How to bring out the wurliness?

[CayAsh]

I have naturally wurly hair, but recently it's coming out straight with only a few curls and waves, so I'm curious what products or tips y'all have to bring out the wurls? I don't know if I should just let it dry before combing it and then detangle once it's completely dry from the shower or change up my routine of how I'm washing.

Thank you!

[meteor]

You might need to experiment a bit. :)
Depending on your hair's texture, porosity, etc, your preference for the end result look and which products you like to use and how much time you have on your hands during and after a wash, different methods might work.

I'd experiment with the following to see if your hair responds well and if the routine is not too involved for the end result ;) :

- "squish-to-condish" technique while conditioning in the shower (for clumping),
- scrunching while air-drying or blow-drying (with diffuser),
- plopping with a cotton t-shirt while towel-drying,
- not touching hair at all while air-drying,
- "rake & shake" technique (by Ouidad) while air-drying or diffusing on cool/low setting,
- oil rinses (between shampoo & conditioner) and/or LOC/LCO-style post-wash routines for definition (for clumping and frizz reduction),
- wet/damp-setting with gel/setting lotion/diluted conditioner,
- avoiding all brushing and/or combing outside the shower (if combing/brushing breaks up clumps, straightens out or frizzes up the hair)
- The Curly Girl Method,
- The Tightly Curly Method,
- etc, etc...

[lapushka]

If it *really* is 1c/2a like your stats say, then the above methods might not work that well. YMMV. You'll have to experiment a bit.

[CayAsh]

Meteor, I'll try some of your tips over the next weeks and see how that goes.

lapushka, I don't think my hair even knows what it wants to be. I didn't comb it while I let it dry today and it looks almost like a 2b. I'll take a comparison photo once I get home today to show the difference between when I comb after showering while it dries versus what I did today

[lapushka]

lapushka, I don't think my hair even knows what it wants to be. I didn't comb it while I let it dry today and it looks almost like a 2b. I'll take a comparison photo once I get home today to show the difference between when I comb after showering while it dries versus what I did today

Why not make it an official hairtyping picture while you're at it! :thumbsup: :)

[CayAsh]

http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a516/caylaashleyy/hair%20typing_zpsddvpniov.png

okay, so I clarified this morning and didn't comb as opposed to when I do comb my hair and it comes out almost bone straight.

[littlestarface]

okay, so I clarified this morning and didn't comb as opposed to when I do comb my hair and it comes out almost bone straight.

Try what I do. Get alot of water in the cup of your hand and scrunching each section slowly making sure your hair forms spirals as you go up, then get your hair scrunched in a cotton tshirt for 30mins and let it air dry no touching, see if that helps you. I have hair almost exactly like you and when I do this I get wurls.

[marvel-lover]

I recommend finger combing as much as you can. Personally, my hair is wurly, but if I brush it, a) I'm damaging my hair and b) I'm ruining the wurly-ness.

[Jamiedaysleeper]

I've had great success with Shea Moisture Curl Defining Smoothie. In fact, my hair has been completely different since using their products. I use the low porosity shampoo and conditioner, and sometimes the low porosity leave in detangler. I finish with the Sacha Inchi rescue and repair curl defining smoothie. My hair has more body and is really looking a lot better.

[vampyyri]

Your before and after look a lot like mine:

http://i.imgur.com/SqVc8ib.jpg

First picture is from brushing/combing and not using anything to enhance my natural waves... second picture is several months later and adopting finger combing, squish to condish, and the LOC method (Shea Moisture's Curl Enhancing Smoothie is a godsend for me personally).
So it is possible, just need to adjust your routine a bit is all :p

[lapushka]

I'd call that 2a, for sure, if the hairtyping picture is the one on the right. If it's the one on the left, then your hair is 1a/b straight.

Like V, I too have had lots of success scrunching the Curl Enhancing Smoothie (Shea Moisture) through my hair. Use a tiny amount of product though, a small coinsize is enough, spread it through palms and scrunch in.

[ghanima]

I have curlier hair and shorter than yours, so it may and may not work for you. My favorite trick for curls is plopping. I don't know if at your length it would encourage tangles though.
Also, I find that ACV+water rinses help the curl formation.
Also also, moisture, like others said.

ETA: how do your hair behave after buns? bun waves are so beautiful! you could sleep with a high bun after ever so slightly spraying the hair with water and whatever like cream, leave-in etc.. It's also protective of the hair. Don't wet the hair too much because, a. they won't dry by morning, and b. it's awfully unpleasant.

ETA:Just saw this (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=110540&page=1325&p=3369201&viewfull=1#post3369201), you may try pre-poo oiling too.

[ghanima]

@vampyyri
what a terrific job you've done with your hair! fantastic before/after transformation

[wispe]

Your combed-uncombed examples remind me a lot of how my hair behaves! I have about 1c/2a, with some areas of my hair more wurly than others (like my temples and the underside/nape being wavier and the canopy being more 1c). If I comb it as it's damp/drying, or brush it after it's fully dry I get ~1b/c. If I want to maximize my wurl, moisture is key. Totally untouched after combing in the shower and airdried when my hair is properly moisturized has me thinking I might be 2a. I find going more curlygirl with my products and routine really helps. I either cwc or wcc, (lately with sulfate/silicone free products) usually I do rinse-out-oil (ROO) before my last conditioner in the shower. Squish to condish, LOC on soggy wet hair, plop. I can get mega wurl if I diffuse but even when I air-dry I have wurly results. When I don't plop, I twist my hair up in a turban for ~20 mins and fingercomb after it's 95% dry - 1c/2a texture then. The CES is great for wurl/curl - I am still experimenting with an amount that doesn't make my hair sticky as I find it easy to overdo on my finer hair. I don't have it down to a holy grail routine yet but so far this helps!

I do find when I fingercomb and want to keep the wurl I have to be sure to just separate/divide clumps or sections rather than rake my fingers through the hair or I pull out wurl. I try to make sure I've really detangled in the shower so I don't have to detangle it the first day when I want wurls, and then I'll carefully fingercomb it as needed. I save actual combs for when I'm done wearing my hair down/wurly and want to braid it/bun it and wear it up until my next wash.

I also really like overnight heatless wave/curl methods for when I definitely want texture. Rope braids look more like my actual texture than any other braidwave for me (maybe because they're looser spiral bends?) If I want spirals I do stand-up pin curls. Bun waves tend to fall out but leave me with more volume. With all of this, some product in my hair helps the wave or curl to hold better as my hair likes to fall out of manipulated styles fast. I usually like to wear my heatless style a full day, sleep on it, and take it down on day 2 (unless pincurls, I do those evening/late afternoon and try to keep them in 12+ hours).

I can probably find some pics of my hair with all these methods if I hunt them down, just let me know and I'll peep through my imgur for some examples.

[yogagirl]

Amla is supposed to enhance waves. I add it to my conditioner once in a while and does seem to help a bit.

Clarifying is drying and reduces my waves a bit, but only directly after the clarifying wash. On the other hand, buildup also causes me to lose my waves, so clarifying once in a while does help in the grand scheme of things.

After using SLS free shampoo, my hair usually dries wavier.

Hard water makes my hair dry and less wavy. I do a filtered water rinse and it helps quite a bit with dryness and i think with waves as well.

Letting my hair sit damp under a turbie towel seems to help as well. Then when I take it out, I try not to touch it until it's dry.

My top layers just do not want to stay wavy at all, esp on 2nd day hair. Then I sometimes make a half up, so I can enjoy my waves for another day :)

[CayAsh]

Oh my goodness, thank you all for all of your responses! Y'all are just a treasure trove of information about hair :bigeyes: My roommate actually had some of the Shea Moisture curl smoothie, so after trying WCC and squish to condish, I added that and plopped, so we shall see how that works out for me!

@vampyyri, oh my gosh. your length and waves are lovely!

@ghanima, I was a ballerina for quite some time and would do multi twist buns in the morning while my hair was wet, and by the end of the day I'd have some nice waves if it had fully dried, or it would look like I had dreads....depended on how tight I did the twists. Whoopsies :lol:

@wispe, do you diffuse with cold air? I would love to see pictures of your hair with the different methods!

[wispe]

When I diffuse I've used the warm setting and then finished with the cool setting, on each section (I do like 4-5 sections). As I don't actually own a hairdryer I don't blow dry/diffuse often. I can't find any pictures of when I diffused last but it's just a more voluminous version of the scrunch/airdry wurl if memory serves. My hair is fine and easily weighed down by product, so I try to use as little as possible. Especially with the CES - too much of that and my hair gets downright sticky. You may need some trial/error experimenting to find your ideal products & amounts, but that's the fun stuff. Good luck!

Okay picture spam! I've typed myself at about 1c - 1c/2a for reference. Some days are wurlier than others.

hairtyping - fingercombed - scrunch/airdry
http://i.imgur.com/2zJQ1eq.jpg?1 http://i.imgur.com/Upt3De3.jpg?1 http://i.imgur.com/vKwNpt8.jpg?1

pin curls - rope braid waves - ??? dutch braid waves I think
http://i.imgur.com/6bmozHt.jpg http://i.imgur.com/FkXceBu.jpg?1 http://i.imgur.com/q9QzLWQ.jpg?1

excuse my censoring of the rope braid wave photo, my face was being dumb that day!

[CayAsh]

Oh my gosh! Wispe your hair is fantastic! All those wurls and curls! Do you have any tips for pin curls?

So far, my hair is loving the CES the wurls have completely taken over. I've never had wurls like this without heat and I've never had such uniform wurliness so I'm excited. Thank you all for the help!

[Eas693]

So random here, but have you ever had short hair? I swear you discribed my hair, but I'm still to short to truly type it and I was curious if you had short hair before and could post a pic or describe how it was shorter...

Didn't mean to steal your thread.

[CayAsh]

So random here, but have you ever had short hair? I swear you discribed my hair, but I'm still to short to truly type it and I was curious if you had short hair before and could post a pic or describe how it was shorter...

Didn't mean to steal your thread.

Steal away! Bring out everyone's wurliness! I had shorter hair at the beginning of high school (CBL so not too short but it was horrifying having it cut to that length for me) and it was the same way it would lay straighter with waves if I combed it and it poofed out if I used a brush on it but the underside was almost ringlets if left to its own devices. I did ballet so I constantly had bun waves and braid waves and my hair loved that. Those would hold for days.

[wispe]

Eas693 I grew out from a pixie but unfortunately I don't have any photos from the pixie stage and only a few from the apl-mbl stage due to a hard drive failure a few years ago :( I do remember my hair waving a bit like your is starting to at that length, but I didn't really see the back and I always combed it or blowdried/flat ironed it so I couldn't say for sure. Once I got to collarbone I lost my brush and I started exclusively air-drying and only fingercombed occasionally (my hair didn't tangle until bsl and bleach). Here's my apl-mbl texture though: pretty sure most of these were air dried and mostly uncombed. Sorry to confront you with my dork face, I don't have pictures of the back or from the side or anything.

http://i.imgur.com/LD68IP8.jpg?2 http://i.imgur.com/YgMYAHH.jpg http://i.imgur.com/HqcMvwG.jpg?1

CayAsh Thank you! About pin curling - I'm by no means an expert (though I have watched a million youtube pin curl tutorials, so I'm halfway there). I basically do what's outlined in this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IMm12_17CA) which is what got me interested in wet set pin curling to begin with. She did another video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1u_X4gn_eo) later on where she shows how she does it on herself (and a slightly different setting pattern) that might be useful.

I stick to a very basic pin curl set - standing curls facing down/away from my parting. I have to use some sort of product with hold or my longest layers will turn into sad, limp noodles after a few hours. I start on damp (not drippy) hair, work from the top down, first the front (from my part down to my ear on each side) then the back (crown to nape). This way nothing dries before I get it pinned up and nothing gets tangled. I take the curls out in reverse order so I don't lose a bobby pin trying to dig it out from underneath already-released curls. I need to work in smaller sections to get nice curls (about 1" square), I've found larger sections/bigger curls take longer to dry and stretch out/sag sooner. Definitely srap your head before you sleep on them - even if you have a silk pillowcase, a cap or scarf on your head keeps the curls from falling out even if a bobby pin works it's way loose overnight (mine have).

I think of each section as a flat ribbon - wrap it smooth around two fingers and tuck the ends in and you'll get a perfect bouncy spiral ringlet. I comb each curl out as I take it down - but I then twist it around my finger and re-spiral it into a smooth ringlet. Helps break the crunch of any excess product I've used but I still get my style. I comb the first few inches together at the crown and bang area just so I don't have a lot of piece-y bits, but I don't do any backcombing (yikes) and keep the hairspray to a minimum as too much product will glue my strands together and make it a nightmare to deal with on subsequent days.

[Platzhalter]

As already mentioned before, it really depends on how much your hair tends to lean into one direction or the other. Regardless of that, the things that meteor mentioned are quite helpful - even if you don't actually want to emphasize on any wavy or even wurly tendencies your hair may have. Since typing can actually be a tricky thing, it's hardly ever 100% accurate, so experimenting is worth a try. Especially plopping, which (according to personal experience and semi-documented testing on another forum by people with only slightly wavy hair) sometimes ended up making a difference comparable to changing from 1c/2a or 2a to 2b/2c. Add scrunching in some gel and there you may go.

One thing that can also make a difference is length. For me, it definitely is a game changer. There are a lot of people who say that length made their hair more wavy/wurly because their hair was finally getting enough space to "wurl", it was actually the opposite for me. The shorter the hair, the wavier it was - my guess is that it's the "weight" that stretches out those waves in some way. To compare: shorter hair (chin length or below) occasionally made me get "how did you get those waves?"-comments without doing anything besides washing the hair in the evening and going to bed with not really dry hair (well... and not really brushing after that) while at my current length (roughly somewhere between hip and BCL), only doing at least some of the things mentioned above makes me get wavy/wurly-related hair comments.

[lapushka]

One thing that can also make a difference is length. For me, it definitely is a game changer. There are a lot of people who say that length made their hair more wavy/wurly because their hair was finally getting enough space to "wurl", it was actually the opposite for me. The shorter the hair, the wavier it was - my guess is that it's the "weight" that stretches out those waves in some way. To compare: shorter hair (chin length or below) occasionally made me get "how did you get those waves?"-comments without doing anything besides washing the hair in the evening and going to bed with not really dry hair (well... and not really brushing after that) while at my current length (roughly somewhere between hip and BCL), only doing at least some of the things mentioned above makes me get wavy/wurly-related hair comments.

Normally, hair that is just slightly on the wavy side develops more texture as it grows. If you're in the 3s that can be totally different, because texture forms quicker as it grows out of the follicle. Maybe you're wavier than you think you are?

[AdaClare]

I've had luck using coconut hair products (normally I use Renpure's coconut cream conditioner and Lush's Curly Wurly shampoo). Also, combing rather than brushing helps the waves keep their shape - I love my wooden comb!

[meteor]

One thing that can also make a difference is length. For me, it definitely is a game changer. There are a lot of people who say that length made their hair more wavy/wurly because their hair was finally getting enough space to "wurl", it was actually the opposite for me. The shorter the hair, the wavier it was - my guess is that it's the "weight" that stretches out those waves in some way. To compare: shorter hair (chin length or below) occasionally made me get "how did you get those waves?"-comments without doing anything besides washing the hair in the evening and going to bed with not really dry hair (well... and not really brushing after that) while at my current length (roughly somewhere between hip and BCL), only doing at least some of the things mentioned above makes me get wavy/wurly-related hair comments.


Normally, hair that is just slightly on the wavy side develops more texture as it grows. If you're in the 3s that can be totally different, because texture forms quicker as it grows out of the follicle. Maybe you're wavier than you think you are?

It also depends on how much length exactly we mean vs. the tightness of the curl/wave pattern. Extremely short pixie won't show loose 2a/2b S-waves, but may be enough for 4s, for example. BSL-waist may be enough to show the above-mentioned loose S-waves (especially if layered), but if you add more weight to it (say, the same hair at knee length, unlayered) and that same hair may have straightened under its own weight. That's also why many curlies with super-long hair often have straighter roots, wavier length and fully formed curls only at the very ends (the weight finally catching up, but not affecting the ends which aren't pulled down, unlike the roots).

[CayAsh]

I think I promised y'all an update on how it worked out for me. So this is my third wash using tresseme keratin shampoo and conditioning twice with squish to condish using Lush's American Cream. I used CES afterwards and plopped overnight so these are day one curls. My hair usually sits just about at my waist so its shrunk up quite a bit. I'm excited to try wispe's curl methods next but for right now I'm liking the plopping. My boss even got excited that I'm letting my "natural curls run wild" since she's a 3c

http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a516/caylaashleyy/FullSizeRender.jpg_zpsexlgstgd.jpeg

*please excuse the windex as I realized how gross my mirror was before trying to take this ;)

[ghanima]

wow they look fantastic! and no frizz!
what's CES?