The ‘curly girl’ method for hair care has been doing the rounds on social media for a few years, but I never thought it would be for me. I had always thought my hair was poker straight, fine and for the most part, lifeless. I had accepted it, worked around it and done my best for the better part of 30 years.
This is why I was flabbergasted when I popped to the salon for a haircut and the hairdresser asked me what products I use in my hair care routine. Honestly, my hair is lucky if it sees a brush twice a week and a wash once – forget products. I told her as much and she did a great job of concealing her shock as she said: “But you have wavy hair?”. Well, this was news to me but she promised me it was true.
“You’ve never noticed your hair curling when it’s wet?” she asked, bewildered.
I had noticed it, but as with many things in my life that I don’t understand, I had simply ignored it and moved on.
After she had told me that if I just added three simple steps into my usual routine (a trebling of the steps I usually take), that I would see some signs of life in my locks I decided to throw caution to the wind and go for it.
A quick trip to Superdrug, some internet research and a shower later I was sitting wrapped in a towel on my bed with my hair absolutely sopping wet and a mysterious array of curl creams and jellies in front of me.
I had found a girl on Tiktok who I deemed to have a similar hair texture to mine and followed her routine. First, with the hair absolutely soaking wet, run the cream through from the very top right to the ends.
Then, the crucial part of every ‘curly girl’ routine – the scrunch. I gathered fistfuls of my hair from the bottom and scrunched them in my palms, rather enjoying the wet squishing sound but less so the rivulets of water running down my chest and onto my bed sheets.
From here, she said that you need to spray extra water in. The water is a crucial part of the curly girl method apparently – everything needs to be doused at all times, even as you shiver and your lips turn blue.
A second spray, and it was time for the curl jelly, applied in the same way. From here, it was time to diffuse.
I had purchased an attachment for my hair dryer that made it look like some sort of alien gun. I tentatively continued to pile my hair into this weird bowl and hold it to my head as the heat blasted my skull. To be fair, it was a great way to warm up from continuously covering myself in cold sprays of water for the better part of 20 minutes.
The curly girl method is definitely not for the weak. It will test your endurance, and I cannot imagine what people with curl patterns far stronger than mine go through on wash days but for all its foibles, the results are undeniable.
Once fully dried, my hair no longer lays limp against my skull and frizzes at the ends -instead it falls in gentle waves and bounces when I walk.
It may not be as impressive as the 90s blow out look but after 30 years of looking like Lucius Malfoy after a walk home in the rain, I’ll be keeping the routine up – even if I freeze to death in the process.