How to: The Curly Girl Method

Written by Sophie Hicks and Hannah McQuinn.

The Curly Girl Method seems like a maze at first, and after years of trying to learn, it doesn’t get much easier. Even within the community, there’s a constant stream of debates. Whether ‘no-poo’ or ‘low-poo’ is better, if some sulphates are actually okay, and how often you should be washing your hair… the list goes on. We can’t bring ourselves to wash our hair just once a week. There are however, several ways in which the curly girl method has made us regain confidence with our hair.

If in doubt, add a small amount! For washing our hair, we find adding a two-pound size blob of shampoo the perfect quantity. This more cost-effective method not only saves you running to Superdrug, but also encourages a much more thorough wash as the lather of shampoo tends to take longer.

Double washing your hair is effective too. Adding that second step into your hair washing routine effectively removes all the dirt and buildup of oils. We find that this, alongside the curly girl method, keeps our hair grease-free for days!

Need to revitalize your 4-day old curls or tame your morning Hagrid hair with this simple trick? Simply add a small amount of your chosen conditioner into a spray bottle and top up with water, give it a shake and spritz over your curls. An immediate, quick fix which defines and renews your tired looking curls, without even washing your hair!

The ‘scrunch out the crunch’ is also ingenious. We have been told to use mousse and gel in our hair, but never really knew how to use them properly. Why would we want to use a product that would make our hair stiff? Well, the technique actually requires a hard cast to form on the hair, which can later be scrunched out to reveal defined, minimal-frizz curls.

Lastly, another game-changer are silk pillowcases. Silk causes less friction against your hair as you sleep, which in turn makes less frizz. When sleeping at a friend’s house, they usually laugh at the granny-looking silk sleep turban, but we genuinely adore them. The combination of a silk pillowcase and a silk hair turban ensures that the hair looks decent on non-wash days, whilst also being extremely comfy to sleep on. As people who could not maintain the ‘day one’ curl, this has been a lifesaver and it’s well worth the investment.

Ultimately, it’s definitely worth trying out aspects of the Curly Girl Method of it to see what works for your curl pattern and lifestyle. What works for us may not work for you, and vice versa!