All You Curly Ladies

Image source: Smart Girl Consulting

(Sung to Beyonce's Single Ladies tune)

All you curly ladies

All you curly ladies

All you curly ladies

All you curly ladies

Put your hands up

Up in the shower, you don't use shampoo, you do your own little thing

It's called co-washing and now you wanna try it

'Cause you want some better curls

WOW.  Sorry, I totally just did that.  I wrote that blog title on accident and then all I could sing in my head was Single Ladies.

Anyway, let's move along before I chicken out and don't post this at all out of embarrassment.

Who has naturally curly hair?  And doesn't embrace it?  My hand is totally up.

I hate my curls.  They're ugly because I don't know how to take care of them.  Oh, and also maybe because I haven't had a cut/trim since Adalyn was a newborn.  And now I have another newborn.  Whoops.

I stumbled upon Curly Girl: The Handbook a few weeks ago.  I've heard a lot about it over the last year or two, but I finally looked into it a few weeks ago.  And man, is it a life-changer!  Seriously.  Life. Changer.  If you have curly hair and haven't yet taken the plunge into this process, can I say you simply must?  Because you must.

I'll post some before and after pictures when I'm totally done.  I've got an appointment with a Deva-trained stylist (in other words, trained in NYC by the woman who wrote this book and they do dry haircuts, which is apparently the only way to go if you have curly hair) on July 10th and I'm so excited!  It never occurred to me that if you have curly hair, you should see someone who specializes in curly hair, but I learned that, and many other things, with this book.

There is a wealth of information to be had out there for curly-haired girls, so I think for the first time in my entire life, I'm going to try to embrace my curls instead of straighten them away.

To make a long book very short (you should really get the book, I can't do it justice), rather than washing your hair with shampoo, wash it with conditioner.  They call this co-washing, and you do it because most shampoos contain harsh sulfates that damage and dry your hair out.  Not good for curly gals.

You must use a certain conditioner for co-washing, then a different conditioner for conditioning (the book goes into detail on this).  The co-washing conditioner contains enough washing power to clear your scalp and hair of build-up as long as you're using the right products.

I use this as my co-washing conditioner.  It smells yummy!  And this as my regular conditioner.  These are both safe, approved products.  A cheaper, approved option for a regular conditioner would be Garnier Fructis Body Boost conditioner.

Don't use a brush on your hair.  Ever again.  Wide-toothed combs all the way!  Or even just your fingers.  Rinse your hair with cold water right before getting out of the shower.  This keeps the frizzies away.

After your shower, never towel dry your hair.  You can squeeze excess water out, or use a microfiber towel to blot it dry.  Some women wait to do this until after they've applied their product, but I haven't tried that method yet.  It just seems...I don't know...illogical?

While your hair is still really wet, apply your products.  You'll want an approved leave-in conditioner first.  I use this because I just think it's the best.  But this is a cheaper approved option.

Then I use a prepping mousse.  I doubt you have to do this, but I've found my curls work much better when I do, so I'm sticking to it.  And I am so in love with the scent of thisprepping mousse that I could never use anything else!  Oh my gosh, it's heavenly.

Finally, I've read the best thing to finish off your curls with is gel.  This might explain why I have hated my curls for so long.  I've been using mousse alone for years and years, and my hair is just a big frizz ball.  I remember gel as being so goupy and leaving your hair crunchy, but as long as I scrunch up my hair as it air dries, this isn't an issue for me.  I use this gel and it's perfect and cheap.

The last rule I'll leave you with is to let your curls air dry, and scrunch as it's drying every so often.  They say if you really need to, you can use a diffuser, but the ideal is to always let it air dry.  Never use a regular blow dryer without a diffuser.

On the site Naturally Curly, you can find your hair type.  I saw quite a few women on the forums talking about having barely wavy hair that became really pretty curls when they implemented this method, so if you've always wanted curls, you may actually be able to have them if you do the above!

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