Curly Hair Routines & More: Share Your Routines with Us!

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Readers had an interesting thread about curly hair routines the other day — I don't think we've talked about this recently, so let's share our general hair routines! Please share your hair type or style (broad strokes are OK), any environmental factors (water type, humidity), and what products and techniques you use!

For my own $.02, I've been leaning into curly hair for the past two years — I'd say that it's somewhere between a 2C and 3A right now. I'm still frizzy some days but I'm generally pleased with my curl definition.

I cut my own hair when things were really bad (curls are pretty easy to DIY; you just chop off the bottom of each curl and make sure the general effect is even), but when I went back to my stylist I asked for a curly cut that might still be able to be blown out. (If you're not familiar with them, some curly cuts really layer your hair in ways that can look fabulous when curly and horrible if your hair is occasionally straight.) To be honest I have no idea what kind of water we have.

I only wash my hair every 3–4 days, using a variety of shampoos and conditioners (links below!). Rarely (maybe once every six months) I'll do extra treatments, like an apple cider vinegar rinse after shampoo to help with frizz/buildup, or do a hair mask, usually before I get into the shower. The only time I really comb my hair is when I have conditioner in it; I like wide-tooth Conair combs. (I do have a Denman brush — personally I haven't noticed a difference in my hair when I use it unless I do it right after I turn off the water, and I usually forget. But I've used the base of the brush to coil my strands and get a better curl…)

I'm still kind of playing around with my own curly hair routine — currently I rake my strands with leave-in conditioner in while my hair is sopping wet (love this one from Mixed Chicks), then plop it using a Turbo Twist towel. After I've done my skincare routine, lotioned up, and gotten dressed, I flip my head upside down and scrunch in about a quarter-size dollop of gel (I'm still loving the EcoSlay gel, but sometimes I use the Aussie gel). After this I'll scrunch in about a quarter-size dollop of curl defining cream, like Living Proof's. (I just saw a great tutorial for finger coiling that I'll have to try.)

{related: how long do you spend on your hair for work?}

Then I use little duck clips to pick up the sections closest to my face, and let my hair air dry. I'm trying to get in the habit of diffusing it when it's almost dry because I see so many curly girls with amazing hair who diffuse it… but I tend to get involved in something else and forget to monitor when my hair is 80% dry.

My hair does not get overly “crunchy” with these amounts of products, so I don't have to “scrunch out the crunch” — I suppose I could add more products but I'm fine at the moment.

Second day hair: I've found that the gel is key to keeping the curls for multiple days in a row — no gel or too little gel and I'm a flattened, frizzy mess after one day.

Like I've mentioned before, I really like sleeping in a stretchy, cooling gaiter like these — they're comfortable, and my hair looks great afterwards. On nights when I shower and wash my hair, I'm having decent luck with sleeping in wet hair in a gaiter as long as I flip my head totally upside down while putting the gaiter on. I actually have an old absorbent T-shirt towel from Curls Like Us that is sort of a circular gaiter shape — if I happen to have it I can use it as a “liner” for the usual, stretchy gaiter, so my pillow doesn't get all wet. The T-shirt one wouldn't stay on by itself so it needs the second, stretchy one to stay in place.

If I'm going somewhere and need to refresh Day 2 or Day 3 hair, I have a large plastic bowl (like huge bag of popcorn size bowl) that I keep in the bathroom — you can often find them in picnic supplies in stores like Walmart. Anyway, I put a little bit of water into it and then flip my head upside down to liberally soak the bottom of my hair. While I'm doing that, I'll use this spray bottle (it's amazing, like a fine mist) to wet some of the top portions of my hair, and scrunch everything in again, and then use the duck clips again while I do my makeup. My hair is fine but there's a lot of it, so it often takes 3–4 hours to air dry when it's drenched after a shower, but doing this kind of refresh only takes 20–30 minutes to air dry.

(Also an option: one of the bun-type updos we featured in our roundup for easy office updos. My favorite is the inverted bun; it's really simple.)

That's my curly hair routine — what are your hair routines, readers? What have you been doing forever, what have you tried and didn't work for you, and what things do you still want to try?

Psst: As of 2024, these are some of Kat's favorite hair products (she largely follows curly hair routines)… but she loves this $30 brush/blowdryer!

Stock photo via Stencil.