After my who-remembers-how-long-hiatus, I'm back to talk hair!
What is the Curly Girl Method?
The CGM was started by Lorraine Massey, author of, "Curly Girl: The Handbook". This method was developed in an effort to educate people on how to care for their curls and even help people recognize when their hair is actually curly, not just messy! Massey once said (directly to my heart, honestly) "Frizz is just a curl waiting to happen". So many people are walking around with hair that is poofy, frizzy, and dry, suffering from breakage, and losing their minds over roots that need frequent shampooing for fear of extreme oiliness. A lot of people just don't know where to even begin with their hair or their child's hair!
The curly girl method is a great starting point for people to learn how to care for their hair. After spending twenty-two years with absolutely no idea what hair type I had or what was really best for it, I decided to try out the CGM and see what would happen. These are my thoughts based on my personal experience.
About my hair: I have a full head of finer strands. My hair rests at a 2C curl with more and more 3A curls springing up here and there every week. My hair is definitely lower in porosity with a very low tolerance for proteins and deep love of light-weight moisture.
So, what are the CGM steps and how do I feel about them?
1) No brushing or curling your hair!
Curly heads are encouraged not to brush their hair to avoid breakage/damage and brushing out their curl pattern. Is that wise? Well...that depends on who you are! For me, brushing my hair is a bad idea. I've spent my whole life being nagged on to brush my hair, and then when I did brush my hair?
It looked like this! (NOT my image, just someone who has extremely similar hair to what mine used to be like).
Restricting detangling to using my fingers with conditioner has proven to be the best method for my hair (I do still brush my hair once a month out of paranoia that all of my fine hairs will get brutally tangled. Note, I found that my hair was loads more tangly before I made these changes). However, a lot of people have found that this method leaves their hair tangled with fairy knots, or it takes too long to finger detangle and they end up missing knots and not spreading products as effectively through hair. This is really going to vary from individual to individual. If your hair is happiest when you brush with a wide-toothed comb or vented brush, or you have been doing this without any issue, stick to it!
2) Restrict your hair washing to three or fewer times a week.
YES TO THIS! Frankly, I feel like every one of any hair type should limit their hair washing to at most every two days. I personally aim for every four at most frequent and my happy spot is every six or seven. I used to shampoo almost every day because my roots were at risk of invasion from United States military (lol, oil jokes). When I stopped being ridiculous and realized my scalp was oily for the same reasons my face used to be (overwashing and severe stripping of the natural oils leading to over-compensation) I was able to adjust a couple things and tame the oil. (Hint: I added a small amount of conditioner to my scalp and made myself wait as long as I could stand before I'd allow myself to wash my hair again. Really didn't have any issues after.) You'd be amazed at what this step alone could do for your hair and scalp health.
3) No non-soluble silicones in any of your hair products
This step, in particular, I see the benefit of, but don't necessarily agree with. The reasoning behind this is to prevent build-up, avoid weighing down your hair, and keep your hair open to receiving more moisture. Now, I definitely agree that your shampoo should have no silicones! If you load up on silicones too early in your hair regimen, you could have a harder time allowing moisturizing products like conditioners and creams to penetrate your hair and do their job. That said, silicones are emollients! They perform similarly to the other oils you're loading into your hair. This step really isn't important unless you're also adhering to the next law (no sulfates). Sulfates are the only ingredients that can completely remove non-soluble silicones and prevent harmful build-up. I'll discuss the sulfates next, but if you are going sulfate-free and still want water-soluble silicones, you need to find the words, "stearoxy dimethicone" and "behenoxy dimethicone" on the ingredients list of your hair products. If you have high-porosity hair, using these water-soluble silicones will greatly benefit you. If you have 2A-3C hair, you'll probably want to avoid silicones as they do have a tendency to weigh down curls. I have gone completely silicone-free and my curls are quite content. If you have naturally bouncy curls and still want to use silicones, you should be fine to continue use as long as you also want to keep sulfates in your cleansing regimen.
4) Stop with the sulfates
Now, this is a step I really believe in. Sulfates can be over-drying for your hair and scalp, causing your hair to be oilier, suffer from worse breakage, and just dry out! My scalp health improved by leaps and bounds and regulating my hair's moisture became far easier when I ditched sulfates and stuck to formulas with different cleansing agents. If you have been really struggling with breakage, oily roots, and dry hair/ends, you should really consider going sulfate-free or limiting your sulfate use to every other wash or so. If you are sticking with your silicone-heavy products and don't have oily roots or damage, you can definitely stick with your sulfates, too.
Something to consider: As someone who restricts detangling to the shower, I appreciate a lot of slip (lubrication, essentially) in my products to help get the job done. Products that contain sulfates really tend to lack in this area.
Since this step seems to really make all of the other parts work so much better, I'd encourage everyone to at least give it a thirty-day trial. Using a less-harsh shampoo can make a big difference in your hair's health!
5) Avoid using heat
Diffusing seems to be excluded from this (hover diffusing being the safest method of using heat on curly hair). That said, you obviously want to abstain from straightening, using hot rollers or curling irons, and high open heat from hair dryers. This is all because the higher the heat, the more damage that can be generated. If you're trying to embrace your natural curls, straightening is out of the question. If you have damaged hair, but you don't want to spend hours waiting for your hair to dry, using a heat protectant on your ends and hover-diffusing is a good way to go!
6) Never use a terrycloth towel on your hair!
As a frizz-demon and owner of hair who will do anything to poof out, I feel that this rule should be on billboards, headings of scripture chapters, and every single drug disclaimer produced. All I've ever known was my parents drying my hair with a regular terrycloth towel singing the "dry your hair" song! Ditching this step in my hair maintenance really reduced my frizz-I almost didn't believe it! Instead of using a terrycloth towel, curly-haired queens should be using regular cotton shirts and microfiber towels to dry their hair. Do this! It will prevent breakage, decrease frizz, and somehow file your taxes for you.
7) Check for drying alcohols
This one is another no-brainer in my mind. Everyone should be avoiding short-chained alcohols such as ethanol, isopropyl alcohol, denatured alcohol (also listed as alcohol denat), SD alcohol, and propanol. These can dry out hair and damage the cuticle. A lot of companies add these to hair products to help the product penetrate the hair strands and shorten drying-time, but they're not worth it! Long-chain alcohols such as stearyl alcohol, cetyl alcohol, and lauryl alcohol have the potential to actually moisturize the hair. Users should be wary of this ingredient though as excessive use can make the hair appear greasy.
Propylene glycol is an alcohol that is technically CGM approved, as it's a humectant and commonly used preservative/co-surfactant/etc. As helpful as this chemical is, there is a trend of users (including myself, it seems) developing a sensitivity to it. If you're concerned or suspect that you may have developed a sensitivity or intolerance toward Propylene Glycol, read more here!
PRESERVATIVE NOTE: BENZYL ALCOHOL IS A GREAT PRESERVATIVE AND SHOULD NOT HAVE ANY IMPACT ON YOUR HAIR ITSELF!
8) Don't color your hair
Eh...I'm not good at this one. The CGM is all about learning to love and care for your natural hair, and that includes its color! While hair color can be somewhat beneficial to people with extremely low-porosity hair as it opens up the cuticle, it's overall a damaging agent that can lead to a cascade of use of other damaging agents that will ultimately lead to breakage, lack of hair growth, and an all-around bad time for your hair. It's best to avoid hair dye and allow your hair to be itself...even if it's just for a little while!
Okay, those were a lot of restrictions. So...what are we encouraged to do instead?
1) Use a co-wash
Co-washing, if you didn't know, is the use of a cleansing conditioner. These products are intended to cleanse the hair without stripping it while adding a lighter conditioning effect. A lot of people have found a lot of success with this method of cleansing, especially those with medium-high and high porosity hair! My extremely low-porosity hair seems to just get weighed down and strigny when I co-wash, so I stick to using a CGM-approved sulfate-free shampoo instead. Again, if you have hair that is finicky about how it accepts its moisture or is already pretty well moisturized, you should probably skip this step.
2) Use a shampoo brush to remove build-up and oils from the scalp
Shampoo brushes are the key to world peace. They feel so good and make cleansing so easy. Do not sleep on this step! I noticed that my hair did feel a lot cleaner and I had an easier time working the shampoo through my strands when I used the brush. Straight hair or coily, you absolutely must invest in a shampoo brush. Here are some links to some great shampoo brushes!
3) Natural emollients are best
We've already kind of explored this idea with the no-silicones policy, but it's worth the deep dive. Natural emollients like shea, coconut, jojoba, and argan oils are great for hair! Experimenting with different oils was probably my favorite part of learning to take care of my hair. If you are a person who is very "toxic-load" conscious and has the EWG website bookmarked, you'll be very comfortable using these naturally-derived ingredients. All sorts of oils will hydrate all kinds of hair in all sorts of capacities. Figuring out which oils work best for you is something you can only really find through trial and error, though. For example, heavier oils like shea and coconut and castor oils are typically recommended "Afro" hair, while lighter oils like jojoba and grapeseed are aimed towards wavy/curly hair. Despite those recommendations, grapeseed tends to sit on my hair and leave it weighed down and greasy, while my hair absolutely drinks shea up! Just have fun with it and see what works best for you.
4) Add humectants into your regimen
Humectants are substances with properties that draw in and seal moisture. My hair definitely appreciates honey hair masks about once every 4-6 weeks. However, you should be careful with these! The majority of curl-friendly hair products have humectants like glycerin already included in their formulas. We should all be careful not to over-hydrate and trap too much moisture in our hair, which can lead to a whole other list of issues and of course, more breakage. You really shouldn't need to layer humectants very frequently or stress about making sure they're a part of your regimen.
5) Incorporating proteins is a must...kinda
A lot of companies are pushing proteins into curly products as they add more structure and definition to hair. This is great, unless you have lower porosity hair! If you have tighter sealed hair, you're most likely going to be much more protein-sensitive. If you have protein-sensitive hair, then using an excess of proteins could result in your hair drying from the inside out and becoming a damaged, tangled mess. Every hair needs some sort of protein, and you most likely aren't sensitive to all proteins or could get away with using a product that contains protein once a month or so. That said, you're best off using protein-free products on a regular basis if you have low-porosity hair. Proteins most commonly used are keratin, soy, silk, wheat, avocado, and egg. If your hair is breaking quite a bit and feels gummy, you should consider adding a protein treatment to your hair. But again, this is a note that is best addressed with experimentation! When my hair felt gummy, silk and quinoa proteins didn't help very much, but shea butter definitely did!
6) Scrunch your products in rather than brushing them through
The idea is that if you scrunch rather than brush through your hair products, you can preserve and even enhance your curl pattern. I hiss at brushes now, so scrunching works well for me! That said, I also add in another application method-the praying hands. The praying hands method is when you slide product down your hair with hands flat on both sides of the strands. If you have thick strands but not a lot of hair, you're probably fine just scrunching. If you love brushing your hair, stick to the brushing! If your hair abhors brushes but you still have a lot of strands, incorporating a mix of brushing and praying hands (the praying hands could smooth out some of the frizzing caused by the brush) or scrunching and praying hands may work best for you!
My take away from this process
I've learned a lot about my hair and paid a lot of attention to the ingredients, application methods, and how my hair looks and feels. I found that my hair does not appreciate brushes and protein, likes a little bit of honey here and there, and loves light-weight moisture. Terrycloth towels are the actual devil! My skin is very sensitive towards aloe vera, but doesn't really react to it as long as it isn't in the first 5 ingredients of a product. Propylene Glycol seems to make my scalp burn and break out. All of these things are important to know and only came to me through the process of trial and error.
Everyone's needs are different. There are people with absolutely gorgeous, healthy, wavy or curly or coily hair that use all sorts of sulfates combs or brushes. Likewise, there are people who've lived the CGM religiously for months or years and have hair that's a hot, frustrating mess. The best thing you can do for your hair is be intuitive, pay close attention to the ingredients in your products and RESEARCH THEM as you go.
So, should you make the switch to the CGM (or any of its elements)? Well, do you like your hair? Does your hair seem inexplicably dry and damaged? Is your hair half-curly, half straight and difficult to manage? Yes, try a couple of these steps out! Is your hair perfectly healthy, strong, and shiny? Are you comfortable with your regimen as-is? Then no, you're probably okay and there's no need for you to run out and replace all of your hair products. Trust your hair and your instincts and roll from there!
Below I'm sharing some links that can be helpful if you have more questions about the CGM or caring for textured hair, as well as some of my personal favorite products!
https://www.curlsbot.com/ This website is awesome! Simply type in or copy and paste the ingredients of a product to see if it's CGM-approved. This is a great starting point for getting to know your products becoming more familiar with different types of ingredients.
https://www.curlsbot.com/porosity Wondering what your porosity type is and what products would work well for it? This quiz is awesome! There are a lot of methods for finding your porosity, but this quiz is really helpful in my opinion.
https://www.naturallycurly.com/quiz This is a great starting place to learn what exactly your texture type is. The guide I posted earlier in this post is also pretty helpful!
https://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/product Learn about all sorts of products, ingredients, and other people's regimens here!
https://www.functionofbeauty.com/blog/new/curly-hair-tips/ more hair tips and information on ingredients here!
https://www.amazon.com/Curly-Girl-Handbook-Michele-Bender/dp/076115678X/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=curly+girl&qid=1582378323&sr=8-4 Lorraine Massey's book can be found here!
https://www.ulta.com/raw-shea-butter-deep-treatment-masque?productId=xlsImpprod6390365 My personal favorite hair mask
https://www.ulta.com/curl-talk-frizz-control-sculpting-gel?productId=xlsImpprod18721179 My favorite curl gel
https://www.ulta.com/100-virgin-coconut-oil-daily-hydration-shampoo?productId=xlsImpprod16401245 Favorite shampoo (so far!)
https://www.ulta.com/matcha-green-tea-wild-apple-blossom-nutrient-rich-conditioner?productId=xlsImpprod16891015 favorite conditioner
