➿ 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)

bo, my hair was very obviously overdue a trim! I have layered the back now too. It always needs more product when it needs a trim, that was possibly why it was losing it's cast.

Curlsmith seems to be all over the place quirky. Before that it was treluxe. But curlsmith seems to be getting good reviews.

I never used olaplex as often as a every week. Maybe once a month? Haven't done it for ages.

Glad your stuff arrived bo.

I'm using up the last of my orange marmalade tonight, going to try the Jell-O shot with it and see if it works
It's so strange that marmalade is a rock solid cast, then jello which is meant to be stronger, does nothing!
Also found some Yope conditioner in the stash, forgot how much I like it

SophieLion, I was looking at both Curlsmith and Gallinee originally for scalp health and went for Gallinee. Now it's running out, I'm replacing with Curlsmith to compare. I think Manes by Mell recommended the scalp range in the summer.

You guys'll get this. It's snowed for overnight. Yesterday I ran 18k to celebrate DS1s 18th birthday today. Then washed and styled hair. DH, when we wake up: "come for a walk with me"

Ninny, we have sprinkling of snow, but worse is the freezing fog. I will end up putting my freshly washed hair up, I think. It's been in a plait most of the week.

Wow!!!! 18km Ninny!!! That's very impressive (I've never run more than 10km). And a very happy 18th birthday to your DS! (could you have worn your silk lined hat for the walk?)

We had some snow last week to but it didn't settle in our area. only in the mountains. Today was sunshine again. I didn't want snow - was worried they would shut the schools ..... And good news: our upper schools are opening on Monday!! After 3 months of online schooling.

Yes Manes by Mell has been using curlsmith a lot recently Quirky. I think they also have some bond repairer which is similar to olaplex and a new protein line (which is US only at the moment -I think). I hope the curlsmith works well for your scalp.

Yes I've also seen people getting a much stronger cast with the Jell-O shot gel Queen.

Hi all, I've been reading this thread for a while and thought I'd better join in properly and post a picture. I've had a good wash day today so here goes!
I've been doing CG since October, although prior to that I always avoided silicone etc.
Today is my first time using the treluxe gel which I bought after reading about on here. I'm pleased with my hair today, but not sure if the hold will last the 3-4 days I want it to.

Welcome Marmalade your hair looks amazing! The Treluxe gel does seem to reactivate so if you can deal with the bother, you could refresh it quite easily with a light mist and diffuse or air dry.

Hi botemp thank you for the welcome. Believe me my hair doesn't normally look this nice, hence me never posting before
That's a good tip about refreshing. I might try that. I never normally refresh as it just makes my hair frizzy, but perhaps it might work better with a different gel.
I've been using the same gel for years, so it feels a bit wild to be using something different.

Hello MarmaladeCake yes, you have lovely hair. Really well defined curls. I find refreshing is very touch and go for me: spraying water gives me loads of frizz. Sometimes I combine a little gel with some LIC or the treluxe serum (if you have that) and scrunch it in or smooth down frizzy bits. I often use innersense gel as I don't like it for proper styling so may as well "waste" it on refreshing.

Marmalade, welcome, and wow, you have beautiful hair!

I just went for a walk and look at my hair now. So much for the beautiful hair 😆 Perhaps I should never leave the house on wash day.
Ninny it made me think of your post earlier about a snowy walk.

Wow, Marmalade, lovely curls! Welcome.

I refresh my hair because it is frizzy, to give it definition. If your hair doesn't need it, don't bother.

I have ordered the pre-biotic serum and scalp conditioner (can't remember the exact name) from Curlsmith to replace and compare with the Gallinee scalp products that are now running out. It will be good to have a few options for my sensitive scalp!

It's not too bad, Marmalade, mine has ended up in a plait again.

Marmalade I love the height you have at the front.

I don't follow this IGer but someone I do follow linked to her post about this video about not being so militant about following the CGM and the demonisation of ingredients. You guys might find it interesting.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=WPWVuK2a_e0&t=1s

Well Marmalade has inspired to pull out the old Treluxe gel again. I also finally got round to cutting my hair, I definitely left it too long (for shape, for health it was fine). Still drying so will report back later if Treluxe improves or ruins my rahua line up love.

I'll watch your video later Ninny, but I did watch after it showed up in my recommendations. You have to sort of get past her peppy unicorn personality but it's really interesting and she has actually bothered to read the whole very needy textbook I've linked in the OP and it's really interesting and touches a lot on my issue with the use of the word 'moisturising' and that the whole protein-moisture balance theory is baseless. Also confirms my understanding that pH matters a lot more than anyone talks about (checked my Rahua and they have perfect pH for hair, I do have some pH strips so I am going to be a nerd and check whatever I still have in ). She has a few more hair science videos that I've earmarked for watching later.

botemp I started watching the video but don't think I want to start worrying about pH as well as moisture and protein, although perhaps it would stop me thinking about moisture and protein...
Did you test your pH botemp?

Anyway, here's another photo, this was the day after wash day with the treluxe. This is much my normal for my hair
I don't think the treluxe gives enough hold, by the third day it was verging on straight. I'll go back to the old Ecostyler gel for a while I think. Might try both gels at the same time, I've seen people do 3 gels on YouTube. That seems a bit crazy!

Yes, but I need to get some distilled water in (a lot of things need to be slightly diluted to test) as I have quit hard water. I'd noticed on an online list that the Aussie gel has a very high pH, this seems to be a thing for a lot of gels. The Treluxe is high-ish but not as bad as Aussie. I'm not sure if it's a bad thing or not but seems inherent to gels (except flaxseed gel made with distilled water)... My old shampoo from Christophe Robin that I didn't love had a slightly high pH (but probably balanced with soft water) and an older one that I did like was lower pH. Signs are pointing that my hair does not like high pH products much.

I tried 3 gels once, I had very defined curls but it was not nice to put on. I didn't like ecoslay on its own but it always worked well when mixed with something else.

Yes, in the video she does point out that protein moisture balance is not actually a thing (I long suspected this). Moisture in that balance just means how conditioned your hair is, it has nothing to do with water. And as I understood it, a lot of protein makes it harder for conditioning agents to bond, that's why it feels 'drier' but it's not actually dry, just not conditioned.

@NinnyNewName

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.

I'm way behind on this thread but my scalp has been so much calmer since using avalon organics tea tree shampoo. It's not very foamy (in contrast to the giovanni triple treat which foams forever) but leaves my hair feeling clean and my scalp is a lot less itchy and no longer stinks after 2 days.

Please can I join you as a newly-wavy person?

My hair has totally changed texture since pregnancy and has gone from more-or-less straight and sleek to a weird frizzy mess of 1c, 2b and 2c waves (see pic in horrifying technicolour)

I have been trying the CGM for a few weeks but it’s not really doing anything except for giving me a few hours of tight waves before it all drops into the bird’s nest in the pic.

Routine so far is:
Shea-avocado conditioner (a CGM-friendly small local brand where I live)
Micro-plopping
Giovanni foam
Plopping
Air dry

What’s going wrong here and what should I be doing to get glorious smooth waves?

You probably need something with more hold @shangpie. Left to its own devices, my hair is just very big with curly ends. To hold a wave or curl, I need to use gel or custard - and lots of it.

Yes, something with hold might help (although the Giovanni foam does work for me as hold, but my hair is a bit atypical, I think, getting and maintaining hold doesn't require heavy duty stuff for me). Also focusing on technique, praying hand followed by scrunching seems the best place to start.

I'd suggest since you're wavy not to do CGM to the letter and would use a sulphate free shampoo and potentially not such an emollient heavy conditioner (although I can't tell, is your hair on the coarser side?). And are you clarifying at all, wavy hair gets build up a lot quicker, generally?

I'd also suggest getting a Denman brush since you have such a variety of curl types, that'll get it to act as somewhat similar instead of all over the place.

As for smooth sorry I don't think naturally wavy/curly hair is ever absolutely smooth, there will always be some frizz/flyaways and getting very close to it seems to be something you achieve very much further down the line so I wouldn't let it distract you from the results you're getting now.

Update from my last wash day, I don't think the Treluxe gel added much beyond a tighter curl pattern but it was not worth the extra drying time I have a picture somewhere, I'll dig later.

Thanks for the tips!

👋 to bo from another thread

I also got a travel size of the Giovanni LA Hold gel, so will give that a try next wash day. I haven’t ever used gel before so wanted to try mousse as it’s within my hair-product-comfort-zone...

Sad that smooth is no longer a word I can apply to my hair. It used to be so sleek and now it feels everything I thought I knew about my hair has changed

Popping in to catch up.

Shangpie I use the Giovanni gel, I have been using it as a winter gel, as it has no glycerine and I needed something stronger. My hair is really susceptible to hormones too. It changed in puberty, during both pregnancies and now again in menopause.