To think the curly hair method is a con?

[Axolotyls]

I have frizzy bird nest hair. I straightened it for years but now I’m finding that I can’t be arsed as it’s so thin it just looks lank and depressing and makes me look old and haggered when it’s straight.

So I leave it to dry naturally - massive Afro

I tried curly hair method - Looked like a hair dresser had started styling it and then got pissed on tequila half way through

its a con isn’t it? Are some people just destined to have shit hair?

Yesterday I saw in M&S a mulberry silk bonnet. About £25. I am tempted.

Exactly the same as this. It’s really low maintenance and I’ve had loads of compliments since I started doing this. Also NEVER brush your hair when it’s dry. Just comb/ brush out tangles while your hair is soaking wet

Well, as already explained, unless she has black heritage, she doesn't have Afro hair. She has curly or coily hair.
But you can keep telling me I'm wrong because you don't understand

It’s certainly not for everyone. If you have greasy hair or any scalp issues it can be the worst thing you can do.
The best way to manage my waves/ curls is to comb/ brush it all out, give it a wash with a shampoo that produces a good lather, no conditioner. Then towel dry/ hairdryer til nearly dry, gel and then I use a curling tongs.
It’s a lot easier than trying to keep the natural curl pattern.
I often get asked is my hair naturally curly or what method I use. I always tell people to just buy a tongs. They are cheap, easy to use, quick and the curl lasts, plus you don’t need to use lots of different products.

@Axolotyls it might be worth trying just soaking your hair and then T-shirt dry and see what happens. Mine often does not behave first thing on the second day, but a quick soak and it is presentable at least 😁, there’s usually enough product still in there to have some effect. The soaking calms down the Annie effect!

It works beautifully for me, I look amazing when it is first done, I then walk out if the house, a baby breaths on me and bang, frizz!

Try not washing the conditioner out at all. Just apply, brush, scrunch dry with a t shirt (not Towel). I think the curlier your hair is the more conditioner you have to have in it.

Mine looks best when I've been out in the rain. It goes into lovely corkscrew curls. I wish I could replicate it indoors.

It might be that it's thin?

I have thin curly hair and it doesn't work well for me - I end up with too many tight curls and no volume and look like a weirdo.

You have to experiment but the game changer for my curly, thin, frizzy, coloured hair has been hair Botox, which is nothing to do with Botox, just a sealed in conditioner your hairdresser puts on your hair every six weeks, - it took a couple of treatments to kick in but really helps with frizz.

Mostly I just leave it to air dry, or do an upside down diffuser dry if I want more volume (stopping before it's fully dry), or straighten-ish it with a babyliss big hair brush if I want it to look smarter. Use a protecting oil if using heat.

A good shampoo and conditioner and styling cream (I use the bumble and bumble feather light oil ones) are really important - my hair hates cheap shampoo. Before I started the hair Botox a weekly intense treatment (I used philip Kingsley elasticiser) really helped.

Also tying it up helps it not frizz overnight

I see a fair number of women with coily ringlets that look never quite dry. It gives me the ick, and I’m guessing it’s very easy to get the curly girl method wrong.

Curly or Coily refers to textured hair. Afro-textured hair is another term for coily hair which would generally only be used in reference to someone of black heritage.

An Afro however is a style - where textured hair is combed out - anyone whose hair will cooperate can have that. It's mostly worn by people of colour, hence the name. It is not a hair type..

It takes a while after heavy straightening for your hair to recover and regrow without damage.

Regular hair masks, cold final rinse, a hairdresser that understands curly hair and a lot of trial and error is the curly girl method really!

And silk pillowcases or bonnets too.

I can’t see that you have said how old you are but peri-menopause can change your hair as much as puberty does to girls so you might be getting patches of crazy hair that don’t quite line up with the rest of the head yet!

The full curly girl method is very long-winded so I do a condensed version. I wash and condition with Aveda's curly products (pricey but really good if you have fine hair), then run curl cream from roots to ends, scrunch to form the curls, scrunch gently with a microfibre towel, and either air dry or diffuse. The results are pretty good!

You've got to find your own way with curly hair and try all kinds of different products. It doesn't behave like straight hair, it's a learning curve. And if you've straightened for a long time your curls don't look as good as they could yet, they will recover as your hair grows out though. You might have to tie/clip it up for a while.

Straight hair grows from straight follicles, curls of all grades grow from curved follicles. The hairs grow in response to where they were formed.

Brushing straight hair dry is ok because you're just following the naturally straight hair structure.

But if you brush curly hair dry you break the ringlets apart, break the outside of the hair structure and cause tangles and knots because you've roughened up the surface and it all gets massed up together. Mine looks nice on wash day then a few days later - Edwardian birds nest. Hence eyeing a silk bonnet yesterday.

Detangling by hand when it's soaking wet and full of conditioner, then using a wide tooth comb is best.

After curl cream - I've seen special brushes with wide ridged edges which seem to create nice even curls and ringlets.

Remember all this works well for children - I had to have my hair cut short as a child because it was too much work, often got mistaken for a boy and resent it still.

I'm on Frizz Ease. I've had to experiment a bit with different combinations of products and treatments. I moved my parting to cover up a persistently fuzzy clump at the front. A good cut can make all the difference - my life has changed since I started going to a local curly salon, it's like I've found my people! 🤣

Also, throw every hairbrush you own in the bin and buy a shower comb

I used sulphate free shampoos, like faith in nature. Always silicone free conditioner. I like cantu and I always use a silicone free curl cream (currently hello wave). I let it air dry, use a denman brush after it's washed and deranged and the curl cream has been worked in and then I let it air dry. I need these products though as my hair is very dry. without curl cream, I look shit. There are so many products and so many different types of curls, it's a lot of trial an error. can you post a pic of your hair? what type are you?

My hair sounds like yours. I tie mine up after washing whilst it’s still wet. Looks neat during the day, and is substantially straighter by the time it’s dried later in the day. I can’t be bothered with straightening or lots of styling to get my curls looking good.

I’ve only seen 3/people using it - one looks like a poodle perm and the 2 other look like they have wet/very greasy hair.

I have hair that is curly but also tends to frizzy. I've tried many different shampoos and conditioners over the years. Even the ones that work only work on the day they are used as soon as I have slept on it rearranged itself and frizzies again. I tried Only Curls same result. Going through that rigmarole of 4 separate steps for 1 day is not worth it. My hair looks best tightest curls and no frizz if I get caught in heavy rain and let it dry naturally! I wonder if it is the hard water in our area that affects my hair the most.

I have very thick, frizzy hair, with a slight curl, I straighten it now takes about 20 mins having my hair curly just makes me feel like crap & I'm sick & tired of the usual comments like 'oh I wish I had curly hair' I only wash it once a week because anymore than that & it goes so dry, I can't afford fancy shampoo/conditioner so just use whatever is on offer. I remember going to the hairdresser when I was about 10, the hairdresser made me look like Deirdre Barlow crossed with a poodle, I haven't been to a hairdresser since, my mums friend used to trim my hair whist taking the piss out of it, my mum would laugh along & it really made me feel so self conscious. I just trim it myself now the dead ends, the curly method just seems so time consuming.

I’ve got thick quite greasy hair that’s just a mess if I leave it. It’s a bit long now so I can put some aussie curl cream stuff on and just leave it so it’s messy in a good way (just) but normally I just wash it after swimming in a morning, by the time I get home it’s nearly dry so I put some serum stuff on the ends and do it with one of them brushes that heat up. Even though it’s quite thick and long I only have to section it into 3 or 4, it only takes 10 minutes. I’ve got a big revlon one and a babyliss (big hair) one that spins around. I use L’Oréal shampoo and conditioner for greasy hair I think L’Oréal are quite good whichever type you need.

Curly girl looks nice on me but it leaves my hair feeling claggy

I’ve followed the curly girl method-ish but I’ve found that you need to find products dependant on hair type and different factors: how dense your hair is, the thickness of strands and porosity of your hair. I realised that even though I have very thick dry hair, my hair is low porosity so I was using creams that were way too heavy for my hair and it was making it frizzier. It takes so much trial and error, so I try go for the travel size products first. I like the only curls range, my hairdresser used this on me on my last curly cut. They have a curl quiz, as do many of the big curly product companies but it might help you understand what type of hair you have and what kinda products you need. Also a denman brush or the knock of version of a bounce curl brush helped my definition of curls so much.

Yes I definitely think it does, although we don’t have hard water. Used my friends shower head with a filter recently and the results were so good!

Oh c'mon... It's a post about hair. No need for woke comments.