I wanted to show you my hair routine! I finally figured out something I like right now. I just got it cut and my stylist gave me a lot of tips!! I wanted to write this post because any time I see someone with my type of wavy hair online, they always have a minimal routine like just using one gel or mousse, and that makes my hair an extremely tangled mess.
This is how my hair turns out. I just did this method today and I am really happy with how it looks!
Here's my hair type- the individual strands are fine (not thin/thinning hair, I'm talking about the width of the strands), I have a lot of hair/dense, it tangles really easily, it is low porosity (meaning it's hard to get water and products to soak in), and it's a wavy pattern with a few curls. It's also not color treated, the only "unnatural" part of my hair is the tape in exte that's bright red. Because of the red streak and my general hair type, I only wash once a week. My hair doesn't get oily before that, so I don't need to otherwise. Since it tangles easily, I absolutely have to use some kind of light cream or leave in conditioner and sleep with a satin bonnet. I really didn't learn about how to care for my natural hair pattern until several years ago, and I spent many painful days when I was younger brushing out awful tangles since I was basically drying it out constantly and not doing anything to protect it.
Washing
For washing, I alternate between the Davine love curl cleansing conditioner and the Minu shampoo. Before every wash I also apply their red coloring shampoo just to my streak, I found that this really keeps it from fading. I also avoid scrubbing the streak when washing the rest of my hair since it's already been cleaned with the red shampoo before the shower and scrubbing it makes the dye fade. With the love curl, I wash once and let it sit while I finish my shower. With the Minu I wash twice. These were both really expensive but I don't want to fade my red, and when I used cheaper shampoo it faded in just a couple weeks.
Styling
When I use the Minu, I follow it up with a conditioner. I'm about to finish the Pacifica banana cream, it was okay but not enough moisture for my hair. I bought the Pacifica pineapple papaya conditioner to try next. When I look for conditioner, I avoid coconut oil since my stylist said it was a cheaper filler ingredient and I find it to be too heavy on my hair. I apply the conditioner and detangle with a Wet brush, then let it sit for the rest of my shower before rinsing.
The biggest change is my products. My stylist gave me some tips last week which really helped. After my shower, I leave my hair entirely soaking wet, I barely touch it at all- no squeezing out the water or anything like that. Then I section my hair to make sure each part is actually touched by product. I apply the Gisou honey milk cream first, then the Not Your Mothers Curl Talk gel, specifically the protein and fragrance free one. The Gisou smells SO GOOD. it’s expensive but omg I could smell it all day lol.
I rake the cream through my hair (it's a really liquidy consistency) and then glaze the gel on top of that and scrunch from the bottom. I do this for every section. I realized that I was basically doing all of this wrong- I was applying on damp hair, not sectioning it, and only using like 1/4 the amount of product that I actually needed. Applying it on soaking wet hair made my hair feel way less product-y. My stylist recommended this method because of how low porosity my hair is, apparently once it starts drying even a little it's a lot harder for product to soak into my hair and that's why it would just get frizzy, tangled, and feel like there was a ton of product on it. My stylist did my hair with this method last week (but she had other products) and it looked perfect pretty much the entire 7 days, and with my old method my hair was looking sort of wonky by 3-4 days in.
Once all my product is in, I grab a microfiber hair towel on my hands and scrunch my hair a few times to get some excess moisture out of it. Then, I flip my head upside down and start drying with the diffuser on my hair dryer. First I hover it over my scalp on high heat and speed. Then once that part starts to become more damp than wet, I use the diffuser in sections to cup my hair up and hold it for around 30 seconds. I usually turn the speed down while I'm gathering the hair into the diffuser, then turn it back up. This process takes maybe 20-30 minutes, then my hair is mostly dry. It's not 100% dry, but it's good enough.
I do sometimes blow out my bangs straight with a round brush, I just didn't feel like doing that this time. My stylist said that using the blow dryer and brush isn't very damaging at all, especially not compared to a flat iron, and I haven't noticed any issue with my curl pattern there after doing that for several months. That's also where my tightest curls are.
Once I'm done drying I spray a little of the Aussie sprunch hairspray. Aerosols bother my asthma, so I switched to the pump kind. This or the Instant Freeze is also good for when I want to puff up my roots too. I'll lift sections and spray, then hit it with the hair dryer for a few seconds.
I use the salt spray when my hair is looking deflated or the curl pattern has drooped. It helps make it spring up again without adding anything that would weigh down my hair.
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That's all for now, talk to you soon! (✿◠‿◠)
