curls | Love Never Fails

I stopped doing Curly Girl just a couple of days after my gushing post about how awesome it is.

But it’s not because Curly Girl is, in fact, anything less than awesome. Don’t get me wrong. I just really missed having the freedom to fix my hair straight when I wanted to. I felt chained to my curly hair. And then I realized (in the most humble way that one can possibly realize such a thing) that I have great curls even when I use shampoo! Why do I need to be stressing myself out over never being able to wear my hair straight, when it looks just fine with or without shampoo?? The thing I’ve always loved about my hair (okay, not always, but since early high school when I actually learned how to fix it) is that it looks great both straight and curly, and I was taking that away from myself!

So there you have it. My dirty ugly secret. I’m not a Curly Girl anymore. I am, however, a much happier girl!

This picture was taken two weekends ago at Amy & Todd’s wedding reception, just a few days after I rekindled my romance with shampoo:

Monday was exactly four weeks since I’ve used shampoo on my hair.

No, my hair isn’t an oily matted nasty mess. It’s actually looking better than ever. Please, allow me to share with you the best thing that has ever happened to curly-haired girls:

It’s called Curly Girl, and it is a book written by Lorraine Massey, a New York stylist who has naturally curly hair of her own and has been cutting and styling hair since she was 13 (according to her salon’s website).

The basic premise of Curly Girl is that curls need lots of moisture (think conditioner) to maintain their curl. However, the main ingredient in most shampoos is a harsh detergent (such as sodium laurel sulfate, ammonium laureth sulfate, or sodium laureth sulfate), which dries out your curls (making them frizzy to boot).

So you stop using shampoo and start using tons and tons of conditioner. Your conditioner can’t have any words in the ingredients that end in “-cone” or else it will build up and leave your hair flat and gross. I scrub my scalp with my fingertips every night when I shower, and once or twice a week I put some conditioner on my roots and scrub them with it too. Washing your hair with conditioner is like washing your face with a really mild facial cleanser like Cetaphil (which I also use). It cleans your hair, it just does it without stripping your hair of all of its natural, beneficial oils.

When I get out of the shower I just scrunch my hair for a minute with my towel and let it air dry for a while. Then, when I am styling my hair, I take some more conditioner and use it on my hair like I used to use hair gel and gently blow dry and scrunch until it is almost totally dry. If I still have a few frizzies after that, I take about a handful of TRESemme mousse and scrunch it into my hair as well (but you have to make sure your gel or mousse doesn’t have any “-cones” or alcohol in them).

Honestly, the second and third weeks are the hardest. The first week you’re thinking, “Okay, I can do this! My hair is going to LOVE me for it!” Then around the second and third weeks you really have to be pretty stubborn (which thankfully is not a problem for me… or IS a problem, depending on how you want to look at it ) and push through the stage where your hair hasn’t quite yet realized that you’re not going to strip its natural oils every day, so it’s still pumping out lots of oil. But take heart because even though your hair feels oily and your scalp itches, it doesn’t look oily (okay, or at least mine didn’t). Those are going to be your less than stellar hair days when you will probably wear your curls in a pony tail quite a bit.

But now, on the other side of week four, my curls are AMAZING! They are SO MUCH curlier than they have ever been, my scalp has adjusted and isn’t the least oily or itchy, and my hair has so much body! I’m also loving it because I know this is so much better on my hair than drying and flat-ironing it every day, so it is going to look better and grow faster.

Seriously, if you have curly or even wavy hair, you have GOT to try this!

If you want more information about Curly Girl, buy the book, rent it from your local library, or visit The Unofficial Curly Girl Website.