How To Get Your Hair to Curl…

… Without sticking a finger in an electric socket.

My apologies to those of you with straight hair. This is a primer for all of the Curly Sues out there.

First we start with hair that has no product in it and has been washed without conditioner. As you can see, my hair curls on its own. It also, however, frizzes up on its own.

The lighting, facial expression and nerd glasses all scream out “Before Photo!”

First, we gather together our product…

L’Oreal Vive Pro Curly/Wavy Hair Shampoo and Conditioner

Catwalk Curls Rock Curl Amplifier

Catwalk Curls Rock Leave-In Moisturizer

The shampoo and conditioner can be bought at any drugstore. The Curl Amplifier and Leave-In Moisturizer need to be bought at a salon or online. They’re usually about $15/each. If I don’t buy them online, I usually get them at Supercuts, because they often have two-for-one deals. Amazon.com apparently has them for only $10 each (Plus, if you’re feeling nice, you can click my links and help a girl out a bit).

If you can’t afford all four products, get the regular conditioner and the Curl Amplifier. If you can only get one product, go for the Curl Amplifier. It’s a real miracle product for curls (I wish that they were paying me to say that). The moisturizer is nice, but not necessary.

Start off with a shower.

Clearly, the kitten looks better naked in our bath-tub than I do

I condition my hair every day, but I only shampoo my hair every couple days or so. Basically, just shampoo it often enough to keep it from getting greasy. Run your fingers through your hair to break up any tangles, because you won’t be brushing it later. Don’t ever brush your hair, unless you will be blow-drying it straight. Brushing = Frizz.

If you shampooed your hair today, start off by using the leave-in moisturizer. Pump once (twice if you have a lot of hair) into the palm of your hand, rub hands together and rub it the length of your hair. It’s watery stuff, so it should be pretty easy to work through your hair.

It Puts the Lotion in the Hair or Else it Gets the Hose Again

Next we use the elixr of curls, the curl amplifier

Seriously, who wants to pay me to pimp this stuff out? I go through enough of it…

This stuff takes a little more time to work through your hair. Make sure that you work it all in or people will ask you all day what all that schmutz is. It’s not attractive.

Once you have it worked in, start taking small sections of hair and curling them up tightly. You don’t have to make yourself cry, but you do want to curl it tightly enough that you can feel a slight tug on your scalp. The tighter you make the coils, the better your curls will look later.

As you can see, I haven’t worked the product in well enough.

Once you’ve made all of your coils, scrunch your hair up with your fingers. This will break the curls up a bit, so be gentle. Scrunching at the top of your scalp will give your hair nice body.

At this point, you’re pretty much done if you don’t want to blow dry your hair. If you can get away with letting your hair air dry, it will help your curls out tremendously. If you don’t have time to let it dry on its own or you’ll be going out into the cold (curls look like crap when you let them freeze and then break off), use a blow dryer.

Are you feeling lucky punk? Are you?

I use an ionizing blow dryer with a diffusing attachment. Make sure that you use the diffuser as it will prevent your hair from frizzing up.

The electrical outlet in our bathroom is busted, so this picture is totally faked.

Blow dry in an upwards direction to give yourself more body. Continue curling your hair with your fingers and scrunching at the roots. Leave your hair slightly damp, as it will curl better and keep from frizzing if it finishes drying on its own.

Of course, if you’re feeling lazy, you can take a shower, use the conditioner, work the curl amplifier through your hair and then go to bed. If you don’t mind falling asleep with wet hair, you can let the product and your bed head work their magic while you sleep.

Your hair will curl better if you sleep on a sock monkey pillowcase.

This might seem rather complicated, but it shouldn’t take you more than 15 minutes or so. The curl amplifier will do most of the work for you. You just need to help it along by coiling your hair and being a bit gentle with it. A good haircut helps a lot, as does curl shampoo and conditioner (there are other products out there if you don’t like the L’Oreal version). To be honest, I get the most compliments on my curls when I put some product in at night and then sleep on it. Even professionals can’t make my curls look as good as a night spent sleeping on it.

That’s just about it. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments section. I’ll take a picture tomorrow and post it to let you see what my hair looks like in the morning.