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Hello, curly girls and curly ladies! I am incredibly excited to share with you my top tips to improve naturally curly hair.
This is the first time I am doing a blog post on something that is not Personal Development or Online Business related. That’s why it is an exciting moment for me!
Should you be interested in those two topics, do check out my posts! I’m sure they will inspire and help you.
My curls
To begin this, let’s first go over what kind of curly hair I have.
I’d say I have 2c – 3a type of curls. On the top of my head, they are curlier than at the neck.
Also, I have rather fine hair on top that is a bit of frizz-prone. The hairs at the bottom of my head are much thicker and naturally nourished.
I’ve rediscovered my curls when I was almost 18. Before that, I always used to blow dry and brush my hair. Which is why I used to think my natural hair was all fluffy and frizzy and slightly wavey.
So with 18, I started to wear my curls, meaning I stopped blow-drying and brushing them, and I began to deep condition them.
But only from when I turned 19, I started to go really deep into this whole curly girl topic.
Today, I am 21 years old. So I have more than three years of experience in getting back and improving my curls.
Although I am still experimenting and learning and improving my curls, I’ve already come a long way. My hair is much healthier and curlier than it was in the beginning.
And now it’s time to share with you the steps I took to achieve that.
1. Brush your hair in the shower
This has made a HUGE impact on my hair concerning the whole frizz prevention topic.
I learned early on in my curl journey that you shouldn’t brush naturally curly hair when dry.
I followed that advice and brushed my hair in the shower, while it had the conditioner in it. So that the strands could detangle more quickly, and the product was distributed broadly.
That worked well, BUT in the end, when I got out of the shower, I brushed my hair one last time. By then, it was not very wet anymore.
Later on, I learned that it could reduce frizz to only brush your hair when it’s really wet. Aka in the shower, or you could rewet it with a spray bottle of water.
That’s why I now only brush my hair in the shower when it’s still dripping wet.
Once I get out and dry it with a towel, a hairbrush doesn’t even come near it anymore.
And I honestly noticed a big difference in the frizziness of my hair.
Also, it’s kind of helpful to have a brush in the shower so that you can collect all the hairs that fall out instead of washing them down the drain. (Or – and I still can’t believe people do that – sticking them to the wall -_-)
2. Use a microfiber towel
This is a very 101 tip you get on pretty much EVERY tutorial for naturally curly hair.
Still, I resisted for a long time because I couldn’t believe it would make much difference.
Also, my hair already took ages drying. I didn’t want to use a microfiber towel that wouldn’t get much excess water out.
Eventually, however, I got myself a cheap one from Amazon.
And I genuinely have to say that it did improve the frizziness as well.
So get yourself one!
3. Deep condition your hair once a week
That’s one of the first things I started doing to repair my dry hair. And it has worked wonders!
You don’t even need to obsess over what brand you take. Just get yourself one that is free of parabens, sulfates, and alcohols and was cold-pressed.
If you want to be even more conscious about your product choice, use an app like Think Dirty or Code Checker to scan the product and get some help analyzing the ingredients.
I should also warn you: There is such a thing as over-conditioning.
During my first two years of deep conditioning weekly, my curls were at their best after those deep condition sessions.
But over the last months, I’ve increasingly noticed how my curls were much more stretched out and soft on those deep condition days.
I’ve done some research on it, so I think I have found two reasons for this.
- I deep conditioned for too long. I used to deep condition for 3 hours even though the product only said it needed 30 minutes (don’t ask me where I got that idea from). Anyway, apparently, it is not so good for your hair to be wet for that long.
- I have focused too much on providing moisture and didn’t balance my routine with a protein-providing product.
But as I mentioned, I have only started to work on that issue, so I can’t give you very detailed information on it yet.
However, if you are just starting and want to repair your damaged hair, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about it.
Using a typical, not too expensive drug store deep conditioner every week has helped my hair a ton throughout those first two years.
4. Put your hair up while sleeping
For a long time, I’ve resisted this idea. Mainly because I had never ever slept with my hair in a bun before, and I am very prone to headaches, so I was afraid having a bun or anything overnight might result in nasty headaches.
And if I tried to do a loose bun, it was simply too loose and fell off after two turns in bed.
The same goes for that scarf wrap some curly girls’ favor.
However, for a few months now, I have been successful and, most importantly, painlessly sleeping with a pineapple-ish hairstyle in bed.
It does indeed help prevent frizz for the top layer of your hair.
If your hair is too long for a regular pineapple (aka a ponytail on the very top and front of your head), simply pull the hair another halfway through.
It will result in a loose messy bun that might not look very attractive at the first tries, but it gets the job done.
5. Sleep on a silk pillowcase
This great frizz prevention technique has a significant additional effect on benefitting your skin as well.
And again, silk pillowcases don’t have to be that expensive. There are some rather affordable one-sided silk ones on Amazon.
6. Use cold or lukewarm air to blow dry your hair
Too much heat will damage your hair, you probably know that by now.
Therefore the next time you blow-dry your hair, use the cold or lukewarm mode on your blow-dryer.
This will keep your hair healthier for much longer.
Nowadays, I have no split ends anymore, and I contribute a big part of that to quitting blow drying my hair with hot air.
7. Stretch out intervals between wash days
Washing your hair dries it out. Just like your hands get all dry when you wash them too often without using hand creme.
Therefore try to prolong the phases in between your wash days.
I know a few curly girls with incredibly healthy and gorgeous natural curls that don’t wash their hair for 5-6 days.
Personally, I don’t think I’d feel comfortable going that long without washing it.
Right now, I wash my naturally curly hair every third day.
Another benefit of that is, of course, that it will save you quite some time. A lot of curly ladies have very extensive washing routines. So it’s great to have to do them less often.
But it takes a while to get to that point. The more damaged your hair, the quicker it will look oily, frizzy, and all over the place.
So simply start with washing it every second day. Once it gets healthier, you can prolong the intervals.
8. Use shampoo only on your scalp
Maybe it’s just me, but I used to apply my shampoo on all of my hair. I changed that for two reasons.
- Most of my hair doesn’t need shampoo. It does just fine getting cleaned with water and then nourished with conditioner.
- I am still working on my itchy scalp issue, so I use a shampoo with more chemicals than I would like. And I don’t want that on all of my hair.
Try it out for yourself and see if it makes a difference. My hair didn’t look more greasy or anything like that once I stopped using shampoo on the whole length.
Another benefit of this is that it reduces the amount of shampoo you use and therefore have to buy.
9. Get layers
The longer your hair, the more your curls will get weighted down.
If you wear all or most of your hair at the same length, you will barely have curls at the roots. Most of them will be at the bottom, causing you to look like a triangle – that’s slightly exaggerated, of course.
Personally, my hair has benefitted very much from layers. The next time I am going to get a haircut, I intend to ask for even more layers because it really enhances my curls.
Now, this is no one size fits all kind of rule. We all have different curls, and we all have to make our own experiences with them.
As I told you in the beginning, I have 2c – 3a kind of curls. You have to make that decision for your hair.
One advice, though, I learned from Manes by Mell that you shouldn’t thin out your hair. Layers: yes, thining out: no.
I hope these tips will help you enhance your gorgeous gift that is your naturally curly hair even more.
Embrace them! They can be one of your greatest physical assets and something to be proud of.
Sophie
