My hair has a mind of its own. It always has; from the wispy white Einstein locks I sported as a toddler, to the fine baby hair of a little girl, to the cowlicked, frizzy poof of preteen. Then, puberty struck, and my hair’s cowlicks got even more stubborn; with one particularly strong wave right at the crown of my forehead. I started to experiment with gel and mousse and discovered that I didn’t just had wavy hair, I had CURLS!
My Mom has curly hair, though she brushes the boing out of it on a daily basis with the blow dryer. I’ve had a tenuous relationship with my curls; before I had kids, they were full and glorious, super springy and thick. Then, after babies and weight loss surgery, they faded to a limp wave. Finally, they’re getting their groove back because in the past few months, I’ve learned a lot about my own hair, all due to the magic of the Curly Girl Method! My hair stylist got me started using Deva Curl products, and while I noticed some success, I never used the products exclusively, and didn’t follow one of the more important parts of the rules, which is no heat styling. Now, with quarantine, I’ve been 100% committed to the Curly Girl Method, which largely is about what you put IN and ON your hair — mostly, nothing containing parabens or sulfates. I have to give a HUGE shoutout to this group on Facebook, because I’ve learned so much from other posters who share their hair progress.
The thing about the Curly Girl Method is that it takes PATIENCE and a lot of experimentation. I’ve tried a ton of different CGM-approved products to varying degrees of success, and I think I’ve finally found what works on my hair – which is curly type 2C, low-porosity. I’ve stuck to mostly drugstore products to keep the costs down, and also, I’ve been through a few products which didn’t work; like, for example, the Shea Moisture Coconut Smoothie Curly Pudding, which was too thick for my fairly thin hair. However, a few of my friends with curly types in the 3s and 4s LOVE IT, so your mileage may vary.
So what did work? Here you go…
- Every other day shampooing with either:
Miele Organic Detangling Cowash
Pantene Pro-V Rosewater Shampoo
It took me a hot minute to get used to not shampooing on the daily, because I get a little bit oily, but I’ve embraced the headband, especially cutesie tie ones like this!
2. Conditioning daily with – you’re never going to believe this – the V05 Moisture Milk Strawberry Soy Protein Conditioner. Yep, the one you get from the dollar store. For some reason this is just light enough to moisturize my hair and make it extra curly. I’ve also started using 3-4 times per week the Garnier Fructis One Minute Hair Mask in either Avocado or Banana. This stuff is awesome, and again, super affordable.
3. Styling: This is where I have to be the most methodical about how I use product. I have been through ten million different kinds of mousses, gels, leave in conditioners – you name it, but finally I stumbled upon my holy grail product: Curls Blueberry Bliss Control Jelly. You can get this at Target, and it was about $15. It smells like a blue raspberry slurpee and it has just enough hold to give you a light crunch that you can scrunch out of your hair once it is fully dry. When I get out of the shower, I use an old t-shirt to lightly sop my hair and remove excess water. Then, I use a hard-bristle brush to part it, and then I use a GENEROUS amount of this gel – about four “nickle” sized-amounts, and put it all over my head, scrunching generously from bottom up to create the S-curved ringlet.
My hair takes about three hours to air dry, and I never use heat, which works fine for me anyways, because a blow dryer and my hair means it looks like I stuck my finger in a light socket and glued a poodle’s trimmings to my head. I’ve been super psyched to see how my hair has changed so rapidly in a short amount of time – this is really just a two month shot of progress. Hooray! I love my curls and can’t wait to see what else happens now that I know how to work with them.
Let me know if you have any questions of your own, and if you have made peace with your hair – and how!
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Ummm thank you for this post and those awesome links! My poor curls have been neglected recently and ugh the frizz is telling. You are rocking those curls. Miss you, love you!
Looks like 2a/b scrunched to become sort of 2c . 2c has natural volume and frizz a mixture of waves and curl . This doesn’t look like 2c
You can’t gate keep curls Cara, sorry to say. Looks more like a 2C who didn’t know how to properly care for curls and then learned, and in a few shorts months recovered her limp curls, that were probably a result from being low porosity and responding to build up and being weighed down by incompatible products or regimen…