Wavy hair routines Archives

Wavy hair Routine For Soft Touchable Hair Yet Tight Waves

August 6, 2024 by Emily Evert 1 Comment

There are affiliate links in this article.

For a long time after I first started embracing my waves, I thought I had to choose between having hair that looked good, or physically felt good. I tried several times of medium hold and soft hold hair products and they would leave my hair physically feeling better, but my results would be lacking in definition, volume or tightness. I tried several hard hold gels and mousses and they’d leave my hair well-defined and my results would be tight waves, but my hair wouldn’t feel so great to the touch. I thought I was limited to those two main options for well over a year of following the curly girl method.

In the last few years, I’ve found a few products that give me tight results, but leave my hair feeling super soft. I sometimes have people ask me how to get tight waves without crunchy hair. I thought I’d share a routine for those of you who are looking for that!

Touchably Soft Naturally Wavy Hair Routine

Wash and condition your hair with your choice of shampoo and conditioner. As long as the shampoo is a good level of cleansing for you, and as long as the conditioner is moisturizing enough without being too heavy for your hair type, you’re good to go! If you want suggestions from me, I personally like Not Your Mother’s shampoo and conditioners Curl Talk (Amazon link or Walmart link), the matcha green tea (amazon link, and the rice water line (amazon link) are my favorites. They’re available at most stores and fairly affordable.

After finishing your shower, plop your hair for about 5 minutes.

After plopping, apply Cake The Curl Whip Mousse. This is my #1 go-to for getting soft hair yet tight results. Use enough to get even coverage across all of your hair.

Diffuse your hair until it is 95% dry, then let it air dry the final bit.

You should get a soft cast over all of your hair. Once your hair is 100% dry, squeeze your hair gently to break the cast.

These are my results on a day where I followed the routine shared in this post.

Maintaining Your Soft Touchable Wavy Hair After Wash Day

Your results should last well for the first day. I do find that my hair falls flatter quicker with the cake the curl whip mousse than if I use products that give me more of a hard cast. I protect my hair overnight but it’ll still be quite a bit looser on the second morning. So, I refresh! Which is another reason why I absolutely love this mousse. It can be added to dry hair without getting sticky or feeling producty. So, when refreshing on mornings 2 and 3, I simply add the mousse straight to my dry hair, and then diffuse for about 10 minutes to let my hair dry (for reference, it takes 45+ mins for my hair to dry on wash day). Diffusing until the mousse dries in my hair will create a new cast which I gently break again.

Other styling products that provide touchable waves

Umberto Giannini curl jelly (Amazon link)

Innersense I Create Hold (Amazon link)

Dippity Do Girls With Curls Gelee (Amazon link)

Soft Wavy Hair Curly Girl Method Routine Video

I made a YouTube video of this routine! Check it out below. Be sure to subscribe to me on YT if you haven’t already! If you watch the video and enjoy it, please ‘like’ it as well.

Wavy Hair Routine For Shorter Wavy Hair or Shags

October 23, 2021 by Emily Evert 7 Comments

First, I want to say that I know my hair doesn’t seem especially short. I got a haircut a couple of months ago, and I only lost about 1-2 inches of length at the longest layer, so it doesn’t look much shorter than it used to be.

However, I got a lot of layers added in, and that has resulted in the shorter layers of my hair being much shorter than they used to be.

My shorter layers are about chin length. Because of those shorter layers, I can’t style my hair the way that I used to, and get results that I feel look good. Here is a collage showing my before and after. In the back the length difference is minimal, but on the sides, where I have shorter layers, it’s fairly significant. This is because I was given a shag-style haircut.

I used the same styling techniques in the ‘before’ and ‘after’. As I think you’ll probably agree, my old styling methods did not work as well with my new, shorter haircut!

I wasn’t in love with my haircut mostly because it just wasn’t what I had in mind. You can read more about that in these two posts if you’d like:

Getting a devacut on naturally wavy hair [my experience]

Dry curl cut on wavy hair advice

Anyway! Since getting a shag-style haircut, I’ve had to change up my regular routine. I used to do a lot of methods that encouraged volume. I did almost all of the methods listed in my post 13 methods to get more volume in wavy hair, post prior to my haircut.

After getting a shag haircut and having shorter hair (at least on the sides) I no longer liked the appearance I got when using techniques that aimed for ‘all the volume’. I felt like it resulted in ‘all the poof’ more so than ‘all the volume’.

My hair is growing out more now, but I thought I’d share the routine I’ve been using for shorter wavy hair, for those who have shorter hair and/or shag haircuts, this may work better for you than my other routines from when I had longer hair.

Under $20 Simple Wavy Girl Method Starter Routine From Walmart

November 28, 2020 by Emily Evert 20 Comments

There are affiliate links in this post.

I’ve received a couple of emails asking me to share a starter routine. I considered sharing my own wavy girl method routine, and probably still will eventually. However, I know that this blog has been getting a lot of people who are brand new to the curly girl method and/or brand new to embracing their naturally wavy hair.

The method I currently use is not how I would recommend most others start out because it’s customized to my exact hair type. If you are more interested in my specific routine, you can see my drugstore CGM wavy hair routine in that blog post by clicking the link.

I thought I’d share an affordable, super simple starter routine that is more likely to work for most people than my specific routine is. I did use this routine n myself to show you guys that it does work for me. Here is my results from the routine that I share in this post:

How Humidity And Dew Point Impact How To Care For Wavy Hair

May 6, 2023 by Emily Evert 1 Comment

There are affiliate links in this article.

Why Does Humidity Cause Frizz?

When it’s humid, our hair absorbs water from the air. Of course, we all recognize that when we wet our styled hair by soaking it under the showerhead, this basically resets our style. When it’s really humid out, our hair will absorb water in different areas at different rates. The areas that absorb a lot of water will reset, while the areas of our hair that stay drier may not. This is why our hair can end up frizzy, losing its curl clumps, falling flatter/straighter and just looking more messy.

Is All Wavy Hair Sensitive To Humidity?

Not necessarily. Higher porosity hair is more likely to frizz up in humidity because it will take in water more easily, and has a raised or even damaged cuticle which can make it more prone to not staying sleekly clumped with nearby hairs.

How Does Dew Point Impact Hair?

It’s commonly understood that some people’s hair gets frizzier or curlier looking when it’s humid. Dew point isn’t nearly as commonly discussed, but it’s actually a bigger factor in how your hair is impacted by the weather than humidity is.

Dew point fluctuates depending on different factors, and a high dew point is 60 Fahrenheit or higher, and a low dew point is 35 Fahrenheit or lower. The “sweet spot” for dew point is in between those two.