Creating volume where none exists...

I have thin hair. It's thin, it's fine, it's limp, it's over-dyed, it's damaged from heat styling. It is the literal antithesis of all the things L'Oréal want in their ads. I have the opposite to advertisement hair, I am the 'before' picture and there's not a whole lot I can do about it save for buying a very high-end wig.

With all of the above in mind, my life's work has been creating volume in my sh*te hair. Enter the following products:

Okay, the tiny shampoo and tiny conditioner were just for a once-off travelling jobby so ignore them. The clip can be ignored also.

First off, Nioxin Diaboost. It's a serum that you apply directly to your scalp after towel drying freshly washed hair. It does wonders for you in terms of volume. How it does it is a mystery, all I know is – it works.

Then, the life-altering genius of Joico Hair Shake. I'd always judged Joico for being a poor man's Kerastase/Redken, but how wrong I was. Hair Shake, €25, is the best texture creator since time began. It's a liquid-to-sticky powder yoke that will give a bit of invisible hold to flyaway, fine and lifeless hair.

Next up, Batiste Dry Shampoo. Trust me when I say I've tried ALL the dry shampoos. Living Proof? Yep. Ouai? Oui. TRESemme Fresh Start? You bet I have. The only one I keep going back to is Batiste. It's cheap and cheerful and still the best. Okay, I'll admit, the Klorane one is fantastic (better, maybe?) but it's like €12 for a regular sized bottle and this giant Batiste was less than €4. No comparison.

Then there's Elnett Satin. You've gone to ALL THAT EFFORT to give your hair lift and texture and volume, the last thing you wanna do is then weigh it down with a horrid hairspray. Elnett is light as a feather, and if it's good enough for Cheryl Fernandez Versini Cole Tweedy Payne, it's good enough for me.