I haven't used Deva Curl products in a while so I can't attest to the recent uproar. I feel like I'm in a constant battle with my hair only because I never seem to really love it unless it's just been washed. I tend to wear it in a lot of pony tails because that's how it is when I'm teaching or when it's really humid. Of course when I go to wear it down afterwards I have to basically re-wet my whole head in order to tame the best.
I've gone to see a "curl specialist" named Scott Musgrave a few times in Cary, which is about 25 mins from where I live. He helped me tremendously to learn how to actually enjoy my curls, but I hated that every time I visited him I was shamed for continuing to highlight my hair. Maybe there's truth to his words that the bleach ruins the curls and therefore I have no reason to complain, but I see lots of girls with curls who highlight their hair and it looks beautiful. I tried growing the color out for about 8 months and I hated it. Was it silver? Was it brown? Was it dirty blonde? It's anyone's guess. So I went and re-highlighted it. I honestly don't think it makes a damn bit of difference. If I wet my hair enough and add a sealer or gel or leave in conditioner I'm happy. I just hate the concept that I have to douse my hair with water in order to take it out from a pony tail and look halfway decent.
That was a lot of rambling that had nothing to do with Deva Curl products. :-D
I totally sympathize with the "post pony tail" hair when it's textured. I have waves more so than curls, but it's still an issue for me. If I don't follow up my wash and condition with some sort of product, I end up with a frizzy poofy mess. Girls with straight hair have no idea what the struggle is like for wavy/curly girls! LOL
Back to the ponytail.... Have you tried Invisibobble hair elastics? They look like a telephone cord. They are the only thing I can put my hair up with and not get the crease from.
The other thing that I like to do when I wear my hair up is to French braid it rather than do the pony tail thing. I find the french braid doesn't destroy my wave as much and might even add to it slightly
YES to girls with straight here not having any clue! I’m always so envious when I see my friends take out their pony tails, shake their heads, and then just finger comb it down. 😩
I do have some of those telephone cord pony tail holders. I haven’t used them in a while because I always seem to get big bumps when I’m putting my hair up but maybe I need to try again. I do think they help with creasing. I WISH I knew how to French braid! I can sort of do it on my daughter’s hair but it’s next to impossible for me on my own. If I could I’d wear it like that all the time. Maybe I can learn through YouTube
@Hayley That’s one reason I love Manes by Mel with her blonde highlights and blow dryer. As a stylist, she rejects and debunks lots of the curly girl dogma. It made me feel not-crazy that so many curly girl products and methods don’t work for me at all. It’s crazy how eager that community is to criticize and curl shame anyone who breaks the rules. I’ve gone to “deva cut” stylists before and I’m quite happy not to do that anymore. Traditional cuts and color work better. I also like shampoo. A lot.
It's good to know there are some semblances of "normalcy" and reasoning out there with this stuff. I'm ok with the products I'm currently using, but I refuse to give up highlighting my hair. At least at this point anyway. I'm excited to check out a YouTuber who isn't entirely gung-ho with the deva stuff. I, too believe in shampoo. I know I have super dry hair so I lather up the conditioner and leave a lot in, but all of that build up leaves for a good shampooing.
I tried to take a photo of my grey pandemic roots. They blend better than I thought! I've been 10 weeks without a hair salon. I realized that I've been coloring my hair for 40 years. That's an insane amount of time and money. How liberating to not do it anymore! It will be interesting to see how far this goes, or if I run screaming back to my colorist.
How are your curls? Or anybody's pandemic hair challenges?
Wow! Your greys are definitely unnoticeable @skwigg!
I'm starting to get grey/white hairs already (I'm 38). I'm blonde so they are pretty difficult to see. I already warned my husband that I will be greying gracefully lol.
My hair is okay. Right now I'm trying to use up a bunch of products that I didn't love. I figure if using them ends in a crappy hair day it doesn't matter since I won't be seeing anyone other than my family. So far everything has provided decent results though so I'm not sure why I disregarded these products in the first place.
I have a scalp issue right now that I need to get some sailyic acid shampoo for. I want to get Neutrogena T/Sal because it's cheap and the cleansing agents are gentle on the hair, but they don't sell it in Canada and amazon.ca wants $30 for it. I'm trying to find a Canadian equivalent. So far no luck.
Product Quest! The struggle is real, @sunshine. I always read online reviews, find something I must have, and then go through all kinds of crazy trying to find it.
My latest discovery is the Bioterra line, which is the Sally Beauty knockoff of Biolage. Curly Susie raves about Bioterra gel. I tried it and really liked it once I got the amount right. It makes a really firm gel cast but then scrunches out into soft curls, as long as you don't use too much. I'm using Bioterra Ultra Thick & Full Sheer Volume shampoo and conditioner. I bought liter bottles never having tried it, so I'm glad I loved it! This was after blowing through multiple drugstore curly shampoos that were total fails. Why is there coconut oil in everything now? The heavy duty oils in most curly products weigh my hair down and make it dull. I finally started looking for light and volumizing products with much better luck.
Using up products you didn't love makes total sense right now. I've also noticed a difference between how something works in dry winter air versus warm humid air. So, something I hate and write off in January might be fine in May. Maybe I should go rummage through my own bag of fail products and see if I have a different opinion now.
@Skwigg your "roots" look great! Definitely unnoticeable. Unfortunately I was in need of a highlight-touch up long before quarantine, but I don't go because a) it's super expensive and b) we were on the cruise and I figured paying for highlights right before going swimming in chlorinated pools and saltwater beaches would be a waste. Like @sunshine, I'm 39 and might have some silvery/grey hairs already but they're not too hard to see because I'm blonde with darkish roots. My natural hair color (if you can call it that) is some sort of ugly brownish dark blonde. I honesty don't really know since I've been highlighting it for so many years.
I'm constantly trying to figure out what works best on my hair and I notice the same thing as Skwigg in that, what works for my hair in winter doesn't always work for my hair in summer. I think more than ever my hair is SUPER dry (maybe from so many years of flat iron usage?). I basically using something called Innersense Color Radiance Conditioner that I think is technically supposed to be washed out, but I leave a crap ton of it in. I was using something called a "filler" followed by a "sealer" (a gel) but it was too many products on my fine hair so now I leave in a lot of conditioner and just add Aussie Instant Freeze gel. It provides enough of a hold but doesn't get too hard and stiff.
For me the issue is that I wear my hair in a lot of pony tails (working out) and I can't seem to find a good way to go from pony tail to wearing it down without getting my head completely wet. So I basically live in pony tails unless I want to drench my head (usually not until I shower in the evening). I've watched "refresh" videos on IG where women take down their hair from pony tails and buns and refresh to make their curls look good again, but honestly the majority of them take their hair down from their pony tails and already look a million times better than mine do after a pony tail-release..lol. So they're starting off much better than I am from the get-go!
Since the DevaCurl debacle, I've been using Bioterra products, but lately I've been seeing more and more influencers using Curlsmith. The curiosity was killing me. I went nuts a few weeks ago, took the quiz on the website, and bought everything they suggested. It was expensive and I was filled with dread, sure that I'd just spent a fortune and I was going to hate everything. I should have considered the even worse scenario, which is that I'd buy all these pricey products and love every one of them, which is what happened. 😬💰💕
I ended up with soft, bouncy, loose curls, which is what I like. I don't like a weird plastic curl helmet where nothing moves. I hate crunch, or so much product in my hair that I don't dare touch it or get caught in the wind. And I really don't like when it curls up so tightly that I lose three inches of length and have little poodle ringlets, which is why I don't diffuse it.
I'm not a fan of cowash in general. I wanted a real shampoo and conditioner, so I got the Vibrancy Shampoo and Glow Perfecting Conditioner. They smell amazing and work really well. Then I got the Weightless Air Dry Cream, which is a leave-in conditioner, the Hold Me Softly Style Balm, which is a curl cream, and the Curl Defining Styling Souffle, which is a medium hold gel. It doesn't form a hard cast, which I like.
Has anyone else tried any Curlsmith? Or other new finds?
Here is six months of silver grow-out. You can really see it now! I still like it and don't plan to color it. Though, I'm excited to play with some fun temporary hair make-up colors. Curlsmith has a bunch of those. It's a pigmented gel basically, so it doesn't stain your hair and it doesn't transfer once it's dry. I think the rose gold or turquoise would be fun.
Has anyone ever used Prose? It's probably too late to ask this question because I already took the quiz and ordered the products (whether or not that was a good decision, I'll find out later) which were EXPENSIVE, but here's hoping.
I haven't tried Prose. You'll have to let us know what you think. I'm still happy with the products I bought from Curlsmith and will probably order more when I run out.
I see Curlsmith advertised a lot on IG (probably because I follow quite a few different curly accounts) and I've often wondered about their products. I think once you find something that works you roll with it. I heard there was some Hoopla with Devacurl but I can't remember what the story was. I think I've finally realized that it's really ok to brush my hair sometimes (if I'm refreshing I'll wet it, brush it, scrunch it and go) and that silicones aren't the bad guys the CGM people always claim they are. I have definitely discovered that my hair needs a ton of moisture (and I'm pretty sure I could do with a trim) so leave-in conditioner is a must. Although I don't necessarily leave it in...I apply it in the shower and then rinse out just a small amount. Then I apply Kinky custard (or whatever it's called) on top of that in the shower when it's soaking wet and the results are decent. After watching some YouTube videos I'm thinking that it's sometimes less about the products and more about application. I can't remember who it was, but she said if you want more volume and fluff put your products on damp hair. If you want more clumps and ringlets apply to soaking wet. 🤷♀️
My first impression with Prose is that it's ok. I like the shampoo and conditioner ok (my main question is does it moisturize because my hair tends to be on the dry side) and it seemed to serve its purpose.
I don't know what to think of the curl creme they recommended. I've always applied products to my hair when it's soaking wet (i.e. - in the shower) and I think it tends to give me nice ringlets but less volume. The problem was that I didn't get any cast with the creme curl and that application. Which I guess is fine, but frizz was a main factor. So I read somewhere that applying a curl creme to damp hair would give you more cast. So I tried that the next time I washed my hair (and I skipped shampooing and went straight to conditioner since I never really know how frequently to shampoo my hair). That DID give me more of a cast - applying curl creme to damp hair - but both days now when I haven't washed my hair and have tried to refresh I've ended up with really dry, product-y feeling hair. In fact it's gross. It's not soft it just feels like I have a lot of crap in my hair.
I had been using Innersense conditioner and leaving in a decent amount and then applying Kinky curl curling custard which was ok. I just never seem to like my hair on a non-washing, "refresh" day. But at least it didn't feel so saturated with product.
I'm constantly mixing products and trying new application schemes. I too get no real cast and too much fuzz if I only use curl cream and no gel. I don't like a hard, crunchy cast either though, so lately I've been mixing Curlsmith Weightless Air Dry Cream (a leave-in conditioner) with Bioterra gel in different ratios in the palm of my hand, and then applying it to quite wet hair. The mix seems to work better than either one alone. It's always a fine line between using too little product and getting fuzz with no hold, or using too much product and your hair just looking dirty. The dirty, over conditioned situation is my main complaint against Curlsmith and the curly girl method. It's the reason I don't use fancy curl brands and sulfate-free exclusively. Cheap, sudsy drugstore products still need to happen if I want clean shiny hair. But if I use those exclusively, my hair can get dry and not curl as well. It's a never-ending science experiment.
This is so true. I feel like there are a million combinations of ways to apply products and a million different products to use. Leave in conditioner? Cream? Gel? Mousse? To brush or not to brush? Wet or damp? Towel or t-shirt? To plop or not to plop? Either way I sort of feel like my hair comes out the same during a refresh day, which, for me, feels BIG. It's probably close to what my profile pic looks like and honestly I'm at the point where I sort of feel like I just don't give a sh*t anymore. It used to be that I could not go out with my hair down unless I'd just washed it. And then I'd feel self-conscious because it'd still be wet and I'd wait for it to dry or diffuse it a bit so that I could get it just right. Now I don't really care. I'm mostly comfortable with it in a pony tail or bun but sometimes I want to wear it down and if that means some fuzz then so be it. It drives me a little bonkers when I see IG posts of the CG "journey" that took about 2 years. For over a year now I haven't so much as taken a pair of scissors to my hair let alone a straightening iron or a strip of color and I still don't think it's any different. I'm sure I'm in need of a trim but I've been trying to grow my hair out for so long and am happy that it finally has some length to it. Anyway, my point is that I think curly hair is probably an ongoing process and everyone's head is different. I definitely think my hair needs leave-in conditioner as it tends to do better with more moisture but I also think no-poo is a no-good-idea for me as I hate the product-y build up I tend to get after a while.
The curly hair "journey" is so much trial and error. I can't even tell you how many times I've wanted to just throw in the towel and go back to blowdrying my hair and straightening it every day. I have wavy hair which is so unpredictable. In the winter it basically goes straight on it's own because it's do dry. But if I blow dry it straight I get insane frizz. Last year I fought so hard to keep some sort of curl pattern. This, I DGAF. I'm not going to do any heat damage to my hair, but I'm also not going to try to coax out a wavy that just doesn't want to be there anyway.
I've been trying to figure out my hair and CG for just over three years now and it's not any better or easier now than it was before I started trying to do CG. So I'm trying to resign to not being so uptight about it all. I'm trying to make doing what works for me (as in my life) the priority.
@sunshine YES!! That is exactly how I've felt lately. Actually, for a while now. I've done "the big chop" about 3 times now, treated my hair very well (no coloring, no heat, etc) and allowed it to grow out only to feel like I have exactly the same results and hair whether or not I'm coloring or straightening. I don't have wavy hair, it's definitely curly, but it seems not to matter at all what I do. I agree that at some point you just have to decide not to GAF. These "hair journey" IG sites that I follow do nothing but leave me wondering what it is that I'm doing wrong. Probably similar to all of the IE or body positive sites. Anyway, I think I'll just stick with whatever is (or isn't) working. I tended to like Innersense conditioner and leave in some to allow for more moisture. I keep hearing and reading about the importance of deep conditioning once a week but that doesn't seem to do much for my hair either. There's so much desire for me to straighten now that swimming season is over and winter is hitting but that's work, too. For now I'm wearing it up in a bun and not bothering at all.
@Hayley I was actually thinking the other day how when I stopped following health/fitness personalities I started following curly hair personalities instead. It was like trading one method of feeling bad about myself for another. So now instead of trying all these different diets and exercise to change the way my body works, I'm buying all these different products and spending all this time trying techniques to get my hair to look different.
I haven't used Deva Curl products in a while so I can't attest to the recent uproar. I feel like I'm in a constant battle with my hair only because I never seem to really love it unless it's just been washed. I tend to wear it in a lot of pony tails because that's how it is when I'm teaching or when it's really humid. Of course when I go to wear it down afterwards I have to basically re-wet my whole head in order to tame the best.
I've gone to see a "curl specialist" named Scott Musgrave a few times in Cary, which is about 25 mins from where I live. He helped me tremendously to learn how to actually enjoy my curls, but I hated that every time I visited him I was shamed for continuing to highlight my hair. Maybe there's truth to his words that the bleach ruins the curls and therefore I have no reason to complain, but I see lots of girls with curls who highlight their hair and it looks beautiful. I tried growing the color out for about 8 months and I hated it. Was it silver? Was it brown? Was it dirty blonde? It's anyone's guess. So I went and re-highlighted it. I honestly don't think it makes a damn bit of difference. If I wet my hair enough and add a sealer or gel or leave in conditioner I'm happy. I just hate the concept that I have to douse my hair with water in order to take it out from a pony tail and look halfway decent.
That was a lot of rambling that had nothing to do with Deva Curl products. :-D
I totally sympathize with the "post pony tail" hair when it's textured. I have waves more so than curls, but it's still an issue for me. If I don't follow up my wash and condition with some sort of product, I end up with a frizzy poofy mess. Girls with straight hair have no idea what the struggle is like for wavy/curly girls! LOL Back to the ponytail.... Have you tried Invisibobble hair elastics? They look like a telephone cord. They are the only thing I can put my hair up with and not get the crease from. The other thing that I like to do when I wear my hair up is to French braid it rather than do the pony tail thing. I find the french braid doesn't destroy my wave as much and might even add to it slightly
YES to girls with straight here not having any clue! I’m always so envious when I see my friends take out their pony tails, shake their heads, and then just finger comb it down. 😩 I do have some of those telephone cord pony tail holders. I haven’t used them in a while because I always seem to get big bumps when I’m putting my hair up but maybe I need to try again. I do think they help with creasing. I WISH I knew how to French braid! I can sort of do it on my daughter’s hair but it’s next to impossible for me on my own. If I could I’d wear it like that all the time. Maybe I can learn through YouTube
@Hayley That’s one reason I love Manes by Mel with her blonde highlights and blow dryer. As a stylist, she rejects and debunks lots of the curly girl dogma. It made me feel not-crazy that so many curly girl products and methods don’t work for me at all. It’s crazy how eager that community is to criticize and curl shame anyone who breaks the rules. I’ve gone to “deva cut” stylists before and I’m quite happy not to do that anymore. Traditional cuts and color work better. I also like shampoo. A lot.
It's good to know there are some semblances of "normalcy" and reasoning out there with this stuff. I'm ok with the products I'm currently using, but I refuse to give up highlighting my hair. At least at this point anyway. I'm excited to check out a YouTuber who isn't entirely gung-ho with the deva stuff. I, too believe in shampoo. I know I have super dry hair so I lather up the conditioner and leave a lot in, but all of that build up leaves for a good shampooing.
I tried to take a photo of my grey pandemic roots. They blend better than I thought! I've been 10 weeks without a hair salon. I realized that I've been coloring my hair for 40 years. That's an insane amount of time and money. How liberating to not do it anymore! It will be interesting to see how far this goes, or if I run screaming back to my colorist.
How are your curls? Or anybody's pandemic hair challenges?
Wow! Your greys are definitely unnoticeable @skwigg! I'm starting to get grey/white hairs already (I'm 38). I'm blonde so they are pretty difficult to see. I already warned my husband that I will be greying gracefully lol. My hair is okay. Right now I'm trying to use up a bunch of products that I didn't love. I figure if using them ends in a crappy hair day it doesn't matter since I won't be seeing anyone other than my family. So far everything has provided decent results though so I'm not sure why I disregarded these products in the first place. I have a scalp issue right now that I need to get some sailyic acid shampoo for. I want to get Neutrogena T/Sal because it's cheap and the cleansing agents are gentle on the hair, but they don't sell it in Canada and amazon.ca wants $30 for it. I'm trying to find a Canadian equivalent. So far no luck.
Product Quest! The struggle is real, @sunshine. I always read online reviews, find something I must have, and then go through all kinds of crazy trying to find it.
My latest discovery is the Bioterra line, which is the Sally Beauty knockoff of Biolage. Curly Susie raves about Bioterra gel. I tried it and really liked it once I got the amount right. It makes a really firm gel cast but then scrunches out into soft curls, as long as you don't use too much. I'm using Bioterra Ultra Thick & Full Sheer Volume shampoo and conditioner. I bought liter bottles never having tried it, so I'm glad I loved it! This was after blowing through multiple drugstore curly shampoos that were total fails. Why is there coconut oil in everything now? The heavy duty oils in most curly products weigh my hair down and make it dull. I finally started looking for light and volumizing products with much better luck.
Using up products you didn't love makes total sense right now. I've also noticed a difference between how something works in dry winter air versus warm humid air. So, something I hate and write off in January might be fine in May. Maybe I should go rummage through my own bag of fail products and see if I have a different opinion now.
@Skwigg your "roots" look great! Definitely unnoticeable. Unfortunately I was in need of a highlight-touch up long before quarantine, but I don't go because a) it's super expensive and b) we were on the cruise and I figured paying for highlights right before going swimming in chlorinated pools and saltwater beaches would be a waste. Like @sunshine, I'm 39 and might have some silvery/grey hairs already but they're not too hard to see because I'm blonde with darkish roots. My natural hair color (if you can call it that) is some sort of ugly brownish dark blonde. I honesty don't really know since I've been highlighting it for so many years.
I'm constantly trying to figure out what works best on my hair and I notice the same thing as Skwigg in that, what works for my hair in winter doesn't always work for my hair in summer. I think more than ever my hair is SUPER dry (maybe from so many years of flat iron usage?). I basically using something called Innersense Color Radiance Conditioner that I think is technically supposed to be washed out, but I leave a crap ton of it in. I was using something called a "filler" followed by a "sealer" (a gel) but it was too many products on my fine hair so now I leave in a lot of conditioner and just add Aussie Instant Freeze gel. It provides enough of a hold but doesn't get too hard and stiff.
For me the issue is that I wear my hair in a lot of pony tails (working out) and I can't seem to find a good way to go from pony tail to wearing it down without getting my head completely wet. So I basically live in pony tails unless I want to drench my head (usually not until I shower in the evening). I've watched "refresh" videos on IG where women take down their hair from pony tails and buns and refresh to make their curls look good again, but honestly the majority of them take their hair down from their pony tails and already look a million times better than mine do after a pony tail-release..lol. So they're starting off much better than I am from the get-go!
Since the DevaCurl debacle, I've been using Bioterra products, but lately I've been seeing more and more influencers using Curlsmith. The curiosity was killing me. I went nuts a few weeks ago, took the quiz on the website, and bought everything they suggested. It was expensive and I was filled with dread, sure that I'd just spent a fortune and I was going to hate everything. I should have considered the even worse scenario, which is that I'd buy all these pricey products and love every one of them, which is what happened. 😬💰💕
I ended up with soft, bouncy, loose curls, which is what I like. I don't like a weird plastic curl helmet where nothing moves. I hate crunch, or so much product in my hair that I don't dare touch it or get caught in the wind. And I really don't like when it curls up so tightly that I lose three inches of length and have little poodle ringlets, which is why I don't diffuse it.
I'm not a fan of cowash in general. I wanted a real shampoo and conditioner, so I got the Vibrancy Shampoo and Glow Perfecting Conditioner. They smell amazing and work really well. Then I got the Weightless Air Dry Cream, which is a leave-in conditioner, the Hold Me Softly Style Balm, which is a curl cream, and the Curl Defining Styling Souffle, which is a medium hold gel. It doesn't form a hard cast, which I like.
Has anyone else tried any Curlsmith? Or other new finds?
Here is six months of silver grow-out. You can really see it now! I still like it and don't plan to color it. Though, I'm excited to play with some fun temporary hair make-up colors. Curlsmith has a bunch of those. It's a pigmented gel basically, so it doesn't stain your hair and it doesn't transfer once it's dry. I think the rose gold or turquoise would be fun.
Has anyone ever used Prose? It's probably too late to ask this question because I already took the quiz and ordered the products (whether or not that was a good decision, I'll find out later) which were EXPENSIVE, but here's hoping.
I haven't tried Prose. You'll have to let us know what you think. I'm still happy with the products I bought from Curlsmith and will probably order more when I run out.
I see Curlsmith advertised a lot on IG (probably because I follow quite a few different curly accounts) and I've often wondered about their products. I think once you find something that works you roll with it. I heard there was some Hoopla with Devacurl but I can't remember what the story was. I think I've finally realized that it's really ok to brush my hair sometimes (if I'm refreshing I'll wet it, brush it, scrunch it and go) and that silicones aren't the bad guys the CGM people always claim they are. I have definitely discovered that my hair needs a ton of moisture (and I'm pretty sure I could do with a trim) so leave-in conditioner is a must. Although I don't necessarily leave it in...I apply it in the shower and then rinse out just a small amount. Then I apply Kinky custard (or whatever it's called) on top of that in the shower when it's soaking wet and the results are decent. After watching some YouTube videos I'm thinking that it's sometimes less about the products and more about application. I can't remember who it was, but she said if you want more volume and fluff put your products on damp hair. If you want more clumps and ringlets apply to soaking wet. 🤷♀️
My first impression with Prose is that it's ok. I like the shampoo and conditioner ok (my main question is does it moisturize because my hair tends to be on the dry side) and it seemed to serve its purpose.
I don't know what to think of the curl creme they recommended. I've always applied products to my hair when it's soaking wet (i.e. - in the shower) and I think it tends to give me nice ringlets but less volume. The problem was that I didn't get any cast with the creme curl and that application. Which I guess is fine, but frizz was a main factor. So I read somewhere that applying a curl creme to damp hair would give you more cast. So I tried that the next time I washed my hair (and I skipped shampooing and went straight to conditioner since I never really know how frequently to shampoo my hair). That DID give me more of a cast - applying curl creme to damp hair - but both days now when I haven't washed my hair and have tried to refresh I've ended up with really dry, product-y feeling hair. In fact it's gross. It's not soft it just feels like I have a lot of crap in my hair.
I had been using Innersense conditioner and leaving in a decent amount and then applying Kinky curl curling custard which was ok. I just never seem to like my hair on a non-washing, "refresh" day. But at least it didn't feel so saturated with product.
I'm constantly mixing products and trying new application schemes. I too get no real cast and too much fuzz if I only use curl cream and no gel. I don't like a hard, crunchy cast either though, so lately I've been mixing Curlsmith Weightless Air Dry Cream (a leave-in conditioner) with Bioterra gel in different ratios in the palm of my hand, and then applying it to quite wet hair. The mix seems to work better than either one alone. It's always a fine line between using too little product and getting fuzz with no hold, or using too much product and your hair just looking dirty. The dirty, over conditioned situation is my main complaint against Curlsmith and the curly girl method. It's the reason I don't use fancy curl brands and sulfate-free exclusively. Cheap, sudsy drugstore products still need to happen if I want clean shiny hair. But if I use those exclusively, my hair can get dry and not curl as well. It's a never-ending science experiment.
This is so true. I feel like there are a million combinations of ways to apply products and a million different products to use. Leave in conditioner? Cream? Gel? Mousse? To brush or not to brush? Wet or damp? Towel or t-shirt? To plop or not to plop? Either way I sort of feel like my hair comes out the same during a refresh day, which, for me, feels BIG. It's probably close to what my profile pic looks like and honestly I'm at the point where I sort of feel like I just don't give a sh*t anymore. It used to be that I could not go out with my hair down unless I'd just washed it. And then I'd feel self-conscious because it'd still be wet and I'd wait for it to dry or diffuse it a bit so that I could get it just right. Now I don't really care. I'm mostly comfortable with it in a pony tail or bun but sometimes I want to wear it down and if that means some fuzz then so be it. It drives me a little bonkers when I see IG posts of the CG "journey" that took about 2 years. For over a year now I haven't so much as taken a pair of scissors to my hair let alone a straightening iron or a strip of color and I still don't think it's any different. I'm sure I'm in need of a trim but I've been trying to grow my hair out for so long and am happy that it finally has some length to it. Anyway, my point is that I think curly hair is probably an ongoing process and everyone's head is different. I definitely think my hair needs leave-in conditioner as it tends to do better with more moisture but I also think no-poo is a no-good-idea for me as I hate the product-y build up I tend to get after a while.
I hadn't realized how long your hair has gotten. That's awesome! My impatience with getting the grey transition done already keeps me cutting mine.
The curly hair "journey" is so much trial and error. I can't even tell you how many times I've wanted to just throw in the towel and go back to blowdrying my hair and straightening it every day. I have wavy hair which is so unpredictable. In the winter it basically goes straight on it's own because it's do dry. But if I blow dry it straight I get insane frizz. Last year I fought so hard to keep some sort of curl pattern. This, I DGAF. I'm not going to do any heat damage to my hair, but I'm also not going to try to coax out a wavy that just doesn't want to be there anyway.
I've been trying to figure out my hair and CG for just over three years now and it's not any better or easier now than it was before I started trying to do CG. So I'm trying to resign to not being so uptight about it all. I'm trying to make doing what works for me (as in my life) the priority.
@sunshine YES!! That is exactly how I've felt lately. Actually, for a while now. I've done "the big chop" about 3 times now, treated my hair very well (no coloring, no heat, etc) and allowed it to grow out only to feel like I have exactly the same results and hair whether or not I'm coloring or straightening. I don't have wavy hair, it's definitely curly, but it seems not to matter at all what I do. I agree that at some point you just have to decide not to GAF. These "hair journey" IG sites that I follow do nothing but leave me wondering what it is that I'm doing wrong. Probably similar to all of the IE or body positive sites. Anyway, I think I'll just stick with whatever is (or isn't) working. I tended to like Innersense conditioner and leave in some to allow for more moisture. I keep hearing and reading about the importance of deep conditioning once a week but that doesn't seem to do much for my hair either. There's so much desire for me to straighten now that swimming season is over and winter is hitting but that's work, too. For now I'm wearing it up in a bun and not bothering at all.
@Hayley I was actually thinking the other day how when I stopped following health/fitness personalities I started following curly hair personalities instead. It was like trading one method of feeling bad about myself for another. So now instead of trying all these different diets and exercise to change the way my body works, I'm buying all these different products and spending all this time trying techniques to get my hair to look different.
I couldn’t agree more with that, too [@sunshine] I’ve had those exact thoughts. I, too have traded one sort of “addiction” for another.