This one goes out to all my curly haired ladies and gentlemen. The rest of you are welcome to read along, maybe even pass the info onto a frizzy friend, but some of this will only make sense to the true curly ones.
First things first, let's get to the root of the problem. The thing with curly hair is, it either looks great, or it looks like crap. There's not a lot of in between. The other issue is that it always seems to be a mystery as to why one day your curls can be perfectly fine and other days a hot mess. Can we get some consistency please?!
Curly hair is unlike smooth shiny straight hair because the cuticle of the hair shaft lays completely differently. Think of the hair's cuticle like the shingles on a roof. With curly hair, the shingles all sit up slightly, creating gaps into the hair shaft.
You know how your hair looks great wet and then it dries into a big puffy mess? What's going on is, when your hair is wet the water is inside the hair shaft, which is weighing the hair down and making it smooth. As your hair dries the water evaporates and you loose your "glue", the hair starts to dry up and it gets puffy and frizzy.
So what you need to do is introduce a product that will go INSIDE the hair shaft, like water, but won't evaporate as your hair dries.
Are your ready for it??? It's a very rare product called........CONDITIONER
Trust me, it will change your life. Another amazing tip for curly hair is, STOP SHAMPOOING!! Shampoo also roughs up the cuticle, causing curly hair to dry up and get frizzy. For all of you who are thinking that this idea is completely gross, knock it off. You can get your hair perfectly clean by scrubbing and rinsing with a little bit of conditioner. Any dirt and oil will adhere to it and rinse out the same way as it would with shampoo.
The exact steps to perfectly defined curly hair are...
- Wet hair down completely
- If you feel like your hair needs to be washed. Take a small amount of conditioner, scrub and rinse. (You'll feel the need to do this less and less as you lay off the shampoo)
- Again with the hair being soaking wet, wring the extra water out of the hair like you were ringing out a towel.
- Take some conditioner and start out with an amount the size of a large peach pit, you can always add more and you'll probably end up using a lot more than you think. Curly hair likes to suck up conditioner. The hair should be coated and slightly slimy from roots to ends.
- Once the hair is coated, step out of the shower, flip your head over and wrap it up in a towel. The less absorbent the towel is, the better.
- Keep your hair wrapped up for about 10 to 15 minutes, flip your head over, unwrap the towel and scrunch in some gel or curl cream
- Last but not least, DON'T TOUCH your hair while it's drying!!! I don't care if your diffusing it or letting it air dry, don't touch. Once the hair is about 80% dry, you can start to shake it out and soften it up.
A great basic conditioner for leaving in your hair is Finesse. It's cheap and it has a great consistency for a large variety of hair types.
The gel you want to pick up is called Emphasis Redefining Gel and it's by NEXXUS- Phyto Organics. You can find that one at Ricky's in NYC
Trust me on this one, I have a huge curly head of hair myself. My clients always tell me, "Oh you just have great curly hair". Not the case, I just know what to do with it.
So give it a try. What do you have to lose? Except for all of those curly haired products you've been sold that are cluttering up your bathroom.
