Step-By-Step Guide
Hi there, I have broken down the techniques into rough sections; finer curls and waves, Medium curls and Super curly. Obviously there are many curls in between!
The first decision to be made is whether to have a parting or not. Without a parting, curls can be washed and styles upside down in the shower however with a parting, you want to be standing up and having your curls directing down towards you. This will also decide whether you have volume or not and the direction your curls will fall into. For me, having finer curls means I can’t wash and style upside down as my curls would be at a weird angle. If you are unsure what would be best for you, just ask me anything you would like to to know at our appointment.
Fine curls or waves:
Washing and conditioning with finer, wavier types of curls isn’t rocket science, although all the information that can be found these days would suggest otherwise! First of all, just think about your routine and how you can fit looking after your curls into your life’s schedule. It doesn’t have to take long, you just need to make sure you are thorough on wash days as your hair will look and feel better for longer!
Washing: Firstly, you need to use a shampoo. If you use a co wash, it will make your curls greasy before you have started. Try and use a shampoo every now and then that is more protein based than moisture and try to use one that doesn’t contain oil. I personally love Dizziak shampoo and Curly Ellie shampoo. Make sure you massage the roots for a few minutes to lift dirt’s and oils from the scalp. If you wash your fine curls every few days, you only need to do one wash but if you wash your curls once a week, be sure to be thorough and do two washes. After washing, be sure to rinse your curls thoroughly.
Conditioning: The conditioner you choose also has to be free from oil and not too slippery otherwise your curls will be harder to work with and will lack volume. You can finger the conditioner in or use a wide tooth comb. You only need to put it at the mid to end of the curls and if the curls are natural, you don’t need to leave it in. At this point, you are either stood up in the shower pulling your curls down towards the ground putting in the parting or upside down pulling together towards the ground. Ensure you rinse your curls thoroughly and keep your curls really wet before you apply the product.
Styling product : This is all dependent on whether you want very soft waves or you want to achieve more hold. With very soft curls, you want to use a product like orange Marmalade on soaking wet hair. With more hold, you want to use a mouse and slightly more product with dripping wet curls. When the product is applied to curls which are upside down, you will get lots of volume and no parting but if you are standing and adding a parting, you will get a softer result. Firstly, to apply the product you want to ensure your curls are dripping wet. If you are stood up, you need to take the product in your hand using two pumps at a time in the palms of your hands and stroke the product downwards. You then want to push the curls in order to get the product within the curls. Once applied, use the equivalent of a t-shirt and dab the moisture out before adding another two pumps of product in the same way as before. If your head is upside down, you need to stroke downwards and squish the curls upwards to apply the product and to ensure its distributed well throughout the curls. Then, using the t-shirt or equivalent, dab water out and move your head from side to side shaking the curls to make sure you don’t get a flat section at the back of your head. If the curls are too weighed down with water and the curls are too fine to leave the curls soaking wet, push the curls into position, then squeeze the curls as you would have done first to apply the product to remove some of the water and start to set the curl pattern.
Drying: To dry your curls, you have two options. If you were to stand up and let the curls more or less drip dry by not touching them, they will be flatter but will be more natural. Or you could dry the curls upside down with a diffuser and this will give more volume. You could even dry with a diffuser for a few minutes both ways and then let your curls dry by themselves. You will achieve volume and definition. Try not to keep scrunching the ends of your curls together as they dry, otherwise your curls may break up and could end up looking fluffy. You can pinch and lift the roots, just don’t touch the ends of your curls.
For medium to course curls:
Washing: Firstly, work out whether the roots of your curls need shampooing or co washing. I would personally recommend alternating between the two. So on one wash day you could co wash and on another, just shampoo. By doing so, you are keeping your scalp balanced as a co wash will leave moisture behind to keep curls soft but you will get a build up. Shampoo will remove the build up and give volume. If you have a lot of hair, make sure you section your curls to add the shampoo or co wash ensuring all of your scalp gets the product. Give a vigorous massage to your scalp in order to keep your scalp clean and fresh. If you only wash your curls once a week, my advice is to do two washes to be thorough. Make sure you rinse all of the product out of your curls before you start the next step.
Conditioning: With the conditioner, you want to make sure you choose the right product for your curls. I would make sure the product is moisturising without being too oily as you don’t want to weigh the hair down. When thinking about the conditioner, you should always make sure that you put it on the mid lengths and ends first using tiny sections. Keep the hair really wet also in order to ensure the hair gets enough moisture. I would add water to each section as you go along. You could use a wide tooth comb or fingers to detangle. There is nothing wrong using a wide tooth comb as you’re not going to change your colour pattern as long as your hair is wet with enough conditioner. You need to make sure the product doesn’t have too much Shea butter as it may make the curls really greasy. You might want to leave the conditioner on the hair for 5-10 minutes after applying. You could also rinse off the roots a little and leave the conditioner on the mid to end of the hair. You could also leave a little bit of a leave in conditioner in the hair also. Instead of using a conditioner, you could also use a thicker mask or treatment as this will help to keep the hair softer as it’s essentially just a conditioner without containing a lot of water and so is just thicker and more intensified. With these products, you just need to get used to how to use them. You could experiment and produce a leave in conditioner by using some kettle water in a spray bottle and adding some of the treatment mask into this or if you didn’t want to make it into a leave in conditioner, by doing this process you could just make the mask a bit more like a stereotypical conditioner. When you are doing the conditioning process, if you don’t want to leave any conditioner in the hair, just rinse it all out and apply a tiny bit of conditioner back in the ends of the curls as long as the hair is still soaking wet when you apply.
Styling product: As a first step, you want to think about whether you want more volume or definition as it’s quite difficult to get both with a styling product. A product like Boucleme defining Gel will give your curls an amazing shine but not necessarily lots of volume. However, a product like Orange Marmalade by Ecoslay will give you the volume but not necessarily lots of shine as it dries out quite quickly since it’s so natural. If you’ve got medium curls, you might not need lots of volume so it may be better to have something slightly more moisturising like the Boucleme defining gel. In order to use this gel, ensure firstly your hair is soaking wet. Again, you can put it in either by putting your head forward and styling it or standing up and pulling everything down towards you. You need to use a pump of the gel at any one time and rub it through your hands and stroke onto the hair downwards and squeeze into the roots. I would use about 6 pumps in total on a medium head of curls. Apply a pump at a time and once you get a nice squelch on the curls, use the equivalent of a t-shirt, take the hair ends and squeeze into the roots to remove some of the excess water while ensuring you don’t scrunch the hair. The motion is basically to open and close your fingers just to squeeze the water out.
Once the excess water has been removed, take another pump of the gel and stroke and squeeze back into the hair while either standing up with your head upside down or standing up. You get maximum volume with your head upside down and if you stand up right, you get a smoother wavier look as gravity will pull the curls down a little. Once the products have been applied, you can decide how to dry your hair.
Drying: You need to think about whether you want to let the curls dry naturally in order to give a softer wavier curl or whether you want more volume. By using a hairdryer with a diffuser, you can have a bit of both. If you’re going to root clip, you need to do this once the hair has dried a little as otherwise the hair will take a while to dry and you will get a little more natural lift from the curls first before you put the root clips in.
Naturally – By letting the hair dry naturally, you will get a softer curl and a flatter look. However, this means you can go about your day with less need for drying as gravity will help with drying the hair. However, using this method means your curls will take a while to dry and in the Winter, this might not be desirable.
Both diffuse drying and natural drying – You could always do a bit of both; drying naturally and using a diffuser. You could start off using a diffuser to start setting the curl and then let your hair dry naturally until its almost dry. You could then use a diffuser again at the end of the drying process. Every now and then you could also shake your head from side to side to get the curls lifting off your head but again, don’t scrunch the curls.
Diffuse drying – When using a diffuser, you can either put your head upside down to get maximum volume or you can have your head moving from side to side to keep the curls flat on top. This would depend whether at the conditioner stage you decided to have a parting in your curls or not. If you don’t want a parting, you can put your head upside down and dry the curls slowly without scrunching while still moving your head from side to side so you don’t get any flat sections. You don’t need to push the curls back on themselves; just let the curls hang naturally and sit them in the diffuser. If you are using a diffuser, I would not dry fully every time you wash your curls as this can dry out your curls. But now and again it’s perfectly fine to fully dry using a diffuser.
Super curly thick curls/ coils
Washing : Washing super curly hair has to be thorough and not rushed; time needs to be set aside in order to achieve the best results. I would advise washing the scalp properly with two consecutive washes once a week and halfway through the week, you may want to re wet the curls and moisturise again as this type of hair can dry out very quickly. Depending on the scalp and texture, I would advise co washing once a week and shampooing the next. This is just a general guide however! You need to section the curls after thoroughly saturating the hair. If the curls won’t stay wet, don’t worry as once you have put the co wash on (which should have cetyl alcohol in to lock in the moisture), the hair will stay wet. You need to section the curls into four or more to apply the co wash or shampoo which should be applied at the roots of the hair to clean the scalp. Once you have massaged the scalp thoroughly, rinse the product out and leave the curls soaking wet for the next step.
Moisturising: At this stage, you need to think about locking the moisture in. Most super curls are heading towards low porosity so they need as much moisture as they can get. I wouldn’t use a normal conditioner for these types of curls as they need a heavy, creamy product that will trap the moisture in. I would therefore personally recommend using a mask or treatment as this will moisturise the curls well. You need to section the hair and take little c=sections while using more water as you go. You can use a wide tooth comb if needed as some curls knot too much to just be finger combed. If you want to, you can also use your fingers to smooth in the product too. Even when you think you have added enough water, add some more as its not enough just to put the product on and not use enough water with it. The hair should not look white with so much product; the hair should still be the same colour as your curls. The product is trapping the water and water is just as important as the product. You are aiming for a ‘sea weed feel’ to your curls. Once you have applied the product, you could use a steamer to open the cuticles further for 15 minutes or so. You can buy bonnets that act like steamers and can be put in a microwave. These are just as good as the original steamers. After, you need to start rinsing out the product but maybe not all of it. You want to drizzle water over the curls and pull your hands down the curls and lift the curls back into the roots in order to distribute the moisturisers evenly so it comes out of the roots and into the mid to ends of the curls. You are looking for a milky consistency with the water and you want to then leave the rest of the moisturiser in as its added moisture and will aid with the definition as the curls start to dry.
Styling product: Adding the product straight after the moisturising is essential. The hair has to be very wet and I would then leave a little of the product in (again, cetyl alcohol is a good ingredient as this can keep the water in and keep the curls defined and moisturised for longer). Im not suggesting that this texture curls don’t look amazing in their natural state but rather if you moisturise this coarser texture properly, you will make the hair stronger and less likely to break. On top of the water, the next thing that needs to be added is a little leave in conditioner. Then add a little bit more water straight over the top. This forms a gel-like consistency which has slip and will hold the water in. I would section the hair to add this product in as you need to ensure enough product is added.
Drying: When drying this texture, it is far better to let the hair dry slowly by itself and let it dry naturally. Using a diffuser will dry out the moisture that you have worked so hard to get in.