Curly Curls

I am doing it! I am embracing the curls! I have always had slightly wavy, sometimes highly curly, most times ridiculously frizzy, crazy thick hair. Every day, I would either blow dry and straighten my hair or pull it up into a ponytail. On very rare occasions, I would try to do it curly which would always end up in a frizzy, half-flattened, sporadic curly mess, which would lead me to curl it with a straightener.

I always wanted to embrace the curls, changing my routine to allow my hair to find its true curls. But let’s be honest. The whole routine (special shampoo and conditioners, all of the products, reading labels, the wash schedules, the diffusing, the constant worry of frizz throughout the day, and no brushing) it was all too daunting.  I honestly was intimated with taking the plunge. Nevertheless, here I am.

So, after watching many, many YouTube videos and reading many, many forums I found myself guided to the Curly Girl Method. I decided that was way too intense for me* but I found some videos of people online who make the curly girl method simple and easy. They use cheap and only a few products taking the same amount of time I would normally take. I just had to change up a few things. I could get on board with that.

So, here I am. It’s been about two weeks and I completely understand that the first month or so will be an unmanageable frizzy mess. I also understand that my hair is not acting appropriately right now because I don’t have the adequate products. But I have already seen my curls start springing up.

Here is my hair over two days and the drastic changes it goes just from night to morning. I started with straight hair. After a shower, I let my hair air-dry and it went curly and frizzy. In order to tame it (just like a lion’s mane) I curled it with my straightener. Overall, not bad. And during this journey, it has been really difficult to not just grab my straightener and fix the curls!

First things first: no shampoo. Rather I just condition my hair and scrub my scalp (head massage). While my hair was soaking wet, I would scrunch my hair repeatedly. “Squish to condish” as they say. And then I rinsed with cold water. A lot of scrunching happened while I was conditioning. Then, I let my hair air-dry and this is what happened! No products (mainly because I didn’t have any) just a couple extra minutes in the shower and a bit of a mental game of not using shampoo. I was so happy with the results I figured, what the h~ll! Let’s do this!

I wanted my curls to last more than one day, so I learned of two methods to help my curls last through the night: the pineapple (left) and plopping (right). I have found my hair does not like tying my hair up onto the top of my head in a pineapple. My scalp ends up hurting when I take my hair down. (I don’t know why but also not curious enough to find out). I have found plopping (tying my mane into an old t-shirt) works so much better! It is comfortable, my hair doesn’t fall loose, the curls remain intact, and more manageable frizz control.

Some days are better than others. Most days I have extremely springy ringlets next to slick straight pieces. But overall my curls are getting curlier and more defined. These pictures are from the past week and a half.

I am excited to see how my hair progresses over the next little while. (Next thing to work on is to get the curls on the top of my head to liven up…)

Wish me luck.

*The CG method is too intense for me right now only because I am still traveling and am currently not in the country. Once I get home I may take the full dive!