I´ve got curly hair... and it took 27 years to find out

Just to clarify; I always knew that my hair was kinda wavy, but more than anything else, it was frizzy, and the natural waves were irregular and all over the place. For the longest time, I´ve sworn by my flat iron because it was the only thing that could help me with tame my frizz. But recently, having been so busy with work, I just couldn´t be bothered with spending half an hour every night to straighten my hair; yo girl gotta sleep! So, one night I just washed my hair, applied my hair oil, refused to stand up from the sofa and grab my hairdryer and flat iron and forgot to brush it through. I went to bed and when I woke up, there were curls…. CURLS!!!. So, the next day I decided to do a little research on how to let one´s curls develop as nice and aesthetically pleasing as possible. I found an article about the “curly girl method” and to be honest, some of the steps sounded weird and ridiculous but I decided to give it a try….and add a little personal touch.

Picture  from https://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/no-poo/the-curly-girl-method-for-coily-hair

So the original “curly girl method” consists of three steps; cleanse, condition and dry and style. It also tells you about things and processes you should avoid, for example brushes, heat, products with silicones, sulphates and alcohol, fragrances and… it also tells you to AVOID SHAMPOOS, which, in no way, am I going to try….like ever. So the next best thing, in my honest opinion is to find a shampoo which is silicone, sulphate and alcohol -free, which wasn´t as hard as I initially thought.  Turns out, almost every brand in my local drugstore has a line dedicated to people with curly hair. So, no problem there…

Picture from https://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/no-poo/the-curly-girl-method-for-coily-hair

The first step tells you to cleanse your hair, preferably without using shampoo. But as I said, that´s a no-no for me. So apparently the next best option is to use conditioner before and after using shampoo. The method even has three options for you; people with wavy, curly and coily hair. I am somewhere in between the first two, so yeah…. I´ve been trying to play by the rules.

Picture from https://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/no-poo/the-curly-girl-method-for-coily-hair

The second step is conditioning. Again, there are three options for three different types of curls. Apart from using the conditioner and rinsing it off, they advise you to either use a leave-in conditioner or just use your regular one and massage a little bit into your hair (without rinsing it off). It definitely tames the frizz.

Picture from https://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/no-poo/the-curly-girl-method-for-coily-hair

The last step is to dry and style your hair. From what I´ve seen in the video, you are supposed to bend forwards and scrunch your hair for quite a while, then blot some of the excess water off and let your hair air-dry. However, When I do my hair, I don´t really have hours to spend to let my hair dry naturally, so I use a diffused I can connect to my blow-dryer. Works just as well for me. And I am not really concerned with using heat because I don´t use the hottest setting.

So yes…. for 27 years, I didn´t know my hair was wavy-to-curly. Which is totally lame now when I think about it, because even though my mom has a short haircut, you can see the curls peeking through. Oh, and my sister´s hair is super curly so… I should have guessed that it´s not just a frizz but real curls trying to see the light of the day.

Until next time,
See you,
Lenka 😊