Curly girls, share your summer methods?

I am currently struggling to switch from winter hair to summer hair. In the winter I blow-dry smooth (not straight, that's too much work) and set loose waves with a 1 inch barrel curling iron. It's fast and easy and usually looks okay.

Come summer humidity that goes out the window. What starts out looking okay turns cotton candy disaster in an hour. Neither smooth nor curly, just some mess in between. Enter the need to air dry or diffuser day. And that's where I'm struggling.

I know there are tons of products and it's hard to think of anything more YMMV than hair products. So I'm looking for method-technique-timing help more than product recs. (But if you want, rec away!) My current method is not working at all. Here it is:

Get it wet in the AM (I wash at night).
Put a root boost something at the roots and a curl boost something mid-shaft down.
Diffuser some and air dry the rest of the way.
Fluff through and use a smaller barrel curling iron for some polishing.

Main problem...I don't have time for air-drying in the morning! I always rush it, too much hands on, and end up with fuzz instead of curl. And if I do have time and patience some morning and manage to leave it alone, it still needs styling because I hate the full air-dried unstyled look on me.

Share what works for you! I need help! Does anyone have success with putting product in at night, sleeping on it and doing some faster, abbreviated technique in the mornings? That's the only thing I've thought of to try.

8 years ago

Jeweled

Veteran

Hi Peri! I have wavy hair that frizzes easily in humidity. I have a short hair cut - about three and a half inches long all over.

I shower at night, put hair product in my hair after my shower, and can style my hair quickly in the morning. If it helps any, here's what I do.

After my nightime shower, I towel-dry my hair pretty vigorously and then let my hair mostly air dry while I do my skin moisturizer, etc. Then when hair is still just slightly damp I squeeze a small dab of "Got 2 B Glued Gel" gel onto one fingertip and rub my fingers together so that all fingertips of both hands have an even distribution of the gel.

Then I sort of run my fingers through my hair, pretty much lightly coating all of my hair shafts with the gel. Then I do a bit of scrunching all over to let my waves start curving.

Lastly, I use my fingers as "curlers" to shape a few natural-looking curls around my face. Usually by this time the gel has sort of dried on my fingers, so I dampen my fingertips very slightly to moisten this leftover gel for making these "finger curls".

The gel also helps my hair stay the way I want it, but softly - not in a stiff or sculpted way.

It also keeps my hair from frizzing, all the way up till my next shampooing (I shampoo about every other day).
Each morning I style my hair in about two minutes. I smear a very tiny amount of the gel on my fingertips, dampen my fingers slightly, and just sort of scrunch and place my waves how I want them.

I never use brushes or combs - I only finger-comb my hair. I also never use heat, color, perms, or other chemical processes on my hair. Not because I'm a purist, but more because I'm frugal and lazy. LOL

I'm a wash-and-air-dry kind of gal, and I like my current hair cut because it really works well with what my hair wants to do. I think that is a major key also.

Greyscale

I wash my hair at night (once or twice a week), put in a bit of light shea butter & aloe curl gel, put it up in a microfiber towel for a few minutes to absorb some of the water, pile it on top of my head in a very high ponytail, and sleep on it. A few hours after I wake up, it's basically perfect. But my climate is very friendly to curly hair, so I don't have to deal with the dreaded summer frizzies.

It took me ~30 years to find this method, and I don't always feel like washing my hair at night, so I haven't entirely gotten in the habit.

shedev

Use products made for curly hair. Deep condition. Have you considered sleeping in a bonnet?

Meredith

Have you ever tried plopping? I just recently learned about this technique and even though my hair is more wavy than curly and on the short side, plopping makes it more frizz free and shiny than anything else I've tried.

To plop, you basically wash your hair, gently towel dry, comb whatever product you use through and then "plop" your curls into a t-shirt, wrap and let dry. I think you can leave the wrap in over night, but I usually wash in the morning, wrap for an hour in a microfiber hair turban and then finish with the diffuser.

Here's a quick how-to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mInPt4-_Dyc

No special products or equipment required!

Meredith, I also do that with mine, either with a microfiber towel or an old tee. I've discovered that keeping it in overnight doesn't matter as much for me, but if I wash my hair in the morning, I leave it like that for as long as I can. I think the benefit of that, or the overnight top-ponytail, is that the curls aren't dragged down by the weight of the water.

Greyscale, I think you are right about the water weight. If I let my hair simply air dry, my waves/curls lose their oomph, and if I try to diffuse while wet I run into the scrunching and frizz problem Peri mentioned. I wish my hair was long enough to try the high pony method.

Peri

Plopping..that's hysterical! It reminds me of high school when limp and straight was my main goal in life and I would wrap my wet hair around my head like a giant comb-over, just stretching it out and pinning it to dry that way. Ah, the things we do.

Actually the way her hair looks in the end is kind of what I'm trying to avoid. Yes, it looks non-frizzy, but on me I really don't like that still wet look she's got...kind of crunchy/greasy looking even though it may not be. But I will try it with my microfiber towel and maybe less product than she's got going on.

Staysfit

Meredith, your plopping technique is something my daughter uses, but she calls it "nun hair" because when she wraps all her hair in the tee it looks like a nun's habit. It works perfectly for her hair which is very long, thick, and has corkscrew curls. Her hair looks shiny, and the curls stay pretty and well defined most of the day. I say most because she tends to play with her hair, and I'm not sure if that makes it get messier, or if it's just the accumulation of increasing frizz throughout the day. (By play, I mean she twists it up into a makeshift bun, or she pulls it into a pony tail, and then she changes it again and let's it down, etc.)

Yeah, she uses a lot of cheap product-I just thought it was easier to show her rolling up her hair than try to describe it myself! Might not work for you, but worth a shot!

Robin

Active Member

Well, first I would recommend moving to Seattle. My curls have never looked better. :p

Seriously, one thing my hairstylist suggested to me for managing curly hair is to use an oil-based product.

I'm not sure what product you've been using, but you could always give something oil-based a try. I think argon oil is pretty popular, though the Morocan Oil product that has popularized it is actually mostly silicone (which does help tame hair). I personally stay away from silicone-based hair products much of the time because I find they build up too much.

For the past few years, my go to place for hair products has been http://www.oyinhandmade.com.

I'm loving everyone's suggestions. How long does hair need to be for plopping to have any effect?
Your reply

Rubygirl

Plopping, what an interesting concept. I do not have overly curly hair. I do have wavy hair with lots of body and will do curls if I scrunch it. I am thinking this plopping might work for me on days I would like to have the curls.
Someone mentioned using argan oil for frizz. I have some but it is a work in progress for me.

I am going to plop/plunk my hair and see what happens!

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