Shoulder length hair that's neither straight nor curly - wtf can I do with it...

[SheGotOffThePlane]

That doesn't involve straightening it every day?
It's curly-ish at the front, graduating to merely wavy round the back.
It doesn't help that I can't grow it longer without it turning into rats tails
However I can go to sleep with straight hair and get up in the morning and look like I've been electrocuted.
It's currently light blonde but I'm planning on darkening it down a bit this week, but what can I do to make it look ok this summer? I'm thinking I need to embrace the wave at least? - but how??

Why on earth are you straightening those gorgeous curls?

I would use a small to medium curling tong or wand, and go through pieces of hair giving them a nice wave. I've been doing this with mine recently and it looks pretty nice if I so say so myself

If they were gorgeous curls I would leave them be Mike but it's not, it's just a frizzy mess at the moment

Oh. sorry. The hair in the photo looks really good. Then again I think my mop of hair is great but it's more Cousin It than It Girl.

I recommend finding a really good hairdresser and let him or her do what they think it will work. Do you know anyone with hair similar to yours in texture who manage to keep it well-behaved or someone with an amazing haircut? Ask them who cuts it.

You know the answer: frizz is just curls waiting to be discovered

Have a look at the Curly Girl method, FB groups, British Curlies etc etc.

PS Meet-up? Where?!

I can't find the thread! Twas ClopySow that started it.

Saturday 5th August, Glasgow city centre. You there?

Oooh, I am!!
Is there a thread before derail this one further?

Sorry, I just see you can't find it, I'll have a look around.

Also in Scotland and have similar hair...wonder if it's a climate thing, lol

I've gone full on curly girl and I'm getting actual proper curls.

I have nearly shoulder-length hair (and am trying to get it back to that length) that is probably slightly curlier than yours, but not super curly (I greatly envy my DS who has actual corkscrew curls!) I never, ever straighten it - I don't even own straighteners. When I've got lots of time I put Boots curl cream in it while it's still wet, then a bit of salt spray and scrunch it up and it dries really curly. Otherwise, I wash it, leave it to dry naturally and don't brush or comb it in any way until it's very nearly dry, then run my fingers through it to separate any tangles (so effectively use my hands a a wider and gentler Afro comb - it's not Afro hair by the way). This seems to give the best curls and volume I can get without using a product. It's important for me to have layers, otherwise the top gets very straight, and I more often cut my hair myself nowadays (by the "chop off the end of the pony tail" method) than go to the hairdresser because they never seem to get that I want to maximise the curl!

Mine is usually straight at the roots and wavy on the ends. I had it shoulder length for a while but had to straighten it to stop the ends curling and then they ended up damaged, which makes them more curly, which needs more straightening...etc...etc...

Have just had the lot layered which means at least my whole head of hair is wavy and I don't need to straighten it. It looks nice so far and I have banned myself from the straighteners.

Embrace the waves

Sounds like my mop too! Ive a babylis big hair. I dont use any heat at all at the weekend, just dry naturally eith sea salt spray on and the next day a bun!

Do any of you have any photos of your curls after following the curly girl method? Does it take a bit of time to work? I tried it for a few weeks before, but my hair was just so dry and frizzy and not curly all over - just on some bits. I gave up! But I wonder if I did something wrong.

GinGeum....today's not a great advert, but I don't often do photos, so I just took one.

I literally spent 2 minutes on it after getting up this morning though, and I've been caught in heavy rain twice today, pre curly girl it would look like a birds nest by now where it's just gone a bit wrong instead.

Treating it like straight hair, I had a bit of a wave and loads more frizz, it has taken quite a few weeks to get products and a routine that are working for me though and I know a lot of people go through a period of time where it does look really damaged and dry, because it is, it's just that it's hidden underneath things like silicone.

So like I said, today isn't great, but I'll take that for a bad hair day over what a bad hair day looked like before, lol.

tabulah my hair curls like that when I get out of the pool! Except with a lot more knots... Maybe there is hope for me. Your curls still manage to look shiny which is where my hair differs, but what you say about hair being damaged but hidden under silicones makes sense.

They're getting shinier the longer I'm doing it, before it only ever looked shiny if it was straightened and had serum on it...till there was a drop of moisture anyway.

I didn't think it would have actual curls, I was just trying to get hair that was healthy enough to wear down occasionally without straightening it, but it turns out my hair wanted to be curly all this time, its shinier, looks so much thicker and like I said not a good hair day but I'm about to go to the shops and it's nowhere near bad enough that I'm bothered about doing that.

I have one more question (sorry to hijack, OP!) - does anyone have a serum/cream/leave-in conditioner they recommend for curly hair? There are so many different ones online, I don't know which to pick!

Curl envy, here. Mine is just coarse and wavy, sometimes in all the wrong places.

I just Googled the curly girl method and it looks interesting. Can anyone recommend a suitable conditioner and gel to get started (on a budget).

"does anyone have a serum/cream/leave-in conditioner they recommend for curly hair?"

I liked extraordinary oil before curly girl, but serums all have silicone in them, it's pretty much how they work.

Cantu and deva do nice creams, but a little goes a long way if you're wavy rather than full on curly.

Leave in I'm currently using moogoo protein shot mixed with actual conditioner, but it'll depend what your hair needs as to whether it's good or not, lol.

"Can anyone recommend a suitable conditioner and gel to get started (on a budget)."

If you're on Facebook there are groups with whole files of them, there are own brand supermarket ones that are fine and you can get from Poundland or Aldi, so even if it takes a bit of trial and error to find one that works for you it's not loads of money...I'd join groups though because I've played with it before and got it wrong and given up, not realising quite how important it was to wash all the build up out first and that how you apply gel can make a huge difference.

Thanks Tabu

I'm curly girl method and I use
For my wash - moogoo, Superdrug extracts or as I am co wash
For conditioner - shea moisture
For styling product - cantu define and shine plus cantu curl activator but my hair is mega curly and thick

I have the same hair.
I tend to do more or less what @hellswelshy said. But I've tried everything that all the pp's have said.
I also bought a product called dark and lovely once. It's a straightening kit for afro hair. I bought the child's one. It wasn't as harsh and obviously I don't have afro hair so didn't need a strong one. It was brilliant I had straight hair for months. I could even go out in drizzle!
I've always been so parronoid about my hair. When I was in school everyone used to ask if I brushed it? So I'd brush it more. The more I brushed the worse it would become.
So when I leave it natural even though everyone says it looks nice I think it looks really scruffy and unkempt.

What's this curly girl method?

Curly girl is effectively ditching shampoo, sulfates and silicones and washing with conditioner only