Wavy hair techniques Archives - Page 2 of 8

How Much Product To Use On Wavy Hair

January 22, 2024 by Emily Evert Leave a Comment

Does Wavy Hair Need a Lot Of Products?

Wavy hair does not require a lot of products to be styled well. In most cases, using several leave-in products will weigh down wavy hair rather than helping it look better.

Does Hair Type Determine How Much Product I Should Use?

How much of a product (like gel or leave in conditioner) you can or should use is impacted by your hair density. Whether or not you can or should use certain types of products (like protein treatments, curl creams, etc) is somewhat determined by your hair porosity.

I have a blog post designed to help you determine your wavy hair type if you aren’t sure what yours is.

Does Hair Type Determine What Type Of Hair Products I Should Use?

Hair texture (straight, wavy, curly or coily) can give you some really vague guidelines for how much products and what types of products you’re likely to use. For example, wavy hair is generally naturally more moisturized than curly and coily hair so it doesn’t need as much moisture, and it’s easily weighed down. It also often needs more support from a product with hold. However, these are really general rules of thumb.

Learning your hair type in terms of properties like strand thickness, porosity and density will give you more customized information about what products to use, how much of them to use, and how many products your hair can tolerate. I have a blog post designed to help you determine your wavy hair type if you aren’t sure what yours is.

How Do I Know If I’m Using Too Much or Too Little Product In My Wavy Hair?

Caring For Dry Wavy Hair

August 26, 2023 by Emily Evert 2 Comments

Signs That Your Hair Is Dry

Lacks shine
Feels rough
Looks its best right after it dries from a shower, gets frizzier and duller as time goes on.
Is really long because the ends may get dry due to oil not traveling all the way down your hair.
Is frizzy (dry hair will be frizzy, but frizz can be caused by many other things as well! See my post on frizzy wavy hair for more info)
Your facial skin or skin in general is dry. While we don’t always think of our hair as just part of our skin, it is – and if your skin produces less oil your hair will be more dry.
Tangles a lot. Dry hair is just one of many causes of tangling, but it is one potential sign. Check out my post on wavy hair tangles for more info.

What Causes Dry Hair?

How To Plop Your Wavy Hair – Step By Step Guide With Photos

November 24, 2020 by Emily Evert 34 Comments

“What does ‘plop’ mean?”

This was my first-ever comment on this blog. I immediately thought, oh my gosh, I have to do a post about that! It’s a strange term, and something that I am sure literally every person with wavy or curly hair has asked before, if they have come across it.

It’s a made-up word, so of course we all have to learn what it means. I just am so used to the curly girl method communities that I take part in, that I had to be reminded to go back to the basics!

So, this post is for those of you who are new and wondering what the heck plopping is!

What is plopping hair?

Plopping your hair means to wrap your wet hair in a cotton t-shirt in a way that preserves your natural curl pattern. The goal is to allow your hair to dry (partially or all the way) while holding onto its natural pattern, and keep it from being stretched out.

Typically plopping is done after showering when hair is wet. For many with naturally wavy hair, our hair will be really wavy while in the shower. However, if we just step out of the shower and do nothing else, our waves may flatten quite a bit, especially towards the roots of our hair.

In some cases, it may flatten so much that it looks straight – especially if we brush or comb our hair, too. This happens because the weight of the water in our hair can weigh down our hair before it has a chance to dry. The weight of our hair pulls from the roots down, which is why the roots can be flattest.

So, plopping is something that we do to try to reduce this effect, and keep our curl pattern from being stretched out while it begins to dry.

How To Care For Thin Low Density Wavy Hair

March 24, 2023 by Emily Evert 3 Comments

What Is Low-Density Wavy Hair?

Hair density refers to how many hairs you have. Someone with low density hair would have fewer hairs per square inch of scalp than someone with medium or high density hair.

What’s The Difference Between Thin Wavy Hair and Fine Wavy Hair?

People often confuse thin hair, fine hair, and low-density hair! Thin hair and low-density hair mean the same thing. So thin hair means someone who has a lower amount of hairs across their scalp than “average”. Where fine wavy hair means that the individual hair strands are not as thick as ‘average’.

How To Tell If You Have Low-Density Hair

Hair density is primarily determined by analyzing how much of your scalp you can see. People with high-density hair can see very little of their scalp even when their hair is wet. People with low-density hair tend to have a wider/more visible part and can see more scalp when their hair is wet.

Another way to estimate your hair density is to look at your ponytail circumference. I have a blog post that goes into detail about how to determine your wavy hair type which covers density.

How Common is Low-Density or Thin Wavy Hair?

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