curly girl method – one month

It has officially been a month since I quit using harsh shampoos (I only caved twice and used a special “low-poo”), towels, brushes, parabens, sulfates, silicones, etc.

I am loving it! My hair seems to like it too. I have some good days and some bad hair days just like before, but I have seen noticeably less frizz and better definition.

My routine is pretty much second nature by now. It has not changed much from my first post but if you haven’t read that one, here is what I do:

Condition scalp with fingertips to “wash” it using Not Your Mother’s Conditioner .

Add conditioner throughout (squish to condish method) and then use this in-shower comb under running water to detangle.

Squish in a bit more conditioner(don’t rake it!), let sit a minute, then rinse out 80%.

Flip head over (turn the shower off at this point or you’ll feel like your drowning, so I learned) and scrunch/squish out as much water as you can over and over.

Add in a dime size of Cantu Curl Activator in a squishing/scrunching motion. I do this in the shower because I read it was best to use on very wet hair.

Scrunch out even more water with a t shirt then add this cream and this gel

Plop overnight in a t shirt, if I wake up and it’s still too damp to air dry, I diffuse briefly.

Once dry, I scrunch out the crunch (SOTC in curly instagram lingo) with dry hands and sometimes this argan oil

It sounds like a lot of work but it’s not really. And I’m trying to only do this every 3 days now!

During showers that you don’t wash, use a shower cap. I use this cute one. On nights you don’t plop, sleep with hair on top of head in a fairly loose scrunchy.

On non-wash days, if hair looks bad, I “refresh” aka spray in a homemade conditioner/water mixture and a little gel and re-scrunch.

When I blogged about this at the 10 day point, I hadn’t learned about gel yet!

I have historically avoided crunchy gels. But I recently learned that a crunch or a “cast” over the hair is good! You just need to scrunch it out.

Thank you Instagram curly hair gurus!

I have a lot to learn, but I’ve found this little community of curly and wavy girls on IG and it’s nice to learn about techniques, read product reviews, see results etc.

Here are pictures to show progress! Some days it looks worse than the day before and some days better. I am still learning what works best for me. But I am happy with it and recommend to anyone with struggling waves or curls!

Sorry for all the selfies…

Are you tired of hair selfies yet?!

For my 2 month check in and I am going to show you results from both root clipping and a DIY rice rinse (saw it on Instagram). I just bought my rice tonight and can’t wait!

Thanks for following along on this curly journey of mine. Let me know if you have tried the method. I love seeing hair transformations!