I'm not ashamed to admit that I own The Best of Whitesnake. And Def Leppard's Hysteria? Greatest freaking album of all time.

While my heart belongs to punk, it's clear I have a fondness for hair bands. I've even taken to wearing my own locks in an alarmingly Tawny Kitaen–ish manner. (She's the one rolling around on that car hood in the "Here I Go Again" video.) Bigger, I've decided, is better.

Although I could have purchased a Tribeca triplex with the money I've spent on blow-outs over the years, I'm happily au naturel now. At a certain point, I noticed I looked older with a stick-straight Gwyneth-y do. And when that happened, all my pricey dryers (yes, even the T3) went straight into the circular file. I wanted volume, and the fastest way to get it was to let my hair return to its naturally puffy state.

Of course, I cheated: I didn't check into hair rehab until I was on maternity leave (a.k.a. that 90-day window during which you don't have to concern yourself with looking presentable). I also installed a Jonathan Product Beauty Water Shower Purification System. To find out why it made my hair a thousand times softer, I called the creator, beauty guru Tina Hedges. It seems the gizmo removes an entire posse of undesirables, including chlorine, heavy metals, harsh chemicals, and VOCs (volatile organic compounds).

And as it turns out, touchable hair speaks volumes. But for a WOFTM (Way-Older First-Time Mom), going soft is easier said than done. Combine pregnancy with aging and you've basically written a prescription for a brittle, unruly mop. "The baby takes a lot of your nourishment, so your hair loses protein, making it damaged, thin, and fragile," says Hedges. "You also tend to be dehydrated, especially if you're breast-feeding."

All is not lost, though, provided you choose your daily basics with care. For starters, run screaming from cleansers with sulfates. "Not all volumizing shampoos are created equal," says Hedges. "Sulfates overstrip the hair, which gives a false sense of height at the crown. Sulfate-free shampoos add hydration and nourishment and prepare hair, in a good way, for adding more volume."

Armed with this knowledge, I rang Hollywood-based salon owner Chaz Dean, the whiz behind the delicious—and sulfate-free—WEN line. The stars of his collection are the cleansing conditioners, which somehow get rid of grime without lathering. "Lather isn't good," Dean says. "Moisture is what gives hair body."

While he applauds my ditch-the-blow-dryer approach to puffiness and fluffiness, Dean knows that most of his clients won't follow me down that virtuous path. But there are ways, he says, to offset the damage:

• Locate the nozzle that came with your dryer—you know, the one you tossed under the sink behind the TP and the tampons.
• Keep the dryer (and the nozzle) moving; don't park and fry.
• Skip the last few inches of hair. If you've been using a round brush while drying, that'll be plenty hot enough to impart a little volume. Run it through the ends and call it a day (or night).