To hate curly hair….

[Vodkalimeandlemonade]

Dd has curly hair, it’s a nightmare, always tangled and looks a mess. Can’t just run a brush through it to make it look tidier.

It’s matted in the morning so needs wetting or washing, can’t use a hair dryer as it frizzes up, so ends up making her clothes wet despite towel drying.

My other dd and I have straight silky hair which is quick and easy so I have no idea how to manage curls and neither it seems do hairdressers as their advice doesn’t seem to work. Hair cuts seem to make it harder to manage not easier as it goes more curly.

We have spent a fortune trying products, accessories and hairdressers. The options seem to be put up with it looking frizzy, and a nightmare in the wind and rain or put products on it and it looks permanently wet and feels sticky!

So many of us have said this, at this point. She’s ignoring us.

There are so many resources available. The internet exists. But she just wants to bang on about how difficult curly hair is to manage.

It’s irritating.

Bingo!

I really think you need to change your attitude because it's shocking. You're finding her hair hard to manage because instead of embracing her hair and teaching her to, you're trying to make it straight and silky like yours.

If you can’t be bothered to do any research on curly haircare, do some on salons that cater to Black/Afro Caribbean hair. Find the highest rated one near you (read the reviews!). Take your daughter there.

I assume she’s referring to the negative way you’ve spoken about your child’s hair and the way you contrasted it with your “silky straight hair”.

There’s plenty of comments on this thread explaining to you why it’s problematic and you’ve just skipped over them only to respond to this post with “?”

@ThatTealViewer Worth noting that it doesn't work for all of us though. My hair just looked like a greasy mess when I tried The Curly Girl Method 😅

NEVER say 'I hate' ever again about any aspect of your children's appearance. How could you. I wonder what else you sneer about.

When I started reading I assumed you were writing about a toddler, not a near-adult.

Every word you write is ugly and belittling - while you and your other child have 'silky' hair.

Well, we don't. Our hair curls because it grows from curved follicles so will never be straight, shiny or silky. It's genetic.

Curly hair does not respond to dry brushing because it breaks and tangles.

It responds to detangling with fingers when wet and conditioned, then brushed with a specialist detangling brush.

Then the plop and scrunch method with curl creme.

Then air dry or diffuser on a hairdryer. And no fiddling, which breaks the curls and causes frizz.

Only Curls and the cheaper Aussie range are good.

I have a different solution. I find keeping my very curly hair looking good takes a lot of time, which I don’t always have. Day to day I find it best to straighten my hair when 70-80% dry, using a blow dry brush to wind it as it cools, or large rollers to give it lift and a more controlled curl. The only product I use is a drop of serum rubbed through when wet.

If I do this after washing it will hold for most of the week. I can brush it when dry (using a Mason Pearson brush) and it doesn’t frizz or tangle.

Bloody hell don't talk to hear about it like that. Teach her to look after it properly.

But yes, it's a pain in the arse and I'd love to trade mine in.

Whatever you do, don't brush it dry.

Loads on YouTube. Ouidad salon is the OG curly stylist. Their how to are v good. Hard to fiend their products in UK, but are similar in high street. It’s her styling that is helpful.

Go into salons and see if any staff are curly … talk to that stylist.

It’s not her fault that she has got her genes off someone in your family.. so don’t get annoyed at her. Is she too young to have her hair straightened? There are some good products out there to help straighten the hair.

I’ve honestly never met anyone with curly hair (I can’t speak to wavy) who understood it and was following it properly - including working with their hair and adapting as required - for whom it doesn’t work. You obviously know your hair best, though! Were you able to figure out why it didn’t work for you?

Anyway, if the OP had tried and failed, that would be one thing. But it’s clear from her comments that she doesn’t know the first thing about curly haircare. That, plus the language she’s using to describe her daughter’s hair, is making me very cross.

What in the racist world is this thread?

You have straight silly hair? Lol I love how yours is described as silky and hers a tangled mess.

Does your daughter have different heritage to you and her sister?

I bet you a million dollars that your "straight silky hair" looks like a hot greasy mess to others. This thread is a big fat no from me.

I have fine, low density type 1A hair and would kill for curls or even waves. Most hairdressers don’t even know what to do with it and are pretty negative about it.

Only Curls products and method. Curly hair needs moisture, lots of it - frizz means it's dry.

Sulfate free Shampoo
Sulfate free Conditioner on soaking hair - squish it in
Whilst still in the shower ... leave in conditioner - again on soaking hair and squish
Whilst still in the shower ... styling gel or cream - still on soaking hair

Do not squeeze out the moisture yet

Use a curl defining brush, separate hair into sections. Work bottom up brushing through the hair away from the head to give lift and gently shake to form curls.

Use a microfibre towel to gently squeeze out some of the moisture

Optional - apply mousse or gel, gently squish into hair being careful not to crush curls

Blow dry gently using a diffuser - DO NOT TOUCH THE HAIR. Start by moving the dryer over the hair, then cup the curls into the diffuser bowl, finally massage into roots to give lift. Allow 30-40 minutes on shoulder length hair. You can't hurry drying curls. If you do, you get frizz.

OR leave to dry naturally, this will take a couple of hours.

Once fully dry, gently shake with your hands. Optional a drop of hair oil along the lengths to soften the cast and give shine.

Sleep in a silk bonnet or on a silk pillow to get a decent 2-3 days out of the curls. I wash max twice a week, once if I can get away with it.

Well styled curly hair is gorgeous. A good curly cut (cut DRY, then washed and styled) makes a massive difference. It won't be cheap but you only need once a year (to be perfectly honest, as a student, I did my own by tipping my head upside down and trimming the ends, instant layers! But it was a lot thicker back then and I could get away with it).

@ThatTealViewer it didn't work for me, following it to the exact method
Curlmaven did though, figuring out I need to shampoo every wash, clarify every 2 weeks, stop using leave in and curl creams etc and that I needed gritty hard hold products with protein

Yes this. I am a white woman with 3C curl pattern very similar to afro hair but not the same, it's upsetting when people use afro as a by word for big curly hair or high volume or whatever, I am naturally blonde and people referred to my hair as the wafro, I had to remind them that afro hair is the beautiful and natural hair type of millions of people and not a punchline. Equally tho avenues of hair care from the black community which would have suited my hair We're not open to me and certainly not styles such as braids. My hair wasn't looked after at all when I was a child and was often matted and was cut extremely short until I was around 11. I am a therapist and I've had to work through the damage that was caused to me by me internalising all the awful things people said about me for years when I was little, bullies, adults, strangers and even my mum telling me I was a mess. as a child I felt like nothing and a nobody, I knew I looked very different (but really I just had a very bad haircut) and had absolutely no positivity or confidence about how I looked, every place I went I prepped myself for someone to make a rude comment and they usually did and it made me so self conscious. My mum didn't have my hair type and just couldn't cope with it. I eventually got old enough to work with it myself and figure it out and it was very beautiful but I inevitably started straightening and haven't stopped because the freedom and confidence I have with my straight silky hair as OP puts it is great.... But it's also sad, I wish I'd been better supported when I was younger to learn to look after my hair sooner and generally to value myself beyond how I looked, I ended up with body dismorphia and disordered eating and utterly convinced I was monstrous looking for a long time. I had a total yearning just to look normal, average just typical plain bland whatever just not me. Curly hair is a very political, cultural issue. Get it right for your child, throw money at it, watch YouTube until you both learn her routine, there are so many more resources out there now, it takes time but worth it, the curly girl method now incorporates so much of what I learned through trial and error (soaking hair, clumps etc) and when a wash is done right and slept on properly then refresh takes minutes in the morning. You can also use curl formers to heatlessly neaten the curl pattern. Please please become an expert or help you daughter to do so. Do you know her pattern? Protein or moisture balance? Read up and tool up.

Thanks so much for the tips I'm going to try brushing my hair when wet. My hair tends to be curly when short but hangs in ringlets when long and once dry and brushed it's so fizzy.

I could have grown up feeling bad about it (I'm a bit red haired too) and my siblings have straight hair but my DM aways said she would love to have curly hair even though it's always in tangles so I never felt terrible about it. No one should.

@MarkingBad get a curl defining brush - the branded one is over £20 but I bought a similar one for under a tenner. Really helps form curl clumps. Finger roll (youtube / tiktok) for any bits that need more encouragement.

I'm over half a century old and still learning, this is great

Thanks so much, I've just look this one up and the bushes look just what I need

Ha ha, I'm 50 and had my first curly cut two months ago. It's shorter than I'd have liked, but it has layers for the first time in years and with this routine has found the curls I had when I was much younger and I thought I'd lost forever.

It’s just hair. Talk about the Pink Tax…

Not specific to this thread, but if a child of 10 (at most) can’t manage its own hair, then it has the wrong style.

Sounds fabulous!

I'm looking forward to not looking like a bad tribute act of Crystal Tipps and Alistair