Believe it or not, I didn’t know I had type 2 curly hair until I was 19. I knew I had a curl to my hair, but I didn’t know its full potential. It wasn’t until one of my best friends let me try her curl cream that I realized there was a lot more to my hair. Before that moment, my hair would just lay awkward, and I didn’t know what to do with it.
Is your hair curly?
Here are some signs that you have curly hair!
You have curly clumps when your hair is wet, but it dries weird
This is a picture of me when I was about 5 years old. As you can see, I have curly clumps when my hair is wet.
The addition of water molecules to the hair allows your hair to revert back to its natural state. Now, you might be thinking, Then why does my hair look like a frizzy, straight mess when it dries? When hair is manipulated, it loses its pattern. All the times I towel dried my hair out of the shower and brushed it, I was going against my curl pattern. Additional hair products can also weigh your hair down depending on your hair porosity. For example, my hair has low porosity. There are just some products that my hair will not absorb easily. That’s why knowing your hair porosity is so important, but we’ll get into that in another post.
Your hair is poofy and frizzy
Here’s my 4th-grade school picture. It’s not terrible, but there is some slight poof and frizz. This picture was definitely after I took a hairbrush to my head. Remember the small-toothed combs they’d give us on picture day?
The dreaded hairbrush isn’t the only thing that causes a frizzy, poofy mess. My hair’s biggest downfall living in South Texas is the humidity. As soon as you step outside, you choke on warm, moist air. When there’s more moisture in the air than in your hair, water molecules will enter the hair strand causing your hair to want to go back to its natural state. Of course, your hair isn’t getting drenched, so the result of that moisture is frizz.
You struggle to manage your hair
This was the worst haircut I’ve ever had in my life. Believe it or not, this picture was taken only a few months after the previous picture. My hair had become so difficult for me to manage as a child that I was forced to chop it all off.
After this haircut, the ends of my hair would flip up. I’d always get so annoyed, and I never knew why my hair wouldn’t cooperate.
Trying to style my hair was a different story. The blow dryer made things worse, and the straightener couldn’t keep up with the wear and tear of a 10-year-old girl.
Finding the right curly hair routine.
TikTok has been a huge resource of mine in figuring out how to style my hair. I mentioned earlier that because of my hair porosity, some products don’t work because my hair doesn’t absorb them easily. Finding the right hair products for your hair type is so important! Some hair products can weigh your hair down or even make it greasy. Find out your hair type and porosity. This will help you achieve the best results!
*Tip: YOU NEED A GEL! DO NOT SKIP THE GEL!
The bowl method and curly hair
I recently tried the bowl method because I wasn’t getting the results I knew I could achieve. The bowl method is when you dunk your hair in water after applying your products. By using the bowl method, you are diluting your hair products, but, in doing so, you are evenly distributing them. I can truly say that my hair has never looked better. The bowl method has saved me.
