Antonia Bernardin

I am part of that camp of people who joined Tiktok, ended up on curly girl method Tiktok, starting doing it because I was trying to repair my hair from years of too much heat and was shocked to discover I had a curl pattern when I took care of my hair like curly hair.

I don’t have progress pictures, as I never intended to write a blog about it but I thought, since I have struggled to find advice for wavy/ curly hair that’s thin and actually practical for every day life, maybe this would be helpful.

My hair is currently the longest and thickest it’s ever been, I went from a slight wave, to beach waves, to a mixture of loose spirals and waves, which is where I’m at now.

The only other change I made besides switching methods was dying my hair a colour that didn’t require as much upkeep and cutting it to a short bob so I was starting from as close to scratch as I was willing too. I also reduced and then stopped using any heated styling tools.

I’m approaching this with the assumption you’ve read/ seen the curly girl method elsewhere and know some of the basic principles. Most of my product suggestions will be UK centric, as that’s where I live!

In the beginning – getting started

If you have thin hair, particularly damaged hair, the following will not work for you in the beginning:

• Co-washing
• Leave-in oils
• Leave-in conditioners

Or, I should say, you can co-wash but it will only work as a stop-gap between ‘proper’ washes, your hair will be greasy very quickly in the beginning and you won’t be able to use it as your main method of hair washing. Even now, I only tend to use it if I’ve mis-timed my hair washes around activities and want fresh hair without doing a full wash

Leave-in oils and conditioners will be possible but to start with, it’s best to add it liberally to your hair and semi rinse it out. Scrunch as you rinse, so it doesn’t completely wash out. Over time, rinse less and less. Some people with waves swear by the bowl method, but if you use a shared bathroom its not very practical and will leave too much product in your hair for the beginning of the journey.

I’ve found there is no ‘one size fits all’ for what type of leave-ins to use. You will need moisturising products but the really heavy shea and coconut products will make your greasy and cause product build up fast. Now, I can absolutely coat my hair in the stuff but that took years to achieve.

How I would start if I could start again

1. Switch to brands that are Suplhate, alcohol and paraben free for your shampoo and conditioner.
2. Buy wide tooth combs or curly friendly brushes
   – There’s a lot of stuff going round on instagram or tiktok that’s stupidly expensive, when, to be honest, any afro comb set would work just as well. It’s a preference for people with a tight curl pattern for a reason.
3. Start by conditioning every wash if you weren’t already.
   (your hair will feel greasy at this stage, stick with it)
4. Only brush your hair when wet, preferably when it has conditioner in it.
   – Brush from the ends and work in-wards.
   – Be gentle! A huge cause of split ends for us in the beginning of the curly girl reform journey are those paddle brushes that we hank through dry hair.
5. Do this for a while, then add one leave-in from a brand like Aussie hair care, OGX, Noughty Umberto Gianni, move on to brands like Cantu, As I am, Twisted Sista and CurlSmith as your hair adapts.
   – try different things: joba joba or argan oil make my hair super fluffy and light but you need some weight to hold curls. Hair smoothies and curl creams had varying amounts of effectiveness. Straight leave-in conditioners were often too thick and made my hair greasy at the start.
   – you do want to slowly to start to achieve a slick, ‘sea weed’ feel on your wet hair when you do your choice of leave-in. Again, experiment to find out how much your hair can tolerate it without looking greasy.
6. Eventually, add some kind of curl-holding products like a mousse or gel – although beware, my hair looked super greasy with gel until just this year.
   – comb it out thoroughly using a wide tooth comb, while your hair is wet
   
   *edit* I have actually stopped using curl holding products for daily use, I found they contributed to drying out my hair, now I only do this if I’m attending an event where I want my hair to keep the really tight pattern it has when freshly washed and dried
   
7. At the end of your wash, do lots of scrunching, then put it in a plop, a hair towel turban will do.
   
   *edit* I have also been experimenting with twisting the strands of wet hair together to force them into 5-6 large curls and then scrunching, I have found that if I do this and then dry, I get a nicer/ tighter curl or wave – I was inspired by videos of people with 4c hair doing this before drying and starting playing around with ways to adapt this to my lazy way/ hair type
   
8. For drying, just get/ use your diffuser
   – the tiktok curly girls do a lot of elaborate stuff involving more creams, barrel brushes, drying layer by layer but I could not be fucked with that every day.
   – Simply dry your hair by bending over so your hair is dangling forward, lots of scrunching (it helps break the ‘cast’ where the holding product forms a seal round the curl, your hair will look greasy or still wet if you don’t do this).
   
   Hold the diffuser close to your hair, so your hair is still scrunched/ bunched up in it. Tilt your head left and right so the weight of your hair doesn’t flatten the curls.
   
   Try different things, some people’s curls like being dried by being squished up the whole time. Some need a bit of time with the hair-dryer hovering near loose hanging hair. Some prefer being dried three-quarters of the way and then left to air dry the rest of the way.

Other things you can do in the beginning:

Rosemary/ castor oil hair masks – unlike other hair types, you will not be able to leave oils this thick in without it looking greasy.
– Mix something with the oil to thin it out, like your hair conditioner or coconut oil.
– Leave it in for as long as you are able to, sometimes I did this overnight, sometimes I did it at the start of my everything shower and then washed it out at the end.
– Wash it out! You might need to wash your hair twice when you start doing this.

Do a detox wash every couple weeks – the product build up in your hair will be quite bad in the beginning, your hair gets better at sucking up moisture the more it gets used to it but I found I needed to use a detox shampoo every week at the start and less and less over time.

Protein /keratin hair masks – Cantu do a nice one that’s fairly cheap, do this every three months. Remember to look out for the signs of too much protein in your hair and adjust accordingly.

Just conditioning hair masks in general – You can leave them in for as little as five mins, it all makes a difference, I used to pop it on at the start of my shower, do my other stuff, then rinse it out and do my full wash routine after.

All of this is about getting your hair used to more moisture. Moisture is a curly girls best friend. You will learn over time how well your hair holds water, some curls have low porosity (it takes a lot to get your hair wet and therefore, it’s harder to get moisture onto the hair shaft), some with high porosity will find the opposite issue and the hair will hold products very easily and too well and be more prone to greasiness.

As your hair recovers, you will find that you need to adjust your routine.

These products aren’t cheap, so the bare minimum you need in your arsenal at any given time is: Curly hair friendly shampoo and conditioner, a leave-in of some kind, a curl-holding product, a detox shampoo and a hair mask deep conditioner.

Other things I recommend buying

• Mane ‘N’ tail detangler – the ONLY detangler spray I’ve ever used that actually works.
  – this will help for brushing if you don’t have time to get your hair fully wet, I do recommend interspersing it with sprays from a water bottle, otherwise it will make your hair greasy in the beginning.
• Buy a water spray bottle, the kind hair dressers use.
  – The misting kind does produce nicer curls but it takes foreverrrr to get your hair damp with them and they break easily.
• Scrunchies, preferably silk, this will stop your hair getting damaged in buns.
  – If you’re in the UK go Claire’s when they’ve got one of their ‘3 free products when you buy 3 things’ offer, they are still bit pricey but they do last and are machine washable.
• A silk bonnet to sleep in – you will feel like an 1800’s widow at first if you aren’t used to them but the difference was incredible! Almost no knots (and I’m a fidget), less frizz, less need for styling in the morning.
  – with thin air, it will slip off in the night, there is very little to do to prevent this, our hair just isn’t thick enough to stop them slipping off. You can either buy one with a little tightening toggle thing but these gave me headaches, or do a bit of research into smaller, black owned sellers who offer bonnets, as they will have options that vary in size and different types of ties.
  
  It’s always better, where possible, when buying products that belong outside of your culture, to buy them directly from members/ businesses of that community. There is some online controversy (mostly centred in the US) around white people using hair bonnets. I’m not here to tell you what’s right or wrong, go watch videos from people within that community and decide where you land on the issue.
• If you’ve decided a bonnet’s not for you, get a silk pillow
  – be warned though, they get very sweaty in the heat.

Update on current curly hair journey status

I recently moved and seriously neglected all of the above, plus I listened to a few too many people on Tiktok who were saying leave-ins etc aren’t necessary… they definitely are, my hair went fluffy and awful but I have discovered they are not necessary to the extent curly tok videos would have you believe. You need moisturising products but not a tonne, I have been applying a combination of a leave-in, a curl cream and a little bit of oil and then washing the excess off (so sticking my head back under the water for a second, let the water run through just long enough to get all the hair and then scrunching this excess run off out).

Applying stuff during the drying process as the do on curly tok is A: too much effort and B: it’s real hit and miss for whether my hair will end up looking greasy from doing it.

But anyway, I accidentally performed an experiment for you all about whether my above advice is good, because when I stopped doing it my hair had loads of breakage and my curls/ waves did not look as nice!

Okay, I think that’s everything. Now I just do most of these things on rotation, adjusting as needed. The things you see on Tiktok are so elaborate and I simply cannot be bothered. This is my chill version.