2012 Beauty Breakthroughs

Photo by: David Cook

Kevin Murphy Full Again Thickening Lotion

Women with fine (a.k.a. limp) hair already know this intuitively: Thin strands tend to be very straight, which allows them to lie flat against each other-too flat. Most volumizers work by depositing ingredients along the shaft to rough them up, but this has the unfortunate side effect of making hair feel sticky. Lucky for these women, the people in the Kevin Murphy labs happened to... more 

Photo by: David Cook

Kevin Murphy Full Again Thickening Lotion

Women with fine (a.k.a. limp) hair already know this intuitively: Thin strands tend to be very straight, which allows them to lie flat against each other-too flat. Most volumizers work by depositing ingredients along the shaft to rough them up, but this has the unfortunate side effect of making hair feel sticky. Lucky for these women, the people in the Kevin Murphy labs happened to have a material lying around that no one had ever thought to apply to hair: rayon, which adds bulk without much weight.

HOW IT WORKS: The "aha" moment came when a sample of rayon got too close to a freshly flatironed swatch of hair at someone's workstation, causing it to dissolve nearly completely onto the strands. "We noticed the affected hair had texture and body but still felt smooth-and the material is almost weightless, so you could barely detect it," says Tony Beckerman, a research and development consultant at Kevin Murphy. Applied to wet hair, the rayon particles-blended with polymers to increase hold and shine-adhere to the keratin in hair, creating a superfine mesh that puts enough distance between each strand that hair appears significantly fuller, yet still feels silky.

WHAT AN EXPERT SAYS: "This thickening formula is similar to the technology used to lengthen and thicken eyelashes," says Hammer. "Applying this concept to provide fullness is brilliant, and using an ingred less