Experimenting with: The Curly Girl Method

It's funny how two people can have a good, long chit chat over curly hair. The story is that me and my internship supervisor had a good, long discussion about curly hair-we talked about how to take care of curly hair, products and the eternal struggles of taking care of curly hair and the eternal enemy humidity. Well, one thing led to another and then she let me borrow her copy of the ever so famous, much discussed Curly Girl: The Handbook by Lorraine Massey and Michele Bender. So now that I've read this book several times, here's my takeaway:

1) The author HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATES blowdryers so much that she refers to them blow-fryers throughout the book. This play-on of words was amusing and yet, I understand why she does not care for blowdryers-with overuse, they fry your hair to pieces. As someone with fine hair, I've seen the damage it can do to someone's hair, and it isn't cute!

2) Conditioner is everything, or better yet, products without sulfates. In my experience, shampoo can be very very drying and many people with kinky-coily hair skip shampoos altogether. So the key to this is to use either a sulfate-free shampoo or a botanical conditioner. I was never a huge fan of co-washing, however if co-washing is the answer to how thirsty my hair gets, I am more than willing to give this a shot.

3) The washing process does not have to take forever and a day. On a good wash day, I have to wash, condition and oil rinse my hair, all of which can take more than an hour in the shower. This method however, everything takes less than an hour

4) This process alone can (hopefully) show off your defined curl pattern. The process for those with kinky-coily hair makes sense-put some gel (alcohol free!) and let it air dry and your hair will set into that cast. There's no reason to shell out for those products that promise to bring out your curl patter *coughMissJessiecough*

There are some questions that I have after reading this however-if someone with zig-zag fractural curls uses this method, would it be okay to spray your hair everyday? For me, if I don't seal my hair with an oil and a cream product, I'd have to spray my with her lavender spray (a recipe that she gives in her book) twice a day, and if I don't, my hair will break off into pieces. However, the author does say you can make modifications to the method, so I doubt this is even a question.

Overall, I'll really adhere to this method when my hair gets longer. I recommend this book for curly-haired women that have no idea what to do with their curls-you might just pick up a trick or two! :D