Calling all curly girls, I've just had my hair done at a curly girl and organic salon and my hair looks amazing..!

[Scarletohello]

I just had to share this. I've just had my hair ( blonde, dyed, dry and frizzy ) done at a salon in Birmingham where the stylist was trained in New York by the woman who wrote the Curly Hair handbook!

My hair looks amazing,he cut my hair dry and the method he used to dry it was so different to how I normally do it. I was so impressed with both the stylist and the colourist, they both spent about ten mins talking to me about my hair, examining it and have both done a brilliant job! Ok it wasn't cheap but it was so worth it!

When I was leaving, another client said to me, your hair looks amazing, I saw you when you came in ( when it was a dry, frizzy mess..)

He talked to me about why silicone is so bad for curly hair ( basically cos its like coating your hair in plastic and then doesn't allow your hair to absorb moisture so over time your hair gets more dry), advised me on what products to use in the future and how to dry and style it. Am so impressed and am a total convert!

Very happy to share details with anyone who is interested... (Don't want to be seen to be advertising anything here but have learnt so much already about care of curly hair, I just wanted to pass it on!) :)

Yes body shop has no sulphates in and conditioner has no silicones so both much better for hair.

Whist I was getting my hair done he gave me the curly girl handbook to read and there were lots if fab recipes for home made products you can safely use on your hair.

On was mixing glycerine and water and using it as a spray and the other was using aloe Vera as a hair gel. Just bought some today and going to try them...

I've booked an appointment for November for my hair cut with Matt. I think I might be a bit bonkers. I go on and off my curly hair, but after a summer holiday away, I'm back to liking of again!

I tried the rainforest stuff and the gel when someone posted about it before. My hair was awful. Very dry and frizzy. I guess it doesn't work for everyone. I'm lucky though because I know 2 hairdressers who can do curly hair

The body shop stuff didn't do much for me either, I'm struggling to find a good brand. I'm currently using faith in nature stuff which is good but am still finding that my hair gets frizzy.

I've been doing Curly Girl for about 5 months and I have an appointment with Matt later this month really looking forward to it. I have been experimenting with products for the last 5 months and found that Giovanni conditioners and Kinky Curly styling custard is the best for me so far.

How would you do it at home though? Can't sit under a dryer there.

I've tried the Rainforest shampoo / conditioner and they are awful for my hair, leave it lank with a greasy scalp, and that Umberto Gianni stuff leaves it all crunchy. Mine isn't totally curly though, flat on top and wavy from about the ears downwards with a few ringlets.

I've been doing SLS / silicone free for about 5 years though and can't imagine going back, my hair is much better for it. But it still gets fluffy quite a lot of the time, especially when it's humid.

WhoKnows for a lot of people leaving their hair to dry naturally gives the best results. If I don't have time I use a diffuser and hair looks good.

That's what I do now, I only blow dry the fringe. But it takes several hours to dry and I would like to be able to do it with a dryer. I can do a sleek bouncy blow dry, but that isn't really the every day look I'm after.

Who knows- hand you tried "scrunching out the crunch" of the gel when your hair is dry? I get crispy hair with gel but then once I give it a good scrunch it goes much softer.

Yes, but it still felt sticky and sort of stuck together rather than defined (I only used a tiny amount, with a dab of the Boots curl creme, as recommended on many threads here).

A diffuser just makes mine fluffy. What I need is s hairdresser to show me how to do it properly, which is why I clicked on this thread, I might google to see if anyone in my area is trained similarly, my hairdresser is about to retire so I need a new one.

Can I ask LetsFaceTheMusic where you live.. You are very lucky to have 2 god curly hairdressers.

I've had 2 great curly haircuts now at Mojo in Heaton Newcastle the owner has a mane of naturally curly hair so totally gets what us curlies need

I'm trying to find a local hairdresser that can cut curly hair - I'm spending all my time on Pinterest looking at pics of curly bobs

Seems like Boots have sold out of Umberto Giannini gel at the moment and on Amazon it's very expensive

mingin I'm in Cardiff if that's any help.

Thanks LetsFace but am in London. Friends in Cardiff so could engineer some regular visits! Bit much though to drive 3 hours for haircut..and yet and yet am fed up looking shite.

Me too me too

My hairdresser is pretty good (she has curly hair herself) but I would love to try someone properly trained in the curly girl method.
I only ever blow dry the fringe, and might give the rest of it a quick blast once it's almost dry.
The best result I've had at home was a few weeks ago when I dried the fringe and then went out to play with the dcs on the trampoline - hair looked fab when I came in.
I don't think it's a practical option for every day, though

Mine often looks it's best if I go swimming, rinse hair without shampooing or conditioning (showers are feeble at the local pool) then just throw it back over my shoulders and walk around till it's dry. However if I did that too often I'm sure it would end up trashed.

I would love to find somebody trained in the curly girl method too.
does anybody else find that even specialists tend to disagree with each other though, then some other technique comes along that goes against everything said before.
I have never heard of this technique though so I'm going to have a look, before I finally give in and have my long hair chopped.
Mine is really curly almost and springs up about 6 inches when dried with a drier, but about 4 if left to dry naturally.
I have been using silicone products so am going to look at some of the suggestions on here.

It's definitely worth trying silicone-free products morethan.
I bought the body shop ones recently when the were on offer and found them good but not amazing.
I love the inecto coconut conditioner, which I think you can get in primark now, and the palmers olive oil shampoo (found it in a few local pharmacies) - both much cheaper than some of the recommended products.

I've been 'plopping' my DD's very curly (ringlet/corkscrew biracial) hair and it is freaking amazing.

What do you use to plop? I've been using a towel, but should probably use something else, just can't get a tshirt or pillowcase to stay on. Also do you add gel or curl cream before plopping or after?

What on earth is plopping?
I can see I have homework to do. although at 48 I've tried everything, or thought I had.

TheVeryThing

I went and bought that one linked above the pink one.
I will try it later.