Does my hair even look nice? And what products?

[ChristmasHug]

I have collarbone length hair, it's very fine but plentiful. It has a natural light curl/wave as shown when I use a ton of gel and let it dry naturally. It's easy to dry straight so I usually do that but with fine hair and a small head people say it looks better (I didn't ask!) when it's curly.

I do wonder though, my gran would always describe it as rats tails when I was young and it can never look neat. I prefer it curly when it's nice but you don't know what you're going to get until it's dry and some days it's not a great surprise.

So, do you think it's a nice curl and can anyone suggest products that work well for fine and only slightly curly hair, I find most make the curl drop.

Thanks

It looks lovely just as it is. Aveda cream is good followed by a gel to scrunch in place. Always do when your hair is very wet. Advice from my teenage daughter. She took my hair from straight to pretty curly. I only wash it once a week now whereas before I washed it every other day. Heatless curls also good.

Following as I have very similar texture hair..

It's lovely. And what a gorgeous colour.
Leave it as it is!

My hair is straight so I don't have any advice about products but I think your hair looks lovely. Gorgeous colour as well.

Thank you all, I think the rats tail comment stuck over 30 years and I envy people with proper even curls.

My other issue is I can't dry it. Even a diffuser on a low heat makes it frizz. I've asked various hairdressers over the years to dry it curly and they always start off with great confidence then see it start to frizz and add more and more product and leave me with a head of candyfloss!

I have a very similar wave to my hair and found the Merwave products really good - they are designed for wavy not curly hair. There is a whole regime but the most useful products are the mousse and the gel used on soaking wet hair and dried naturally. It made the wave more pronounced and predictable.

Your hair is beautiful by the way!

Oh that’s lovely OP and a really pretty colour too!

I have similar hair, I love it when it dries naturally with a wave, but is so hit and miss whether it looks nice or a mess.
Watching with interest .

I would give my right arm to have hair like that. Mine is poker straight even if left to air dry. Yours is lovely. Really lovely.

I can't dry mine with the hair dryer either. I have thick, really girly hair and it probably takes 10 hours for it to dry properly. Which either involves going to work with it wet or a difficult night's sleep down on the pillow so it can dry without getting squashed.

Your hair is lovely.

I have curly hair it can be a bit of an experiment at times but you have to go with it. Also a little bit of frizz is fine we've been far too conditioned that dead straight hair is the only normal.

I'd maybe try a mousse on your hair so it isn't weighed down.

First thing is it need to be well conditioned. When you put products in your hair it needs to be very wet this holds in the moisture, I get out of the shower squeeze out my hair over the sink then add product.

Currently I'm using Boots pink curl cream and Curl show curl creator gel. Once that's in I use a microfibre towel and very gently scrunch it dry.

Then once I've done that I add a small layer of gel gently smoothing it over the top and underneath.

Then either air dry or diffuse. When you diffuse do not put the hairdryer into you hair, hover it over your roots and hair on medium settings also gently move your head around from side to side and upside down as this gives more volume to your roots.

Once your hair feels a bit stiff then you can gently put the hair in the diffuser. The idea is you are getting a cast on your hair which holds the curls and keeps moisture in/out.

Once your hair is dry depending on the product you use it will be stiff so now using a little cheap argan oil on your hands gently smooth that through and scrunch.

Also work on not washing your hair regularly for years I did it daily but now I can go 3-5 days and the curls are in much better condition.

Hope that helps.

I love it, I would call it the beach look, the rat's tails made me laugh, my mum used to say that about mine as a child when I didn't brush it.

Firstly, your hair looks gorgeous in the pic. Like, do whatever you did there! It's a lovely beachy wave. Perfect as it is!

Secondly you don't have to play along with society's obsession with totally smooth straight hair. When I think of some of the people from my past who were mean about my hair I realise they were also people with racial prejudices. It's also obviously a great marketing ploy to make women spend even more chasing ever unattainable standards.

Thirdly it took me over a year to really get to grips with diffusing. I recommend bingeing YouTube tutorials. Tiny changes like turning the dryer off when moving from section to section had surprisingly big results. Ditto silk/satin pillowcase. Hover diffusing followed by pixie diffusing works for me.

Fourthly hairdressers are woefully undertrained in textured hair. It's not your hair. It's them.

Following, my hair is similar maybe a bit curlier but I recall the rat's tails hair comment from my mum when I was younger. She had straight hair and found my hair really frustrating, she was always advising me I had to "train" my hair so it would be neat and sit nicely i.e. straight.

My hair is quite long and I pretty much always wear it up. No clue what to do with it. I inherited my curly wavy hair from my dad who just gets it cut short.

It's fabulous OP, just as it is.
Also, the colour is beautiful 😍 please don't be tempted to alter it.

My hair is wavy not curly but I relate to not knowing what you’re going to get leaving it to do its own thing.

I rate the Umberto Giannini products, thirsty conditioner and the curl jelly. For volume I use Small Talk by Bedhead.

I don’t use a towel, instead one of those hair wraps as I think a towel encourages frizz. It’s plopping light.

The problem is it’s a lot of trial and error to match with the right products for you.

I can't blow dry my hair either unless I do it slowly and carefully, and I have better things to do than spend 20 minutes fighting my hair, then worry about drizzle making it frizzy.

A quick blow-dry turns my hair into a haystack.

Your hair looks nice to me. Sod what your gran said. Straight hair is boring.

Love the shine, love the colour. Beautiful.

Have you tried hover diffusing it makes a big difference to mine? There's loads of videos online.

Thanks for this recommendation! I wear my hair up every day as it’s not straight and not curly, fine and lots of it. Hairdresser never knows what to do with it and I don’t have the time or (mainly) the inclination to spend time on it. I don’t like spending money on products (4 kids to spend our money on!), so would like to hone in on 1 or 2. Do you suggest #4 and #5 of the merwave system?

Your hair looks lovely OP from texture to colour (so all of it!). My hair in the other hand is frizz and tends to sit messily in a semblance of a curl but it is really not and probably a rats tail. After years of trial and error of both inexpensive and expensive products I found a range called ‘Balmain’ and I was fortunate to trial the shampoo and conditioner at a hotel once. I can’t even believe what a difference it has made and I also add the hair serum and hair spray perfume. I only have to style my hair once after drying and for days it does not frizz. I wear a tight shower cap between washes. I have always had the frizz problem with products and nothing worked prior to this to completely tame it. I style my hair in a slightly beach wavy way.

These Balmain products are expensive in my book. I save for them and buy them about once every six months. I won’t be buying any other hair products again. I’m a fan for life.

Lovely hair, beachy waves, glorious colour, I don’t think you need to do anything to it

I found the merwave products left my hair feeling really gunky and dirty feeling

@MeanMrMustardSeed yes it's 4 and 5. As per the previous poster you don't need to use much on fine hair to avoid it feeling too heavy but it definitely worked for me.