last year's FDA approval of Latisse, dermatologists are already discussing the eyelash enhancement drug's off-label potential for growing hair elsewhere on the body—like, say, the scalp.
To help maximize your assets without prescription intervention, body-boosting styling products are also getting a makeover. Previous generations (remember Merci Gellé mousse?) achieved sticky height with the help of drying alcohol. However, long-term use led to split ends and weak hair that stubbornly refused to grow past the shoulders. Thanks to new, healthier formulas, you no longer have to sacrifice length for volume. Pricey ingredients traditionally used for skincare, like plant-derived antioxidants, omega fatty acids, caffeine, and coconut oil (a lathering alternative to drying sulfates), are cropping up in hair treatments from shampoos to thickening serums, prompting less damage and breakage. Similar ingredients can also be found in the increasingly popular oral supplements (like Viviscal, Rene Furterer Vitalfan, and Philip Kingsley PK4Hair) that celebrity stylists are slipping to their fine-haired clients. Looks like bombshell-hair body—without the salon commitment—is attainable after all. Now if only Lively's figure came in a bottle, too.
