About me
I’m Emily! I’m 29 and live in a small town in Michigan. While this blog may make it seem like it, my hair isn’t really my whole life. I have been blogging since 2009 and am a full-time blogger. My main blog is Emily Reviews (established in 2009) and my second blog was Frank Loves Beans though it’s mostly inactive now. I wrote a bit about my wavy hair on each of those blogs but realized it had become enough of a passion that it deserved its own site. This blog, Wavy Hair Care, is my newest blog and first niche blog.
I live with my boyfriend Ryan, he works in web development/programming. We’ve been together over 13 years and he’s truly my better half. He sees me with my hair in shower caps, pineapples and plops without judgment and patiently answers my “is my frizz too bad to go to town?” and “are my roots flatter than usual?” questions routinely. He also regularly manages to convince me that I’m just too self-critical and my hair looks better than I think it does. He’s a keeper!
We have a 16-year-old pug named Beans and I am very much a crazy “dog mom”. I like alt-country and Americana music. I like to read memoirs and most of my Netflix queue is non-fiction content as well. I seem to gravitate towards things that range from serious to heavy in nature. True crime, mental health, addictions, cults, documentaries on social justice issues, etc.
I do cross-stitch and embroidery projects most right now, but I have always enjoyed trying a variety of arts and crafts. I’m not artistically skilled, but I find it beneficial for my mental health to have a creative outlet even if the results aren’t spectacular.
I’m not just a crazy hair lady, I’m also a crazy dog lady. Part of me feels like I should have a poodle or something else with wavy or curly hair! I just am crazy about pugs though.
About My Wavy Hair Passion
Since discovering my waves, taking care of my hair has become a full-on hobby for me. I sometimes say I’m obsessed, though I mean it in a fun way. It’s not just about my own hair for me, I love reading and watching other people talk about their journey with their own hair. In fact, I’m not sure a day has gone by in the 2.5 years since I discovered the curly girl method where I haven’t engaged with the wavy hair community online in some way or another!
I began my curly girl method journal bingeing on a ton of videos by Real Life + Curly Girl and finding the/r/curlyhair subreddit. In the past year, I’ve gained new perspectives by watching Manes By Mell. In 2020, the /r/wavyhair subreddit was unlocked to the public and became active again. I’m also reading threads in Facebook groups like Wavy Girl (Method) wavy hair don’t care since last year. I have found a lot of value in having wavy-only communities to interact with.
I don’t follow the strict Curly Girl Method as created by Lorainne Massey and described in her book Curly Girl: The Handbook. Most people with wavy hair don’t find the strict form of the curly girl method to be ideal. That’s true for me, too. I think it’s a great resource, I just choose to pick and choose which aspects I adhere to.
I’ve been running little “experiments” on my own hair for over two years now. I like trying to make just one change at a time so that I can see the results of any given technique or routine change, or product change. As I started to realize that everyone’s hair is a little different and what works best for others may not be best for me, I started to realize I needed to experiment with and pay very close attention to my own hair to learn what would work for me.
I keep a hair journal to document what I do to my hair, and take pictures almost every day so that I can analyze my results. You can learn a lot through documenting all these details and analyzing your results! I highly recommend that you do the same if you’re wanting to learn what works best for your hair.
Through wavy/curly hair forums and groups, I’ve realized that I really enjoy helping people with their own wavy hair journeys. I love answering questions from newbies and having them come back to tell me that my tip or advice really worked well for them. So, I thought it was time to make a dedicated wavy hair blog as a more efficient way of sharing.
Through blog posts, I can really explain things in detail and add photos to help explain. It’s just a much better format than trying to give really thorough answers in forums and groups. My goal is to be clear and thorough, to help people and make things as clear and simplified as possible.
I know I often felt overwhelmed about how to start taking better care of my naturally wavy hair when I was new. I want to make things a bit less overwhelming for others!
My Hair Story:
My whole life, I thought my hair was straight. I never had “baby curls” the way many do. I was pretty bald until I was about 2.5. I guess I almost skipped having baby hair entirely! In this picture above I believe I was 6.
I was taught to take care of my hair like straight hair. While I now look at that photo and recognize that I had brushed-out waves, I never knew what brushed out wavy hair looked like until just a few years ago. I grew unhappy with how “poofy” my hair was around middle school, and started straightening it. I was happy with that for quite a while.
Around 2016 (at age 24), I started noticing how frizzy my hair was. I had always had some frizz, but around 2016 it got really severe. If I wore my hair down, I sometimes noticed people staring at the frizz on top of my head while talking to me. It was embarrassing. I was no longer comfortable with my hair. I never had liked wearing my hair up very much, but the frizz was so bad I felt like I had no choice but to put my hair up to try to hide it.
It took over a year of that severe frizz before I found the curly girl method. It wasn’t an overnight magic solution. I’m over 2 years in now, and I still have days where I don’t get the results I was expecting. My hair still feels unpredictable at times and I never want to pretend otherwise. Learning the details of what your hair needs can be complex.
Despite not being an overnight magic solution, I found relief in embracing my natural waves. Taking care of my natural waves reduced my frizz enough that even on my bad hair days, I usually felt comfortable wearing my hair down. My “bad” hair days with the curly girl method were better than my good hair days in the year or two prior.
For me, my curly girl method journey wasn’t about getting the curly hair I had always dreamed of. I had never been one of those girls who long for curly hair. I had always longed for straight, sleek hair when I was younger. A few years ago, I just found that the poof and frizz got to be too much for me, so I went looking for a look that I felt more comfortable with. Wearing my hair naturally wavy was the solution for me.
Now I really like my waves. It’s almost odd to think back about how I wanted straight, sleek hair for so many years. It’s been empowering for me to learn how to take care of my natural hair type in a way that gives me results I feel confident with. My hair isn’t something I’m trying to “tame” or “manage” anymore. These days my hair is something I really enjoy taking care of.
My goal with this blog is to help others who are working to embrace their own naturally wavy hair. I hope to help others with finding their way to feeling good about their natural hair, the way I now do.
If you have hair questions I may be able to help you with, feel free to reach out to me at WavyHairCareBlog [at] Gmail.com.