Curly-Hair Knowledge

What a great weekend! I can never complain when my weekend is full of being with friends. We can only be thankful! Well, this weekend I got a haircut. I realize that at this point you are thinking of checking out now, because who wants to read a post about a haircut? Good point. But I got more than a haircut- I received an education about my hair.

Let me give you some sad history. I've never been one to pay much more than $30-$40 for a haircut including tip (insert angry outcries!) Of course it's no wonder that I've never really had someone who understood my hair. I've had a lot of people cut it while it's wet and other people who knew enough to cut it while dry. A haircut is a haircut though, and I've never had a bad enough one to cry about it or a good enough one to be really happy about it. I kept looking for that one person, my stylist soulmate, who could finally inspire confidence in me that they knew my hair and were knowledgeable about what they were doing. Those celebs and magazine people have great styles and I wondered if it would be possible for a normal person to look like that on a regular basis. The great news is that it is possible, but not without a price.

The stylist who was giving me an education was telling me about how curly hair needs moisture and a lot of hair products are structured for straight-haired people whose scalps get more greasy than curly-haired peoples. One ingredient in shampoo that strips hair of moisture is sulfate. Sulfate is in EVERYTHING you use for cleaning- toilet bowl cleaner, laundry detergent, toothpaste, dishwashing detergent. So it's important to cut out sulfate in your shampoo. Apparently, most shampoos that are for people with colored (dyed) hair are sulfate free so they don't destroy the color. Maybe sulfate-free products won't be super expensive! Then she said that stylists need to cut the hair with the line of the scalp. Everyone's head is a different shape, so what's good for you might make me look triangular (flat on top and fluffy on the bottom). All this is making sense to me now.

Do you know why hair frizzes? Because it lacks moisture. To avoid frizzing you need to trap moisture in your hair to begin with. A good way to do that is by using an alcohol-free gel. Who knew? But I am trying to get the same results without having to try to find an alcohol-free product. I'll let you know how that goes. This is all while trying to keep body in the hair.

To make a lengthy story shorter, after my hair was styled and dry, my hair looked like the picture below which was the actual picture I was compared to. At last, I felt like crying because my hair had finally looked awesome. How shallow is that, right? And we lived happily ever after....

....Until Sunday, when I washed it and tried it all on my own and it didn't really work. Sigh. Oh well- I'm trying different ideas to make it work without buying a $19 bottle of 8 oz gel. I may just need to purchase this book so that I can have all that info at my fingertips. You should too if you want good success. Nevertheless, wish me luck!