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?

@TheeNotoriousPIG No idea what to do yet but I might try doing a ghd wave. I tend to wear it up a lot in a claw clip but often loose in winter so that I can shove a hat on.

There are a lot of odd ideas about hair and some really strange 'rules'.

I don't use spray bottles either, it ensures frizz. Rain isn't too bad unless it's very misty or humid. I even tried using distilled water and a water softener and..... no luck!

Back when I used to use ghd's in my 30's it took all of 5 mins as my hair straightens easily. It is the path of least resistance. I don't suit it flat or straight though as I have aged, and look so much better with some movement to it around my face.

It really isn’t. Loads of people do fuck-all to their hair expect washing it and it’s not even remotely frizzy. God knows my own hair’s not perfect but it’s never been frizzy, ever.

I have drawn the same conclusion with fine thin straight hair. Apart from minoxidil which has actual medical research behind it, every other product is bollocks. I bought Nioxin and it does nothing. I use almost no product, no silicone, no dye and no heat and it still looks shit. I might as well bleach the fuck out of it, fill it with texturising powder and blast it with the hair dryer and straighteners. Nioxin shampoo removes build up - well, I haven’t got any build up because I don’t use products or silicone-based shampoo. The conditioner stops it snapping - it doesn’t snap, it falls out from the root. The serum supposedly stimulates the scalp but takes 12 weeks to work - in 12 weeks I should be into a new growth phase anyway. It’s all bollocks. If it genuinely worked there would be real studies showing that it worked.

My sister’s hair is silky straight, never frizzy, never uses any product. One side of my family has this kind of hair. Most east Asian people have hair that texture. So not everyone’s hair is fizzy.

Have you considered a thermal brush? Not the blow dry ones, which will actually wreck your hair, but the ones that just heat up? Those are good for smoothing and adding a slight curl/flick if that’s what you’re looking for.

I have a ghd Glide but it leaves my hair straight and dry. I want to be able to get soft waves but not with a tong. I will definitely check that out.
Agree about blow dry tools, they literally destroy my hair, I think it's because it is weaker when wet/damp.

When I married was bought a set of heated rollers which lasted forty years. Now they did give me soft waves. I've had tongs and other things that didn't come close. Was very sad when the rollers died.

One thing I have found is that I was dutifully using sulphate free stuff but actually dove shampoo full of sls is so much nicer!

Sorry if I missed it, but how many years did you stop heat and try natural hair for?

I've got wavy, frizzy hair. It was great in my 20s but has got more difficult to style as I've aged. I'm now 56 and very grey.

The Curly Hair products work until life happens and it gets humid, blown by the wind or I brush against something. Then it goes into a frizzy mess and I look like my hair's thinning badly. Too many products make it worse the next day and feel sticky and uncomfortable.

Perhaps we need a few famous people to be proud of their unruly hair and make it fashionable.

I don't even get a good neat finish even when I straighten my hair it's back to frizzy and dry in no time, have tried lots of products, supplements and treatments. I could get nice curls but curly isn't the most flattering on me and the products just make it feel icky that I have to wash it every day. I think some of us just aren't destined for great hair, like how some people never have clear smooth skin.

I find my hair is like that when I wash it in London. It’s the hard water, I think. (I live in a soft water area.)

Would heatless curls work for you? I used to use some hair oil on DD’s tangly curls and either braid it when damp or wrap around a heartless curl rod before bed and she would wake up with waves or curls that would last for a couple of days before becoming gentler waves.

I have very frizzy hair and get a bio straight treatment done every 6 months. It’s not cheap but I now have frizz free hair. Hair just gets blast dried and haven’t used straighteners for almost 2 years. Depending on how frizzy your hair is it can last for up to 10 months.

@HerRoyalSnortiness thanks for posting that video. I tried so many different products and followed the curly girl method during lockdown. Drove 100 miles and paid £££ for a specialist curly cut. My hair still looks exactly like my mum's 😁 it's genetics and I can't change that!

It's a good video, one of the few that discuss genetics and hair type.

I still haven't decided what to do.
Blow drying doesn't work, it seems to need the cuticle flattening but not to excess. I can't decide whether to take the plunge and get a straightener or use a wand

Last time I heat styled was 2017.

I have tried over the years:
Wavy girl.
Curly girl.
Soft water.
Hard water.
Distilled and bottled water.
Braiding.
Heatless curls.
Silk pillow and cap.
Every product under the sun.
No products.
Deep conditioning.
Heatless rollers.
Curl brushing.
Different oils.
Hair vitamins.

Would have been a lot cheaper if I had accepted earlier that my hair type wasn't going to 'recover' from something that wasn't 'wrong' with it.

Kat Farmer is going through this now, I think.

@AmIHumanOrAmIAYeti Kat Farmer's hair is better than mine and I don't even dye or highlight it.

off to google kat farmer...

Well her hair looks nice both straight and curly, another lucky woman!

OMG are you me? I posted very similar a few months ago. Same story, right down to the childhood hair teasing trauma...

My hair is just... unmanageable. I have also tried a lot of things. I spend more money than I want to think about on trying to make it look decent. Everything seems to work...ONCE. Then it never works again.

The frizz is unreal and I get so fucking annoyed when posters put up a pic of their "terrible frizz" and it's basically perfect with one or two flyaways! I'd be grateful if my hair looked as good as the "before" pics on curly hair product adverts 😂

Agree op I didn’t straighten mine during Covid, made no difference to my hair health. Only thing that works for me is an in salon keratin treatment, and even then it’s not perfect, my hair doesn’t tumble when free it from clips it just kind of stays where it is!

But surely all hair will do one or the other? Unless healthy hair is meant to be unbreakable

Have you tried a Brazilian blow dry? Really takes the frizz out. I tried it in July and couldn't believe how well it worked on my very frizzy hair! Was expensive though!