a lesson on curly hair care

think you might have curly/wavy hair?

If your hair becomes frizzy when you brush it or dries frizzy, if it seems to slightly curl at the ends but stays straight at the roots, it’s extremely likely that you have some sort of curly or wavy hair.

It’s pretty easy to mistaken curly hair for straight if you don’t look after it properly. You would not believe how many people I’ve met that are oblivious to the fact that their hair is curly, or how many people know that they have curly hair but don’t look after it properly. I had no idea that my hair was curly until last year, and assumed the unnatural frizzy-ness and volume of my hair was just me.

Curly hair is more fragile than straight hair so if you want to look after your hair properly you need to know what to do (and that it’s curly in the first place).

It’s pretty simple to check, take a strand of hair and wet it and then try finger curling (I’m not sure how to explain it but you can watch a tutorial here), if the strand remains straight, you’re hair is curly, if it’s not exactly straight but isn’t that curly, your hair is wavy, and if it forms some sort of coil, you have curly hair. Once your hair has dried you can classify your curl pattern using the chart below, some people (me) have a combination of different curl patterns (some 2C, but primarily 3B).

So, if you do have wavy or curly hair, how do you look after it?

Well, you need some sort of after shower curly hair routine, it doesn’t have to be too extensive. My hair routine consists of this: brush through, leave in conditioner, curl cream, if I’m bothered a curl mousse, occasionally a gel, finger coil, scrunch for dear life, then air dry or diffuse.

Different products work better for different people depending on hair porosity and different curl types. A person with 4C curls would have a different routine than me with 3B curls. It’s a bit of an experimental process to find products that work for you.

To be clear, if someone with wavy hair and curly hair uses the same curl cream they are not going to get the same results. It depends entirely on you natural curl pattern, so if your hair is curlier or not as curly as inspo photos, it’s not that you’re doing the routine wrong. For some people finger curling is more effective than using a brush (see curly hair brushes here). The only thing I would recommend is that you definitely use is a curl cream.

If you plan on blow drying your hair, make sure you have a diffuser attachment, if you don’t use it one it will just make your hair frizzy and the curl routine will have been for nothing.

A note on after shower maintenance:

DO NOT BRUSH YOUR HAIR. So many people make the mistake of brushing curly hair while its dry. Curls are not made to be brushed through when dry, you’ll end up with some illegible frizzy mess that is hard to tame and just annoying to deal with, not only that, but it’s damaging and causes a lot of breakage in your hair, so please do not brush it. If your hair gets knotted really easily what a lot of people do is wet their hair every morning and brush it, before finger curling/brush curling and drying it. You also need to figure out the best way to sleep with your curls, for some people this is a bun (me), a braid, or a silk bonnet.

I hope that was somewhat helpful, I’m not an expert, but if you have any questions you can message me and I’ll try my best to answer them!