I lower my head into a tea towel, twist the sides and wait 20 minutes. This is after I apply my leave-in and LA Looks gel. When I take down the towel, the back of my hair doesn't come down much - then I have to try and shake it, or separate it with my fingers, then I've manipulated it too much and it turns back into frizz.
I should have never cut my hair! Growing again.
I should have never cut my hair! Growing again.
I do plop but it isn't really intentional.
To style my hair after detangling in the shower, I finger-comb in a ton of conditioner (several palmfuls). Then when I get out of the shower, I place a microfiber towel onto the toilet seat, gently lean my head down letting the hair pile into it and do some very gentle upward squeezing motions to remove some of the excess water. I'm really careful with this and move slowly and gently to avoid creating frizz or breaking up curls. Then I stand up and while shifting my head at various angles to get access to all the curls, I apply a ton of gel (several palmfuls) over the curls/clumps in a downward motion, trying to fully coat each one. I find that I can't squeeze/scrunch gel upwards into my hair as it is way too long and will never get fully distributed beyond the bottom 12-18 inches that way. I also find that gently smoothing the gel over and downward smoothes away any frizzies created while scrunching out the excess water and reinforces the clumps. If I really want frizz-free perfection and am willing to spend a little extra time, I will sit down on the toilet seat, lean my head down letting all the hair fall forward where I can see it, and actually smooth/coat gel over each curl/clump individually. In addition to achieving a total absense of frizz, I can also extend the wash longer by doing this.
Now here is where the unintentional plopping comes in. I used to wash early in the day so that it could air dry by bedtime, but it would never be fully dry before bed. So I had to come up with a way to sleep on wet hair without mesing it up. So what I've been doing is washing at whatever time is convenient. And then come bedtime I place a satin scarf on my bed, carefully lean my head down over the middle of it and slowly lowering my hair into the middle of the scarf in a little pile. Then I grab the bottom two corners (closest to my body) and pull the corresponding edge up to my forehead and then bring the two corners down past my ears and tie them at my nape. Then I reach forward for the two corners farthest away from me, pull them up and over the pile of curls (this is a huge scarf, by the way) bringing the corresponding edge to the nape of my neck and bring the corners upward past my ears and tie them at my upper forehead. So I end up with double knots--one on top and one on bottom with my hair piled in to the loose area/pocket between at the crown of my head.
I then sleep like this. The scarf tied in precisely this way stays on overnight and does not mess up the curls at all. (This is the only way I've ever been able to keep anything on my head overnight.) So my aim was not plopping, just to preserve curls overnight, but that's effectively what I'm doing with the scarf.
When I wake up and remove the scarf my hair is still damp, but usually dries completely around 11 a.m. at which point I scrunch out the crunch (usually in the bathroom at the office). I get the best results SOTC by grabing long sections of hair and gently twisting along the length.
Then every night I wrap my hair back up in the satin scarf as described and I wake up with hair pretty much the same as it was when I went to bed. With this routine, I'm able to get a week of wearable curls. In fact, it looks better as the week progress--the curls look a little hard and overly defined the first 24-48 hours but looks prettier as they soften up from then on.
Okay so technically I'm not curly but wavy, but I decided to try plopping today after my shower just to see what would happen. I just used a cotton t shirt and left it on for maybe an hour because I was sitting around at home so why not When I took my hair down it was looking good but of course I never put any styling product in it because I've never used any before so now the frizz is creeping in as it continues to dry. I must try and find some sort of product to put in my hair and hopefully I can save my waves before the frizz takes over, which is what I've been battling with for ages!!
It doesnt work for me either. The "Rake and shake" method works better, but is tedious.
I have no remedy against that, this is OK for me on day 1 after washing at least. Then it goes poofy and no curl definition on the head. Just a big poof of spun sugar. I could scare kids.I get flattened hair at the top.
What do you all do???
If I fingercomb before plopping there will be no curls. Just every hair strand by itself in a complete mess
When plopping I cant use conventional gels, it only works with homemade gel from flax seed or psyllium seed. I can mix in some Aloe Vera gel, but thats it.
I guess its still very much "pre LHC". I have to wait some more for my hair to show its true qualities. I cut off 8 something inches this summer and hoping this will have done some good...
No one really touches my hair. But I touch it and handle it plenty throughout the course of an entire week. Frizz is only an issue if I touch it while it's still wet. Once it's dry it can be handled without causing much frizz or breaking up the curl--as long as I'm reasonably gentle with it.
I'm convinced that the reason I can get so many days of wearable curls is that I put massive amounts of product in it. For whatever reason I can put seemingly endless amounts of conditioner and gel in my hair without it looking producty. It's kind of a mystery to me how this is possible. Anyway my curl clumps are extremely weighed down and basically glued together once I'm done with them. (It's funny, people are like, oh it's so nice to see your natural curl, and I'm like heh, there's nothing natural about what I do to it--all 35 steps and half a pound of product.) So once they dry they are very solidly self-contained and the basic shapes very well set and it's not easily changed or broken up. And on top of that I've found a way to sleep on it that preserves the curls well.
You could try clipping the top sections of hair to create more volume. I sometimes do this with duckbill clips. (that's what they are called in English right?)
You just take small sections of hair along your part, clip and when your hair is dry you take them out again.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 CL 15 16 17 18 SL 20 21 22 23 APL 25 26 27 BSL 28 29 30 31 32 WL 34 35 36 HL 38 39 40 TB
Bookmarks