I’ve started using the Curly Girl hair method, and I think it may officially be my most favorite hair style yet.

Let me back up…

I always knew I had wavy hair. Like the kind of hair that you can’t just walk out of a shower and let air dry and it magically is straight or curly kind of hair. Through middle school….high school….college….post-college life…ok, so I don’t change my hair much, I switched between straightening it and wearing it curly – like that gel-ly, ‘your hair still looks wet’ curly that was ever so popular in the early late 90’s and early 2000’s.

Then several years back, I started accepting that I truly dreaded having to straighten my hair. Or even having to use a hair dryer at all. Enter the phase of life of shower at night, let it air dry, then curl it in the morning.

But several weeks back, I jumped head first into a YouTube rabbit hole about…the Curly Girl method. All of a sudden, I had consumed hours of Real Life Curly Girl videos. I had a whole heap of new products in my Amazon cart waiting for check out, and I was ready to dive head first into seeing if I could pull off the curly girl method with my wavy hair.

What is The Curly Girl Method?

As I understand it, the Curly Girl Method is based off a book by Lorraine Massey called The Curly Girl Handbook. It’s a handbook (imagine that!) of how to get the best natural curls for your hair. I’m going to over simplify it, but here are the key points I took away:

Every 3-4 weeks, you have to clarify your hair and deep condition to get all of the build-up out of your hair.

Products with sulfates, silicone…other stuff that I don’t truly understand…is bad for curly girls. (I honestly just google “curly girl method products” if I ever have a question about something I’m using)

The gel cast to set and hold your curls is SUPER important. When I was younger, I stopped at the “cast” and just walked around with hair that looked like it was still wet. The important step here, though, is that after it sets and has dried completely, you SCRUNCH OUT THE CRUNCH so your hair doesn’t have that 1997 gel haired look.

So with my very {primitive} understanding of the CG method, I jumped in head first.

The Products

Every 2-3 weeks “Clarifying”:

Step 1: Suave Daily Clarifying Shampoo – I started out by clarifying my hair to remove any other products that may have still been left in it. This bottle is massive and is so cheap.

Step 2: Jessicurl Deep Conditioning Treatment – I followed my clarifying with a deep conditioning treatment. I left it on for 30 minutes before rinsing it out.

Every 2-4 days “Wash Days”:

Shampoo // Conditioner – I tried the Shea Moisture shampoo and conditioner. And the first few times I used it, I loved it. It smelled SO good. BUT, after about a week, the build up from the shea butter made my hair………..so gross. So weighted down. Just ugh. I feel like maybe if I had true curly hair rather than wavy, this would have been a much better option, but I had to stop using it ASAP.

And the line-up for the after shampooing…

Step 1: Leave-in conditioner – After using a t-shirt to dry excess water from your hair, use a leave-in conditioner. How much you get for this one for the price is perfection. Plus, I love it. I’ve been using it for over a month now, and love it. Zero complaints.

Step 2: Moisturizing cream – I use this to tame some of the frizz and dry hair that comes with having wavy hair. Again – zero complaints about this product. I think it’s working great, and I haven’t switched it out at all.

Step 3: Curl enhancer – Follow the moisturizing cream with a curl enhancer. Loved this one. I’ve stuck with this one too.

Step 4: Gel cast – At first, so many of the blogs I read and videos I watched were all like, ‘you can use whatever gel you want!’ But I’m not sure I agree with that after using this one several times. It was a bit too heavy for my “wavy” hair. I ended up switching out the gel after a couple of weeks of using this gel.

The Results

I’ve switched out a few products, but I think I’m starting to get the hang of this curly girl life. And life without heat tools is a good life to me!