I have fine hair. Not thin hair — I have a reasonable amount of it — but each individual strand is fine, which means my hair lies flat, loses volume quickly, and is weighed down by almost any product I put on it. Conditioner has always been the particular problem. My hair needs conditioning — without it, it’s dry and prone to breakage — but most conditioners make it flatter and limper than it was before I washed it. The heavier the conditioner, the worse the effect.
I’ve been through a significant number of conditioners described as “lightweight” or “volumising” that turned out to be neither. Kevin Murphy Plumping Rinse is the first one that has genuinely delivered on both descriptions. My hair has more body after washing with it than it had before, which is not something I’ve been able to say about any other conditioner I’ve used.
The Fine Hair Conditioner Problem
The challenge with conditioning fine hair is that the ingredients that make hair feel soft and smooth — silicones, heavy oils, emollients — also coat the hair shaft and add weight. For thick or coarse hair, that coating is beneficial: it smooths the cuticle and reduces frizz without making the hair noticeably heavier. For fine hair, the same coating makes the hair limp and flat because the strands don’t have enough weight of their own to counteract the added heaviness of the product.
A volumising conditioner for fine hair needs to condition without coating — it needs to strengthen and hydrate the hair shaft without adding weight to it. That’s a more difficult formulation challenge than it sounds, which is why most products that claim to do it don’t.
Why I Chose Kevin Murphy Plumping Rinse
The Kevin Murphy Plumping Rinse is a professional-grade conditioner specifically formulated for fine and thin hair. Kevin Murphy is an Australian professional hair care brand with a strong reputation in the salon industry — their products are used by professional stylists and formulated to professional standards, which typically means more sophisticated chemistry than mass-market alternatives.
The Plumping Rinse uses a combination of proteins and volumising agents that strengthen the hair shaft and add body without the silicone coating that weighs fine hair down. The formula is designed to be rinsed out thoroughly, which means it conditions during the application period and then leaves the hair without residue. That’s the approach that works for fine hair: condition, then rinse completely, rather than leaving a coating on the hair.
The First Wash
I applied the Plumping Rinse after shampooing, worked it through the mid-lengths and ends — avoiding the roots, which is the correct approach for fine hair regardless of which conditioner you’re using — and left it for two minutes before rinsing thoroughly. The rinse-out was clean: no residue, no slippery feeling that sometimes persists after rinsing heavier conditioners.
When my hair dried — I air dry rather than blow dry most of the time — it had noticeably more body than usual. Not dramatically more, not artificially inflated volume, but the kind of natural body that fine hair has when it’s in good condition and not weighed down by product. My hair moved. It had texture. It didn’t lie flat against my head by mid-morning the way it usually does.
Five Months of Regular Use
I’ve been using the Plumping Rinse as my regular conditioner for five months. The results have been consistent — every wash gives me the same body and volume, which is what you want from a conditioner: reliable, repeatable results rather than occasional good days.
I’ve also noticed that my hair is stronger than it was before I started using it. I was losing more hair than I’d like when brushing — not dramatically, but noticeably — and that has reduced significantly over the five months. The strengthening element of the formula is real: the proteins in the conditioner are reinforcing the hair shaft and reducing breakage, which is a benefit I hadn’t specifically been looking for but am very glad to have found.
How to Get the Best Results
A few things I’ve learned over five months of use. Apply from mid-length to ends only — applying conditioner to the roots of fine hair adds weight exactly where you don’t want it. Leave it for two minutes rather than rinsing immediately — the proteins need time to penetrate the hair shaft. Rinse thoroughly with cool water — cool water closes the cuticle and adds shine, and thorough rinsing ensures no residue is left behind. And if you blow dry, use a round brush and lift at the roots — the Plumping Rinse gives you the foundation for volume, but technique amplifies it.
I’ve also found that using it every wash rather than alternating with a heavier conditioner gives better results. Some fine-haired people alternate conditioners, but the Plumping Rinse is light enough to use every time without any build-up.
Where to Find It
The Kevin Murphy Plumping Rinse 250ml is available in the Shampoo & Conditioner collection, within the broader Hair Care, Personal Care and Health & Beauty ranges.
If you have fine hair and you’ve been through the same cycle of trying volumising conditioners that turn out to be too heavy, I’d suggest trying a professional-grade formula before concluding that conditioner and volume are mutually exclusive for fine hair. They’re not. The Kevin Murphy Plumping Rinse is the evidence. Five months in, my hair has body every day, and I’ve stopped dreading wash day because I know what the result is going to be.
— Natalie Heron, fine hair owner, five-month Kevin Murphy convert, and now the person whose hairdresser asks what she’s been doing differently because her hair looks so much healthier
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