➿ Fantastic Haircare: Making Sense and Science of the Curly Girl Method (thread 2)

[botemp]

Offshoot thread from the Fantastic Skincare threads to document the trials and tribulations in order to make sense and science of the curly girl method. We don't necessarily follow it to the letter and are even critical of it in places. Nor are we especially knowledgeable at this point but we're learning as we go. Feel free to join in as we attempt to approach this with an interest in ingredients and try to not buy everything that promises us magical things…

Useful blogs:

Curly Cailín on the golden triangle of healthy hair
Science-y Hair Blog
The Mestiza Muse
The Beauty Brains (podcast/blog)

Understanding ingredients:

Commonly found ingredients in haircare

Useful information about cosmetic chemistry

Porosity:

(video)

Removing build up:

Shampoos which remove product build up

Cationic compounds (of interest to those with buildup prone and/or fine hair):

Cationic compounds found in cosmetics

Polyquats (of interest to those with buildup prone and/or fine hair):

Polyquat buildup

To polyquats or not

Silicones, polyquats and soap

Another cosmetic ingredient to be afraid of?

Protein/Moisture balance:

(video)

Extract and proteins in CGM, a biochemist explains

(video)

Hygral Fatigue

SPF protection of your hair:

UV protectant ingredients

UV damage of hair (pubmed)

Summers sun and your hair

Rice water rinses:

Rice Water Rinse

Elasticity:

Is it too late to improve your elasticity

Managing elasticity and porosity in hair

Hard and soft water:

(video)

Hard water and your hair

Olaplex:

How does Olaplex hair treatment work

Frizz:

Hair frizz science

What's your frizz type

How to tame your hair based on frizz type

Flash Drying:

Flash Drying

Next level nerdery:

Chemical and Physical Behavior of Human Hair (cosmetic chemists' textbook)

Hope you feel better soon Queen and glad it wasn't COVID. Good luck with the SOTC but hair looks promising!

I watched a good video by Manes by mell doing virtual styling on another famous you tuber (who id never heard of ). Lots of useful tips and good explanations. Mel did say not to shake a foam but she didn't say why. Any ideas?

Re towels bo, I have the deva curl one (was a gift - I didn't buy it) and rarely use it. Tend to use an old soft T shirt. Think the best towels are the ones that are completely flat with no little towel like bits at all (am sure they have a technical name).

Oh sorry somehow missed a few posts. Hair is looking good Queen.

Hi Vengeancer! Remember you posting here ages ago.

I lurk sometimes but mainly follow some YouTubers these days and have gone down the Ayurvedic route. I won't link or name drop to save you all from falling into this rabbit hole - esp at such a busy time of the year

Forgot to thank you for the fermented rice water info bo. Tried it at weekend and my hair definitely felt less drier than it normally does after rice water.

Ninny, I just watched the CC treluxe video and wondering if she edited out the gel scrunching part by mistake. She first claws/prays the gel in which flattens the hair and then the video jumps and she has curls again. I could be completely wrong of course!

Good point Sophie.

Does anyone do anything for their scalp? With a special brush or any pre/pro biotic or whatever?

Mine isn't itchy as such but I do like to give it a really good scrub with my fingers when washing and it doesn't feel as "fresh" as I'd like (hankering after some kind of tea tree tingle).

Equally I don't want to add in another step/product etc unless for good reason.

Ninny, I have a Denman scalp brush and use that to massage when I shampoo. I have also been using the Gallinee cream cleanser + scalp spray + scalp and hair mask, they all have prebiotic, probiotics and fermented rice water. The Curlsmith scalp stuff is supposed to be good too.

Ninny have you tried the Giovanni tea tree conditioner? That's really tingly! Or the as I am dry and itchy co wash is good too

Thanks guys. Yes Queen I do use the Giovanni a lot. I was also looking at the Curlsmith Quirky and Powerdomi posted earlier about the new Bounce Curl range.

Ninny, I have a scalp massager which I use when shampooing to really massage my scalp and get a good clean. My fingers used to hurt from all the massaging so it's been great for me. Very cheap and I love it. Manes by mell uses one if you want to see what it looks like.

I don't have any scalp issues and the massager is enough for me.

And as if my magic my scalp massager is here Sophie.

Awful last wash day. Over moisturised I think.

Wash day today and I'm going to Olaplex 3 too.

I've just seen that it's on sale at LK: about a third off.

Has anyone used any other type of Olaplex?

Last wash day I clarified then deep conditioned and styled but with my lower protein day. Just done a more balanced wash day.

Awful wash day for me too ninny. Think I applied too much product! Curly hair is a tough bad time-consuming business.

I've only used olaplex 3 but now there is olaplex 0 which is CG friendly and some kind of primer to 3.

Hair not great today either. It's pretty cold here. I wonder if that's partly why.

Sorry, my last wash day was really good 🙈 I did a deep conditioner, definitely need to do that more often with the cooler weather and dryer indoors. Then followed by the top down curl method and I had a delightful amount of volume without too much loss of definition.

On scalp health, the medication I use nightly works on the scalp through exfoliation (as I understand it). My dermatologist is very against physical forms of exfoliation so warned me off special brushes and scrubs but was fine with chemical exfoliators (the Christophe Robin salt scrub shampoo I used occasionally she was okay with though, salt had an exemption status if used not too frequently but it's not great for a lot of curlies as it can cause a certain type of frizz).

I keep meaning to buy the biologique recherche special scalp p50 one but never get round to going to the shop but my face one is nearly finished so I'll probably get that soon.

I did see a recent where she just used any old facial chemical exfoliator in a spray bottle.

I had contemplated getting the gallinee spray chemical exfoliator but ended up ordering the mask instead on Quirky's recommendation which is also a mask for the scalp.

I am quite heavy handed when washing my hair and do apply quite a lot of pressure on my scalp via my fingers. I reckon the tool I just bought feels softer than that! I'll probably use it once or twice a month.

Just looking at the Gallinee mask. Interesting ingredients.

I assume they mean marula oil, not mafula! (Key Ingredients section).

www.gallinee.com/product/care-mask/

No, Mafura oil seems to be a thing.

www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/curl-products/sheamoisture-slays-again-but-what-is-mafura-oil

And yes, Gallinee is very interesting ingredient wise. I'm very curious how the rice ferment filtrate compares to a rice rinse, not that that's easy to compare but it would be interesting to see if there's similarities.

Ah. I googled it and all I found was marula.

OOI how do you use the Gallinee mask? On dry hair before washing?

Had my hair coloured today with regular hairdresser. She liked my cut a lot and said how curly it was and what good condition it's in. I tried on one her crocheted hats for size and she's going to line it in silk for me.

Good you found a way to get a curly cut and keep you regular hairdresser happy ninny. And good news about the hat!

Thanks Sophie. I left there wet with no product in and I've done nothing with it since. First time I've had zero product in and I like the feel of it. It's soft waves: not as curly.

I managed super thick ringlets, this weekend. The Giovanni gel meant I've had quite a lot of product, so I double clarified with Malibu Un doo goo and to offset it, I left the Innersense hydrating creme conditioner in for 10 mins with plastic cap and t-shirt on top.

Ninny, that sounds like a great cut and your usual hairdresser sounds fab.

Wow @quirkychick! Check out those juicy ringlets!!

Have to say, I am loving having no product. Feels so soft and light and natural.I reckon I could get away with it if it wasn't so layered, ironically. It's soft relaxed waves from a few inches from the crown and zero frizz. But the layers/tapered ends of really show which is nice around the front but a bit odd looking at the back. I reckon I could grow them out a bit and wear it like this sometimes. It feels very low maintenance and it only took about 2 hours to air dry. Would be a dream on holiday, whenever one of those happens again.

Slightly crazy hair today
As I am co wash
Shea moisture Shea conditioner
Treluxe serum
Spiralicious

Does anyone else use their regular conditioner as a treatment? I've been using Aveda Sap Moss as one, but for 10-15 minutes. I like it because it has some protein in it. I wondered if there's a problem with this? Ie what is the real difference between a regular conditioner and a treatment, generally speaking?

what is the real difference between a regular conditioner and a treatment, generally speaking?

not sure. Makes no difference for my hair if I use a deep conditioning mask or a bog standard conditioner. I sometimes thinks it's something to release our wallets if some extra £££