Wavy Hair Basics Archives - Wavy Hair Care

Wavy hair Product Application Techniques Compared | Scruching, raking, roping, combing, glazing, prayer hands

May 19, 2022 by Emily Evert Leave a Comment

“How do you apply your products?” is a question that I’ve received in comments and emails a few times. I’ve wanted to answer this question, but I thought it made sense to share different application techniques rather than making an entire blog post about one method. For the last few weeks I’ve been testing product application methods, so that I could compare them for you all.

How To Apply Products On Wavy Hair (Video)

While I’m sharing them here in written form with photos, I’ve also documented these with video. If you might find it easier to understand these application techniques by seeing me do them, check out my tiktok video or YouTube video that I made showing all six techniques and the results.

For the sake of trying to keep results ‘fair’, each wash day I washed my hair with the same shampoo, conditioner, leave-in conditioner and mousse. I attempted to use the same amount of product, and the same routine and techniques other than how I applied the mousse each time. My goal was to try to make make it so that the only differences in these wash days was the product application technique. I prefer damp styling usually, so I plopped for 10 minutes each time and then added mousse.

How To Scrunch Gel Into Wavy Hair

Scrunching is when you place your hands under your hair and raise your hands so tha your hair pools into your palms. Once you reach the top of your hair, you squeeze your hand closed, “scrunching” the hair that is in your palm. This is often done without product as a way of encouraging waves/curls to form. However, it can also be done as a product application technique.

Curly Girl Method Terms, Lingo, Abbreviations & Acronyms

April 6, 2022 by Emily Evert 1 Comment

When you’re new to finding the curly girl method or wavy curly hair communities, you’re likely to come across some terms, abbreviations and acronyms that are pretty confusing. Wavy and curly communities have made up some of our own words and have a bit of “insider” lingo that we are familiar with, but outsiders and newbies aren’t.

I find that sometimes I forget that not everyone knows what these terms, abbreviations and acronyms mean. I’ve been using them for so long now that I forget they aren’t “normal” words. I thought I’d put together a list of terms, abbreviations and acronyms that are unique to the curly girl method and/or wavy curly communities to help newbies gain a deeper understanding of our lingo.

Curly Girl Method Terms & Lingo

2a, 2b, 2c, 3a, etc. These refer to where someone’s hair falls on a curl pattern chart. Straight hair is “type 1”, Wavy is “type 2”, Curly is “type 3” and coily or kinky is “Type 4”. a, b, and c are ranges within those three categories, so 2a is loose waves and 2c is tight waves. Visit my post wavy hair curl pattern chart to learn more and see examples.

90% dry (or other percentages). We use percentages to explain how close to ‘fully dry (aka 100% dry)’ our hair is. I didn’t realize this was part of our lingo until I used it with my boyfriend. He laughed and asked why I didn’t just say that my hair is ‘almost dry’ instead. I realized that I had learned to use percentages because that’s what I saw other wavies and curlies doing in different groups! I don’t really know why we don’t say something like ‘mostly dry’ or ‘super close to dry’ instead of using percentages but…it’s just the norm to use percentages!

Buff. Buffs are similar to hair bonnets, but instead of being a closed cap they’re more like a long sleeve. This means if you have longer hair, you can have the ends of your hair stick out of the buff rather than have them folded into a cap. Some just find them more comfortable than bonnets.

Canopy. The canopy of your hair is basically the exterior layer of your hair. The part of your hair that you can touch using a flat hand, or that sun can reflect off of.

The Best Way To Refresh Wavy Hair – 8 Ways Compared W/ Pics

February 22, 2022 by Emily Evert 3 Comments

There are affiliate links in this blog post.

What do I do with my hair after wash day?

Wash day is going okay, but when I wake up the next day my hair is a mess. What do I do?

How can I revive my curls in the morning?

I’ve gotten a variety of emails and comments essentially asking the same thing. Refreshing is something I don’t love doing, personally. I find that it can be one of the harder aspects of managing wavy hair. So, I totally get why people have questions and want help when it comes to reviving their curls on non-wash days by refreshing.

In the past, I wrote about refreshing my hair a couple of different ways. I have a post titled how to refresh wavy hair with just water, and how to refresh wavy hair with mousse. I realized that it wasn’t as complete as it could have been. The last couple of weeks I’ve been working to compare different methods for refreshing wavy hair.

How To Determine Your Wavy Hair Type | Porosity, Density, Curl Pattern & Thickness

February 16, 2022 by Emily Evert 7 Comments

What Are Wavy Hair Stats?

Your hair stats are made up of your curl pattern, your hair strand thickness, your hair density, and your hair porosity.

When I first started embracing my wavy hair about four years ago, I tried following someone else’s routine who had wavy hair with a similar curl pattern to mine. I was so confused when it didn’t work for me at all.

I eventually realized this was because we had different hair stats – hers was low density while mine is dense, and hers was thicker textured than mine.

Does Your Wavy Hair Type Matter?

When looking to start the curly girl method or wavy girl method, some people tell newbies the first thing that they should do is determine their wavy hair stats. When I first attempted to determine my wavy hair type (and even on the second and third attempts to determine my hair stats!) it just didn’t help! Due to this, for a long time I’ve recommended to people that they just experiment with their hair, instead.

I have finally – FINALLY, found my true hair stats and now I have found that knowing my hair stats really has helped me with finding my routine. However, I do still advocate for experimenting!

Now I now see the value in determining your hair stats, as it can help you determine which products will work well for you and what routine will work best for you. It’s essential that you determine your hair type correctly, though.

I incorrectly typed my hair multiple times, so I tried following routines based on the wrong hair type is why those routines didn’t work well for me. They weren’t really for my hair type!