Lately, I’ve been having a real love-hate relationship with my hair. Every morning I’d run a brush through it and watch strands collect far too quickly, while the ends constantly tangled, looked wispy and felt impossible to smooth, no matter how many conditioners or styling products I threw at them. I’d always assumed I was simply someone who shed a lot of hair, but as it turned out, the problem wasn’t necessarily my hair at all. It was my haircut.
After months of putting it off, I booked an appointment with Nick Latham, co-founder of London salon The Hair Bros. The salon has built something of a cult following for doing things differently, specialising in cutting freshly washed, naturally dried hair rather than soaking wet hair that’s later transformed with a salon blow-dry. As someone who rarely styles their hair and almost always lets it air dry, it immediately felt like a much more realistic approach.
Before we’d even started cutting, Nick had already spotted the problem. He described my hair as looking ‘a bit flat’ and ‘quite heavy’, with no real outline around my face. Years of growing it longer had left the ends looking thin and tired, while all the weight sat through the bottom of the haircut. Rather than making my hair appear fuller, the extra length was actually doing the opposite.
‘I think cutting soaking wet hair can become a bit of a one-size-fits-all approach,’ Nick tells me. ‘Most textures look almost exactly the same when they're soaking wet.’
Instead, he studies how the hair naturally bends, where it kinks, which sections are finer than others and, perhaps most importantly, how each client actually wears their hair. For me, that meant embracing my natural wave, creating soft face-framing pieces and making sure I could still tie it back for the gym or my daily cycle commute.
We eventually settled on what I’m calling a featherlight bob. It’s not a name Nick uses himself, but it perfectly describes how it looks and feels. Around six inches came off, but the aim wasn't simply to lose length. Instead, he wanted to remove the heaviness, create a much stronger outline and bring movement back into the cut without sacrificing softness around my face.
The transformation was immediate. Despite technically having less hair, it looked noticeably thicker. The ends looked healthy instead of straggly and, for the first time in months, it actually felt like I had a hairstyle rather than just long, limp hair.
The biggest surprise, came the next morning. When I brushed it, hardly any hair came out. I’d gone from pulling handfuls from my brush every day to what felt like half as much overnight. It wasn’t that the haircut had stopped my hair shedding; it was that I’d removed months of damaged, tangled ends that were constantly knotting together and breaking every time I brushed them.
Why this haircut works for fine or ageing hair
As our hair becomes finer, drier and changes texture with age, it’s easy to assume the answer is holding on to as much length as possible. Nick says that’s often where people go wrong.
‘Keeping a more solid outline to a haircut often makes hair feel much fuller,’ he explains. ‘Sometimes losing a little bit of length ends up making the hair look so much thicker. It’s always an amazing feeling seeing someone who’s been struggling with their hair realise how much fuller it can look simply by adding more shape and creating a stronger outline.’
Looking back, that’s exactly what happened to me. I’d spent months trying to rescue my hair with expensive masks, oils and styling products, when what it really needed was a completely different shape.
Why layers aren’t the enemy
One of the biggest misconceptions Nick comes across, particularly among women with fine or ageing hair, is the fear of layers.
‘People often think layers automatically mean thinner hair,’ he says. ‘But when they’re cut well, they can actually be the key to making fine hair look much fuller.’
The trick, he explains, is restraint. Rather than layering the whole head, he places them strategically where they'll create the biggest impact. ‘On finer hair, adding shape through a narrow section at the crown can encourage volume and actually make the hair look much thicker.’
Too many chunky layers, however, can have the opposite effect, leaving the ends looking sparse and wispy. ‘It's all about balance.’
Why dry cutting makes such a difference
One of the things I loved most about Hair Bros’ approach was how realistic it felt. Nick isn’t interested in creating a haircut that only looks good after a professional blow-dry.
‘We’ve always believed a really great haircut should look just as good naturally as it does blow-dried,’ he says. ‘Most working women, busy mums or students don’t have 40 minutes every morning to recreate a salon finish.’
Dry cutting also allows him to see things that simply aren’t visible on wet hair. ‘You can see exactly where the hair is thick and where it’s finer. When it’s soaking wet, you lose all of that information.’
He also believes it helps avoid one of the biggest frustrations clients have after leaving the salon.
‘So often, people leave loving their haircut, then wash it themselves and think, “Hang on a minute... this isn’t how it looked when I left.” We want clients to see exactly how their hair behaves naturally throughout the appointment.’
Nick’s top tips for making fine hair look fuller
As hair changes with age, Nick recommends making a few simple tweaks:
- Don’t be afraid of losing some length if your ends have become wispy or transparent.
- Ask for a stronger outline rather than lots of chunky layers.
- Add carefully placed movement around the crown to create natural volume.
- Work with your natural texture instead of constantly fighting it with heat.
- Padded clips set in the front of the face help to create a flattering shape (and perfect to do while getting ready in the morning).
- Use one or two nourishing styling products well, rather than relying on a cupboard full of products that never quite solve the problem.
Nick's top hair styling products:
"The key is to just use a tiny bit and it will give you the volume that you would get from a mousse, with the softness of a cream. It adds light hydration and volume without the stickiness of a typical mousse."
"The absolute go-to day-to-day product that adds moisture and light definition. Great to air-dry or blow-dry into the hair. Awesome to keep in your bag for damp winter days when you need to keep the frizz at bay between meetings or before dinner."
"Our go-to for wavy and curly hair. To keep waves and curls defined in a really soft way. No stickiness and retains texture that can move. Amazing for freshly washed, soaking hair."
Walking out of the salon, I assumed the biggest difference would be that my hair looked shorter. Instead, it looked healthier, fuller and somehow much lighter all at once. The biggest lesson I took away wasn't that everyone needs a bob. It was that, as our hair changes, our haircut often needs to change with it. I’d spent months trying to fix my hair with products, when what it really needed was a shape that worked with it rather than against it.
