Hi! I’m at the beginning of my natural curly hair journey and I’m feeling a little overwhelmed at the wealth of information I’ve come across! It sounds great but I’m not sure where to start, what to do etc!

Ok, so I believe I have Type 2b and 2c hair mainly. It is very fine and frizzes. I have never chemically straightened or dyed my hair but it has been subjected to years of blowdrying and straightening with hair straighteners.
I believe I have been using CG friendly products for say 6 months now at least… I started with the Body Shop Rainforest Shine Shampoo and Conditioner for normal to dry hair and then moved onto the Lovea Bio Shampoo and Conditioners which I am currently using. I haven’t yet changed my ‘styling’ products if you can call them that as I don’t think they are styling my hair much, perhaps lessening frizz a little: John Freida Frizz Ease Hair Serum and Finishing Creme.

I have been washing my hair once or twice a week but every day I find I have to wet my hair with water again to bring the curl back a bit and get rid of frizz. I wasn’t using a satin cap/pillow case but just bought a cap the other day which I wore for the first time last night!

Last night I washed my hair with the Lovea Bio shampoo and tried out Palmers Coconut Oil Formula with Vitamin E Deep Conditioning Protein pack for the first time. ...then I went to bed with it slightly damp and with a satin cap on. The pictures I’ve attached have been taken this morning after this process. Oh I also put a tiny bit of this oil called Lite drops on one side to see what the difference would be. I think the side with it on is slightly better but overall my hair feels a bit dry and frizzy!

My questions are:
What sort of hair routine/regime should I be following? Daily/Nightly/Monthly
Product recommendations?
Should I be putting oil in my hair?
Does my hair need protein or moisture or both? And how do I achieve this?
Should I be wetting my hair everyday?!

...I think that’s it for now! I really appreciate any help you all can give!

Thanks!!

P.S -I only seem to be able to add one picture as the others seem to large?! so I’ll try and add a couple of others to my signature.

I don’t really have the answers to all your questions, I am fairly new to this myself.  Or I feel like I am!  But there are lots of threads on here and elsewhere that might help.  No harm in taking your time to browse a few before making any changes. 

If you want to try the full ‘Cg’ method as advised in Lorraine Massey’s book you’ll need to cut out non water soluble silicones which I think may be in some of your products, the Frizz Ease serum for example. You’ll also need to do a final shampoo with a strongish detergent, SLS or similar to remove silicone build up.  You might want to do a modified method, but that serum is probably very silicone heavy so maybe no good.  I used it for years, years - don’t even know what is in it because never thought to look then!

I don’t as such have a routine yet, but a lot of people seem to use a leave in followed by either a styling product (cream, curl defining type) and then a gel, or just a leave in then gel.  That is after washing obviously, for washing lots of people doing CG use conditioner in place of shampoo some of even all of the time, followed by conditioner as normal as a rinse out.  Possibly also deep conditioner treatments with mostly moisture (DTs on here!) or protein (PTs). You will probably need to experiment to find out whether you benefit from protein, it is difficult to know but if you do it can be added in various ways - conditioner, styler, or treatments.  Oil might be used before washing, eg.  mix a bit with conditioner and leave on 20 mins upwards before wash, or a drop of two to seal in leave in conditioner or scrunch out any crunchiness from gel.

Try this site for more info on your hair properties, from your pic it looks to me fairly dense, not low density for sure.  She also has an e book which I think is good, but a lot of the info in it is on the site.

http://www.livecurlylivefree.com/.

Good luck with experimenting. 

sparky - 21 May 2012 02:30 PM

My questions are:
What sort of hair routine/regime should I be following? Daily/Nightly/Monthly
Product recommendations?
Should I be putting oil in my hair?
Does my hair need protein or moisture or both? And how do I achieve this?
Should I be wetting my hair everyday?!

...I think that’s it for now! I really appreciate any help you all can give!

Thanks!!

Have you ever tried going full CG (ditching the shampoos and conditioner washing only)? That might be worth trying. You would have to change up the stylers, though (as they have silicones in them).

As per your other questions, routine is a matter of fine-tuning over several months or even years (took me better part of 2 years). There is no one miracle routine for everyone. I know some people who wash every 4-5 days. I have to do it every day.

Same goes for products - what works for ‘everyone’ may not work for you, while the one product no one talks about may be absolute perfection for you (happened to me - Kinky Curly’s Curling Custard (one of everyone’s favourites) just did nothing for me. Mop Top conditioners, on the other hand, particularly when used as curl cremes, were a revelation - but no one else uses them like this aside from me). There are, of course, some standard places to ‘start’, but eventually you will need to start experimenting on your own. A lot of us have used a lot of products, though, and we note similarities between them and can recommend in an ‘if you liked this, try this’ sort of way.

Moisture/protein balance can be difficult, but it is easier to figure out if you know your hair’s porosity and texture.

Porous hair tends to dry and get wet very quickly, taken on dye easily (but also lose it easily). If you run your finger up a single strange tip to root, a porous strand will feel a little like there are catches and little ‘ruffles’.  Porous hair tends to be damaged (dye, heat, excessive manipulation), but some people are naturally highly porous. Non-porous hair takes ages to dry and get wet, and doesn’t ‘process’ well (doesn’t dye well). It will not feel particularly ruffly when you run your fingers tip to root. Porous hair generally needs more protein, whereas non-porous hair needs less.

Hair texture is the size of the hair strand itself. Fine hair is very thin - perhaps even nearly invisible as a single strand. It doesn’t feel substantial. Coarse hair is not the *feel* of the hair but again the size of the strands. Coarse textured hair is very substantial. Most people sit somewhere between the two extremes, and most of us have a mixture of textures (though we will have more of one or another).

Fine hair tends to be more porous and protein-loving. Coarse hair tends to be less porous and more sensitive to protein. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, and all hair needs a certain amount of protein at some point.

Getting protein into your hair is fairly easy if you’re porous or fine - use a conditioner or stylers with a protein in them (they will be listed as x protein in the ingredients). Hydrolyzed protein works best. Getting moisture into hair is a little more difficult as technically only water itself moisturises hair, but certain ingredients help keep the moisture in (in different ways - some as sealants, others as humectants, which bring water with them, etc.). Most conditioners have a combination of moisturisers. It sounds complex but it isn’t really - even your most basic conditioner will be moisturising. Different ones are more or less moisturising.

Hopefully that’s not toooo much information all at once for you! Let me know if anytihng needs clarification.

Meanwhile, this is one of the best introductions to the CG philosophy and routine I’ve ever found:

http://dormroomcurly.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/style-definitions-table.html

Hopefully that’ll add even more info to what I’ve said above.

I think the most important thing is to try one new thing at a time, so you can rule out what is causing what reaction etc, as best you can.

I have fine hair that is very easily over-moisturised, so be careful of not over-doing the moisture.  When my hair is over-moisturised, it feels really soft when wet, then dries looking like straw - no real curls, just frizz.

I never go to bed with my hair damp.  It plays havoc with my scalp, but I also have never found it to be very good for my curls either.

Thanks for your tips. I switched over to the curly girl method a few days ago. Wasnt too sure how well it would work just co-washing but it seems ok so far. My hair feels softer for sure and ive found a good curl reviver spray which is great for second day curls! The down side is ive almost finished the bottle and ive had it for about a week and a half to two weeks and it costs £9! Think i need to find an alternative!
Like i said, thanks for your replies, will keep re-reading for reference as i go along!