So I took all the hair advice and here I am with healthy shit hair.

[HerRoyalSnortiness]

I used to straighten when younger, everyone told me it was damaging, and it was if you over did it. Reached my 40's and decided it was time to take all the good hair care advice and go au naturale.

I quit all heat, experimented with wavy girl for my very wavy frizzy hair, even tried curly girl. Treated it to good products, not too much product, determined porosity, moisture versus protein, regular trims, silk pillow and...yeh.

And now here we are. It's still frizzy, undefined and shit. It's just my hair.
I think we are sold these ideas just to buy more crap tbh. New shampoo, new curl serum, silk this and microfibre that. But this runs in my family, we are a family of not-quite-curly fuzzy tops.
My hair looks far worse than it was when I used to blow dry and straighten.

Stylists say it's just my hair. It's strong, it's healthy, it's ok. It's just butt ugly.
I might go back, I am thinking about ghd's. I am a hair heathen..

Am I alone in these revelations?? Do you straighten or go with the flow?

I love my straighteners and you will have to praise them out of my cold dead hands, I have fine wavy hair not enough to curl but enough to make weird bouffy hair if left to it's own devices, even if blowdried straight the merest hint of moisture sends the end flicking out and up in a dragged through a hedge style, so yes buy those straighteners do it, although as someone else also stated buy Cloud 9's far better than GHD's and the Dyson straighteners are shit

During the pandemic I posted a pic of my hair on here looking a bit naff.
I was pretty much clobbered for not doing curly girl even though I had stated it didn't work for me over many years. There is definitely a good bit of pressure to do long winded, expensive methods, and not everyone has hair that will respond to them.
I avoided all styling for 8 years after cutting it all to chin length. Never dyed it. It's just grown long again now and is the same crap hair

I was also told on that thread to stop straightening my hair even though I'd said I didn't straighten it!
There are some really strange vibes about frizzy hair.

I used to spend loads on sulfate free products and had a proper haircare routine. Spent 3 YEARS growing out my bleach. And it looked fucking shite 🤣. Gone back to getting highlights and whatever shampoo is on offer in home bargains and it looks shiny, healthy and lovely again! As well as brightening up my face, my natural hair colour was really drab.

Well i am glad it isn't just me!

There’s a difference between some flyaway hairs and frizz.

I had straight hair for 30 years and frizz was
never a problem, now if I’m not careful I look like Hagrid

Mine is a bit like this photo (not a photo of me!).
It does not take curls or definition and does this even if i follow the fancy methods and don't brush it.
No one ever seems to believe it though and always recommends more gunk and long winded techniques. I don't want to spend that much time on my head to make my hair do what it doesn't want to!

People seem to have got away from the original curly girl method, which was supposed to cut down on products and just use a few basic ones. Somehow it's been hijacked and turned into something most of us simply couldn't be bothered with.

Incidentally I've never straightened my hair and never will, I just work with what I have.

Me too. I do a keratin straightening every so often and that fixes me. Couldn't do without it.

I always recommend Shea moisture milk and frizz ease but tbh while they help my hair, only 2/10 times if I don’t straighten will my hair look well. It’ll look magnificent and wavy and glossy and healthy, but 8/10 times it’ll just look frizzy and awful!!! Totally know your pain op, am definitely going back to straightening!!!

I don’t do curly girl but do some of the basic stuff
my hair likes shampoo and protein, and leave in/masks are a disaster as my hair is too soft
so I shampoo, condition and brush the conditioner through before I rinse , add a mousse and gel and then diffuse it. Silk pillow case
thats about it and I wash it twice a week
sometimes use hairspray or texture spray

pics air dry with just mousse and then diffused with gel
its just a ball of fuzz left to its own devices!

I had straight hair for 30 years and frizz was never a problem, now if I’m not careful I look like Hagrid
yes! Hagrid hair!!!!

Both are beautiful you are lucky!

Honestly I’m similar if I do the whole curly girl routine I can have lovely waves but it’s too much effort- day to day I blow dry my hair once it’s about 50% air dry after a shower. Been doing this for 15 years and always get complimented on how healthy my hair is when I go to get it cut

I am a fellow Hair Heathen! My hair has been targeted with many 'miracle' products, and yet it still continues to defy EVERYTHING. It was one of a long list of things that I was targeted for at school, so my hair and I have always had a difficult relationship.

It hasn't seen a hairdryer for years. It's been straightened twice in the last three years (clearly, this was so unusual that it has stuck in my brain). It doesn't see the hairdresser very often; if it does, they are usually very startled by its, um, size and the sheer chaos of it (and it also terrified a passing delivery man, who made the mistake of looking through the window not long after I'd got out of bed). Today, for example, it looks like I've stuck my fingers in a live plug socket (albeit, with frizz, curls and waves).

I have tried free-from-everything shampoos and conditioners in bars and bottles. I've tried bristle brushes, wide-tooth combs and not brushing it when dry (which resulted in an unexpected dreadlock that I had to cut out). Thanks to a recent 'wild hair' post that advised the OP to buy Redken, I have spent more in the last month on expensive products than I probably have in my life. Although my hair is beautifully soft, it's still its genetically chaotic self.

Quite frankly, I'm just glad that I don't have a job where I am expected to look tidy at all times (my hair just can't stay in one place) and where I can hide it under a hat for the entire duration of winter.

Curly method never worked for me, it produced limp rats tails. Wavy method not the worst but very unreliable and so much work. I think some people really benefit from it and it's great that there are these options, but it wasn't for me.

I am just sick of going with nature and it being so crap. It's not worth the disappointment. I agree with the PP who went back to bleaching her hair, life is too short to force an issue that doesn't make us happy. We think nothing of modifying nature when it comes to so many other things (medical treatment, shaving our pits, brightening teeth), but there is often a pressure to when it comes to hair.

I could have written this word for word. Have you any thoughts about what you'd like to do going forward? I hope you find some peace with your hair!

Yes me too - I have very thicky wavy hair but rain makes it looks great. WHY does water bottle spray or any other product not do this?!

I admit that I've fantasised about shaving it off and wearing a wig, but the wig would probably comically blow away at work (I work outdoors). At the moment, it gets stuffed up in a bun and the short bits get strapped back with numerous hair slides. It still tries to run amok, screaming that it can't be tamed. Then it will lurk under a hat until next Spring. Perhaps it will go straight during the far-off days of the menopause...

I thought that the semi-permanent straightening treatments might be interesting to try, until I read that they are not good for people with sensitive skin as they contain formalin. I am forced to use it at work and it's not pleasant! Other than that, I have no idea! I have just resigned myself to having permanent bed head 24/7, but hope that any future daughters will not inherit the Mad Hair Gene.

Have you come up with any further strategies for yours, @HerRoyalSnortiness ? Is it a return to the GHDs or is it au naturel and the rest of the world had better accept it?

Keratin treatment - trust me you will never go back. It’s spenny but I’ve spent ££ over the years trying to find something that tamed my frizzy mess

Run a Pompadour comb through it when it's wet. That does help mine to wave not frizz

Another hair heretic here. I tried curly girl for my impossible, unruly, frizzy hair, it took ages and looked even more shit than ever. The only way it looks good is if I blow dry as straight as possible then go over with the L'Oreal steam pod straighteners, that can last a few days if the weather isn't too humid. Got to wash 2x per week because my scalp gets greasy otherwise. Fuck having mad curly hair, always hated it!

I have quite frizzy, wavy hair too and find all the extra products make it look worse. The best mine looks is if I shampoo and conditioner (including silicones), give it a quick scrunch when wet and then sleep with it wet. I wake up to it being 90% dry and slightly wavy with very little frizz. If I go near it with a blow dryer, or products, or brush, it looks awful. The only heat I then use is straighteners on my fringe as that just looks ridiculous au natural.

I’ve had so many people say that it’s bad to sleep with wet hair, that I’ll develop mouldy hair, that it’ll smell or I’ll get a scalp condition. I ignore them all. Best bit is that it’s super cheap and great for me being lazy.

Stuff natural, mine is curly underneath moving to frizz on top. I've tried products, natural drying etc.

My hair looks great straightened but I lack patience so it's not a regular solution. However, I have found a quick solution - the babyliss big hair rotating brush. I rough dry my hair and then use the brush to finish it off, it smooths and gives the ends a curve. I've used mine for years and, everytime I try 'natural' for a period of time, I end up going back and feeling better for it.

My hair isn’t frizzy? But then I have always lamented how straight, boring and lacking in frizz/waves/curls my hair is. I genuinely last week spent about 40 minutes trying to replicate the frizzy hairstyle of some woman I saw on TikTok. Even without the frizz though my hair looks better with a straightener run over it to make it more uniform. I think we forget how much time we actually spent making ourselves look good when we we were 17 - I feel like I look back and think I just looked good and didn’t have to try but actually used to spend hours getting ready and made such an effort with make up and definitely spent i higher percentage of my incomings on make up and products!

they're both on good days, it’s an absolute pain
my hair is so fine but I have a lot of it, every so often I think I should deep condition and then my hair is “why? Why did you do that?” And I walk around with limp hair for a week