So, you’ve seen the TikTok trend. Or maybe you’ve seen YouTube videos? Either way, you’ve caught on that some people think they have straight hair, but discover that their hair is actually wavy or curly after trying the curly girl method. You’ve started to suspect that your hair might be wavy or curly too.
Yet…the curly girl method seems too complicated, right? It certainly can be. I’m over 2 years in myself, and I still find myself shocked at how many products and how many steps some people put into their haircare routines. Curly girl approved products can be expensive, as well. I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t want to spend money if you aren’t sure this is even right for your hair type.
I have a blog post that discusses signs that your hair is naturally wavy which can help you decide if you want to test it. Once you’re ready and you want a quick and easy way to test if your hair is actually wavy? Here is what to do, step by step.
How To Test If Your Hair Is Wavy Before Trying The Curly Girl Method.
To test if your hair is wavy, scrunch your hair after rinsing your conditioner out in the shower, then apply a hard hold gel of any kind. Let your hair dry without brushing, combing or touching it. If it dries wavy, you have wavy hair and would likely benefit from trying the curly girl method.
That’s the quick answer, Here is a more thorough answer!
I’d recommend that you try this experiment at a day and time where you don’t have anywhere important to be. For example, don’t do this on a work day 30 minutes before you need to leave the house for work. Just in case the results you get make you unhappy or uncomfortable, you want to leave time to re-wash your hair. That’s just a precaution, but better safe than sorry!
- Wash your hair with any shampoo you have on hand. Lean over into the shower head (so you are looking at the ground). Stay leaning over throughout the washing process in the shower. Focus on rubbing your scalp with the shampoo (using fingertips to rub, not nails to scratch). You don’t need or want to apply shampoo to the lengths of your hair. Rinse out the shampoo completely.
- Apply any conditioner that you have on hand to the lengths of your hair. Don’t apply the conditioner to your scalp, just the lengths.
- Comb your hair with a wide tooth comb while conditioner is still in your hair. If you don’t have a wide-tooth comb but you do have a denman or wet brush, you could use that instead. If you have none of these, simply use your fingers to detangle and align your hair.
- Rinse out your conditioner completely and then shut the water off.
- Scrunch your hair in your hands. Scrunching means to scoop your hair into your palms by raising your palm from the ends of your hair up towards your scalp, then squeezing your hair to scrunch or squish the hair. Do this around your whole head. If you have wavy or curly hair, you will most likely begin to see a wavy or curly pattern taking shape as a result of scrunching. This squishing process should help squeeze some of the excess water out of your hair, while leaving your hair still very damp. Step out of the shower, keep your head leaning over.
- Apply gel or mousse. Again, any that you have will do. How much you should use will vary for everyone and will vary depending on the specific product you use. There is a chance that you’ll get the amount wrong on your first try. For thin, low density, short hair, using a quarter amount may be enough. For long, thick hair, you may have to use several handfuls. I use about 4 palmfuls of mousse in my armpit length, very dense hair.
- Plop! Gently lower your hair onto your plopping t-shirt, and wrap your hair. Now you can finally stand upright! See my full tutorial on plopping if you’re unfamiliar with how to do it.
- Hang out in the plop. Keep the plopping shirt on your hair for 5 minutes if your hair air dries quickly (in a couple hours or less). If your hair usually take hours to dry, plop for 10 minutes.
- Remove the plop. When the time is up, lean upside down and gently remove the plopping shirt.
- Gently turn your head upright. I like to do this by holding the ends of my hair tight against my head as I go from leaning over to standing upright. I basically hold my hair up against my head in a similar position to what it would have been in while wearing the plop. Once upright, I slowly lower my hands to allow my hair to gently fall into place.
- Correct your part. If you find that your hair is parting in place other than where you like it, now is the time to fix it. Don’t use the tail of a comb to 100% create a fresh part. Instead, gently flip curl clumps that are on the wrong side of where you want your part to be.
- Let it dry. If you have a diffuser, you could diffuse your hair. Check out my tutorial for how to diffuse wavy hair if you need help. If not, just let it air dry. Do not touch your hair any more than is absolutely necessary during this process or you’ll risk introducing frizz. Wait until your hair is 100% dry. The easiest way to know if your hair is dry is to take note of the temperature. If you find that any part of your hair is colder than the rest, that cooler area is still wet. Wait until all of your hair feels the exact same temperature, and is neutral or warm in temperature before moving forward with the next step. It is okay (good, actually!) if your hair feels crunchy or crispy as it dries. Do not worry, it will not feel that way longterm!
- Scrunch out the crunch. Once you’re certain your hair is 100% dry, hopefully it will have a crunchy texture to it. This is called a cast. Gently squeeze or scrunch your hair to break up the cast. If you squeeze your hair and it remains feeling harder than you prefer, squeeze it again until it becomes softer.
Now that you’ve scrunched out the crunch, the process is complete! If your hair is wavy or curly looking, then congrats, you have naturally wavy or curly hair! If your hair is still straight, then congrats, you have naturally straight hair!
If you’re ready to start the curly girl method (or wavy girl method) on a budget check out my Under $20 Walmart curly girl method starter routine post. Or I have a Target CGM starter routine, Amazon CGM starter routine, Dollar Tree CGM routine, or Meijer CGM starter kit if you prefer those retailers!
Troubleshooting your first attempt at naturally wavy hair care:
Where you go after this first attempt can vary greatly. If your results were wavy or curly, you’re likely to see benefits to your hair by following the curly girl method. That will likely involve going out and buying new haircare products that are curly girl approved.
However, if you don’t wish to change products you can continue to use non-curly girl approved methods and still embrace your natural waves or curls through other means. Routine is a really important part of textured hair care. I even blogged about an experiment I did that in my view resulted in proof that wavy hair techniques matter more than products.
So, my advice is to play with new techniques before assuming you need to spend more on products. If you found that your hair felt sticky or had flakes after you scrunched out the crunch, you probably used too much gel or mousse. Next wash day, try using less to see if you get better results.
If your hair didn’t get crunchy, or was only crunchy in a few spots, you probably did not use enough gel or mousse, or didn’t get it well distributed to all areas of your hair. Next time, try using more or try to be more cautious about covering your entire head with the gel or mousse. Or check out my post how to tell if you’re getting a hair cast, and why you may not be.
If your hair was straight at the top but wavy or curly at the bottom, your hair may be weighed down. Check out my post 13 ways to get more volume in wavy hair to learn many of the ways wavy hair can be weighed down and how to fix those.
If you want to know how to get wavy hair to last longer, check out my posts why you should’t brush wavy hair, how to get wavy hair to last longer, and how to sleep on wavy hair.
If you find yourself fighting a lot of tangles or knots, check out my post how to fix tangles in wavy hair.
If you’re wanting to figure out your hair’s thickness, porosity, curl pattern or density check out my post how to determine your wavy hair type.
If you have other issues or questions, leave me a comment below and I’ll try to help you or point you towards resources that are helpful!
Edit to help answer the question – is gel or mousse really needed for testing if hair is wavy?
The difference in these photos is no products on the left, and just using mousse on the right. For me, using a product with hold (gel or mousse, or as I recently discovered, hairspray!) is really key to allowing my waves to support themselves. This may not be true for all wavies, but if you have always assumed your hair to be straight, then likely your waves need support from product, too.
If you do this test but without gel or mousse, then you may find that your hair has a bit more texture than usual which would hint that it is wavy. You can see in my photo on the photo on the left that the ends do have a very subtle texture to them but it doesn’t really read as wavy in general.
Using gel or mousse is likely to be key to making the answer to ‘is my hair actually wavy?” super clear. So I would recommend buying a gel or mousse if you don’t currently own one. If you don’t care about the curly girl method, buying the cheapest hard-hold gel or mousse you can find would work.
Some really cheap curly girl approved options are LA Looks gel (about $2 for a big bottle at most drugstores. Or my local dollar tree sells a smaller tube for $1). Or for a cheap CG mousse I would recommend Aussie Instant Freeze.
If you find out that your hair is, in fact, wavy – check out my blog post directory. I have tons of content about how to embrace your waves!
Do you dry the hair at all before applying the mousse? I feel like putting product in sopping wet hair is a waste?
I personally apply my mousse after “plopping” for about 10 minutes. My hair really holds onto water like crazy, so 10 minutes of plopping leaves my hair quite damp still, but it will no longer be dripping, which is the ideal time to put in mousse, for me. Like you, I find that if I apply product to sopping wet hair then it is sort of a waste because some will drip back out, so to accommodate for that I’d have to add even more mousse – and I already use quite a lot.
I have done my mom’s hair and my sister’s hair and both of them have hair that dries quicker than mine, so for them, plopping for 10 minutes would be too long. For my mom, I think she would do well to just apply mousse after microplopping instead of doing a regular plop, where my sister could probably do a regular plop for about 5 minutes, as hers doesn’t take as long as mine to dry, but hers takes longer than our moms does. So I think it definitely varies from person to person depending on your hair type and thickness. I’ve seen others online say that they have to apply their styliners before even getting out of the shower because their hair dries too quickly so if they just wait to throw some clothes on, and then apply a product their hair would already have started to dry some and would be frizzy due to not applying their products while their hair was wet enough.
That makes sense! I was a bit confused by the directions, but I went with my intuition and did a little bit of scrunch drying before adding the mousse. Then did the plop. My hair dries pretty quickly so it seems like I did the right thing! Waiting for it to dry now, it seemed wavy when wet, but i am hoping to see some waves when it’s dry!
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you! All of this really comes down to protecting the pattern that you have while your hair is wet. So with it being wavy while wet, that means your hair is wavy. It may take quite a bit of trial and error with different methods for how to dry your hair or what products to use, or how much of the product to apply, etc in order to get it to stay wavy over the course of a whole day or even multiple days…but if it’s wavy while wet then it should be able to stay wavy while dry if you find the right routine for yourself. 🙂
Also thanks for the heads-up about that portion being a bit confusing. I re-worded the scrunching step to add slightly more detail and hopefully help others who find this post after today. Hopefully it’s a bit more clear that my goal is to have them squeeze some water out of their hair and then apply mousse, now. I put different instructions in this post than what I use personally.
Even though I plop before adding my mousse, it seems like a majority of people have hair that dries more quickly than mine does, so for this I went with instructing people to apply first, then plop. Even if I did follow these instructions, it wouldnt’ give me terrible results, it might just give me flat roots and keep me from getting a cast over my whole head.
Where if I did share my exact routine and someone with quick-to-dry hair tried it? They’d probably end up with hair plastered to the back of their head before they added mousse which would be a way bigger problem. So my goal with this routine was to share something that would be relatively “safe” for all hair types.
It takes trial and error for people to find their ideal routine, but with this routine people will at least be able to tell if they are seeing some waves or if their hair is actually straight. 🙂
Thanks for the article! My hair is dry now and definitely still wavy. I’ll be researching and purchasing some better products to protect and hold my pattern! I usually just comb out my hair when wet and it ends up drying pretty straight, but kind of fluffy and frizzy. Now I know I could go either way!
That’s awesome! Glad it worked, and good luck finding your products & routine. 🙂
Hi! I tried this method and my hair has come out wavy, but I have a small issue with this method. Surely if your hair was naturally wavy, wouldn’t it dry that way using this method without mousse or gel? Like, wouldn’t using the mousse or gel give you waves, but unnatural ones, so even someone with genuine straight hair could use it to get waves? In all fairness, I don’t know much about hair, I just thought it was weird that you need mousse/gel to show natural waves. I hope this wasn’t rude, I’m just genuinely confused by it! Maybe I’ll find a video of someone with straight hair trying this and it not working.
It’s a common source of confusion, but there isn’t anything in mousse or gel that makes hair change its shape, it just captures the shape that hair is already in when it is applied, similar to hairspray. It locks in a style, it doesn’t create a style which is why using the same techniques produce different results in different people.
I personally have hair that is always looser/straighter on my left side. So if gel or mousse were making my hair wavy, I should be able to get the waves/curls in that straighter section, but I can’t – and that’s because of a natural difference in that section of hair being naturally straighter.
Hi! I don’t have any gel or mousse, but I do have really poofy, fairly frizzy hair that I think is hiding a wave pattern in there somewhere. Is the gel/mousse step in this unskippable, or could I get away with leaving that step out?
If you can come back and check the blog post, I just made an edit to the end of the blog post to help answer your question because I thought a photo of the difference gel/mousse make in my hair would be helpful at explaining my answer. 🙂
Thank you so much, that’s really helpful! I ended up finding some cream stuff at the bottom of a drawer and tried using that and my hair dried wavy, so I might investigate wavy/curly hair care further 🙂
I’ve been flirting with the curly girl routine since last September, but I’m having some problems. First, my hair is waist length and gets very tangled. I’ve been using a wide-tooth comb just before I get in the shower, but by the time I have conditioner in, the bottom half of my hair is knotted again. Do you think maybe my hair is just too damaged? Should I chop off the bottom half and try working with the less damaged hair? Second, by the end of 48 hours, my scalp feels like a grease ball. This never used to be a problem because I brushed my hair, and the natural oils would be spread throughout my hair and moisturize it. I think this may have caused both of the mentioned problems. I don’t know what to do to fix this except chop my hair (I’m willing to do this) and use dry shampoo every 24 hours.
Hi 🙂
My hair was down to my natural waist when I started CGM and it tangled really easily, too. I cut abut 4 inches off and was amazed at how much less my hair tangled! It probably got rid of 90% of tangling! It blew my mind. What tangles I did get after that were a lot easier to work through, like individual knots vs a huge wad of tangles like I was used to getting.
So at least in some cases, just getting damaged ends off can make a world of difference. If you’re open to a cut, that would make sense. & length can definitely impact how dry vs oily your hair gets. My hair looked a lot more dull when it was longer and I think it was just too long for the oils to travel all the way down my strands.
Another thing that comes to mind is, have you tried to only detangle while you have conditioner in your hair int he shower? Dry brushing is said to be a lot more damaging than brushing while you have wet, conditioned hair because our hair is more stretchy and bendable when it’s wet so it can move around easier and detangle without as much friction, and even better if you have conditioner in there to help it glide even better.
When I look ack at pics of my hair around the time that I started CGM, I can see that I had random stray hairs that were all sorts of lengths. I’d have some that were like 1 inch long sticking out from my scalp, others that were at my cheek bones, others at my chin, just all these different lengths because random hairs would snap off at various lengths. I now realize that was happening when I brushed tangles out of my hair, it would put tension on my hair and make it snap right off at weird lengths. So I think that’s a lot of the downside of tangles (on top of it just being a pain in the butt) is it can actually damage your hair higher up by putting tension on your hair as you try to brush out tangles, they can just snap basically wherever they want to along the strand, not just at the ends or where the tangles are.
Another potential help would be to use a lot of leave-in conditioner on your ends, seems how your scalp oils aren’t likely to reach the ends, adding moisture from products can help combat that some.
I don’t really know anything about dry shampoo, sorry. If you have the time to wash every other day and don’t mind, you could do that. Some people even wash daily. There aren’t any hard and fast rules about how often you can/should wash it’s just what works for each person.
Hi I think my hair might be wavy but I’m not sure when it get humid it gets all frizzy I do notice some waves throughout my hair and Everytime I air dry it and brush it it gets so frizzy. So I’m going to try the curly girl method but my hair is very long (past my butt lol) and thick would mousse be better or gel because my hair is very heavy and dense. Thank youu!!
My hair was down to may natural waist when I started. So it was long but not past my butt long, haha. So I don’t have experience with that exactly. My instinct is to recommend a hard hold gel in your case. When you have that much hair, it may be a bit more challenging to figure out how to get a hair cast, and to figure out how much product you need to use to get a cast, than it would be for people with shorter hair. So with gel being easier to get a cast with, it’ll be easier to use for experimenting with getting a cast.
LA looks is a great one to start with and you can get a big bottle or around $2. In my area it’s sold at grocery stores, pharmacies, etc. My reason for suggesting gel to you is mainly because it’s easy to get a strong cast with. Here is my blog post about gel casts if you aren’t sure what ti’m talking about regarding a cast.
https://wavyhaircare.com/what-is-a-hair-cast-or-gel-cast-how-to-create-one/
With your hair being really long and also thick, it will likely feel like you are using a crazy amount of gel. I use 3 palmfuls on my hair right now and it’s only shoulder length. So I’d guess if my hair was as long as yours I’d be using at least double that?
Good luck! Would love to hear how it goes if you want to check back in after you give it a try. 🙂
Also with your hair being that long, it may be necessary for you to diffuse your hair dry because you can’t touch your hair as it dries. I would think ith your hair being that long, it would potentially touch the back of any chairs you sit in or things like that if you tried to air dry. So to avoid that you may have to diffuse.
I get a headache if I let my hair air dry. Can I use a hairdryer and get similar results?
If you use a blow dryer in the typical way that someone with straight hair would, the force from the blow dryer would likely separate your hair and hair has to be able to stay grouped together if it’s going to make waves/curls. But, you can use a blow dryer with a diffuser attachment to dry your hair faster without breaking it up the way traditional blow drying would. If you don’t have a diffuser attachment for your blow dryer, you can use a metal collander. If you google something like ‘diffuse with a collander’ it should come up. Or I’ve seen people use fishnet tights as another way to diffuse without a diffuser you should be able to google that and find an explanation for how people do that as well. 🙂
Hi Emily,
I’m currently in the final stages of the test. My hair currently seems to be something like type 2a. Generally the more my hair dries, the wavier it gets, and I’m wondering what that means given that so many people’s hair seems to be wavier in water than out of water.
Thank you,
Margaleet
Unfortunately, I am not sure what causes that difference. I wish I did know. It does seem to me like most people with wavy hair are like me in that they have to “fight against water” to keep their waves as their hair dries. I definitely have seen other people post sharing that their hair works like yours though, that it tightens as it dries. I’m not sure what makes the difference though. I wonder if it could be related to hair porosity somehow? But that is 100% a guess.
When I scrunch my hair at the end to get the crunch out it gets frizzy and stringy looking. Any tips?
I have a blog post with tips for avoiding stringy hair if you want to check it out (https://wavyhaircare.com/stringy-wavy-hair-causes-fixes/), but the biggest solution that I know of is to keep your hair really wet when styling. When looking at the routine in this post in particular, I’d recommend skipping the plopping step if you struggle with stringy hair. You may also find that getting rid of the cast through other means may help some. Some people “clap” out the crunch instead of scrunch it out. Which is basically clapping with a curl between your hands. If your cast is hard to scrunch out that can be a sign that your hair needs more moisture so using a leave in conditioner and/or doig deep conditioner treatments regularly may help make it so that your cast isn’t quite so stiff. Or it ca also be that you could benefit from using a little less gel (or whatever product(s) you’re using for hold).
Margaleet, my hair is like this too!
So I tried this test because my hair is just the worst. I recent got bangs after a few years without them. I have three very distinct ringlets in my bangs one right at the front and two off to the left. However after breaking up the cast my hair isn’t really straight and it isn’t really wavy or curly either. My bangs are 100% wavy, and the rest has large straight chunks and some wavier ones too. I have very thin fine hair, and it is color-treated, but also pretty healthy – at least according to my hair guy! Its also sort of shortish if that makes a difference. Is this something that might be worth trying again?
Did you find that your hair was equally crunchy in all areas, or were the places with less curl softer? If they were softer, you may re-try and either use more gel/mousse or work to get it more evenly distributed. If I don’t get a hard cast in an area, that area will often stay softer and have less curl than other areas.
If you felt like it was equally crunchy in all areas, then I would see two likely causes. One may be that some of your hair is just (mostly) straight. It’s common to have uneven curl patterns, so some parts of your hair may just may be relatively straight while others are wavy or curly.
The other possibility would be that because your hair is short, it may not wave/curl the way it would when it is longer. Some people find that their hair curls more when it is shorter and has less hair to weigh it down. However, if you get really quite short (perhaps chin length or shorter) this sometimes makes peoples hair look straight if they have looser curls/waves. It’s common for the first few inches of hair to be more straight, and then if you have loose curls that only twist once every few inches, those two things combined can cause hair to only twist if it’s maybe 5 or 6 inches long, or longer.
I am currently trying to see if my hair is actually wavy. After scrunching and following the steps here, my hair does come out wavy but it doesn’t last very long, maybe only around 30 minutes. After that it dries out sort of straight and poofy, especially if I don’t comb it. Is it still worth trying to see if my hair is wavy?
Did you use gel or mousse and get a stiff crunchy feeling on your hair? If not, I’d recommend using more gel or mousse to see if that makes a difference. It’s common for naturally wavy hair to fall flat and poofy if you don’t get a hard gel cast.
These posts may be helpful:
https://wavyhaircare.com/what-is-a-hair-cast-or-gel-cast-how-to-create-one/
https://wavyhaircare.com/why-you-arent-getting-a-gel-cast/
Truly straight hair doesn’t usually get poofy. “poof” is usually the result of waves or curls that are brushed ut/separated or otherwise aren’t clumped together very well. So I am guessing your hair is wavy but that it just needs more gel to help keep its shape.
I tried doing this with a gel kinda it says “not your mothers” in purple because when I was little my hair was curly but it went away and I’m trying to get it back but then It dries it’s not that curly but it makes my hair feel like when you brush a dolls hair so I don’t know if I should keep using it or stop.
I haven’t tried that gel myself yet (though I do own it and plan to test it to include in a future blog post comparing gels!). But from the wavy/curly groups I’m in, I have noticed that the NYM curl talk gel is a love it or hate it kind of product, it seems like no in between. I assume it works really well for a certain type of hair but really bad for another type of hair (maybe its a low porosity vs high porosity thing? or a fine vs coarse hair thing? Not sure). Anyway, if this is the only gel that you’ve tried before, I would recommend trying a different brand of gel before deciding whether or not this is for you. You may just be in that group of people whose hair doesn’t jive well with that type of gel in particular.
Part of what’s tough about transitioning from treating your hair like straight hair, to trying it like wavy hair, is having any product in your hair can feel bad to people who aren’t used to it. So when someone who isn’t used to using gel or other products says their hair feels bad on CGM, I don’t know if it means something is truly wrong, like the product is really making their hair nasty – or if they are just wanting their hair to feel 100% product-free, when it’s not going to feel product free if they use products. It’s going to feel different than it used to, but it shouldn’t feel bad, it should more just feel different than you’re used to. It is normal to not be able to easily work your fingers or a brush/comb through your hair when yu have used gel or mousse, for example. But your hair shouldn’t feel sticky or super stiff, etc.
So I tried this and I had a little bit of wave but not a whole lot. It went straight with a little s curves here and there. When I was wet it was wavy but when it dried it went away. Did I not use enough product or do I just have straight hair? My hair hasn’t been perfectly straight since I was 10 and I’m 24.
My hair dries straighter than it looks when wet, but it’s not a super dramatic difference. I think for my hair, water just weighs my hair down at least a little no matter what I do. If yours was significantly different wet vs dry though, then I would think that could be not using enough product (gel or mousse). If you used enough gel then your hair should have felt stiff/crunchy all over. This blog post goes into more detail about how you can tell if you got a cast or not.
https://wavyhaircare.com/why-you-arent-getting-a-gel-cast/
So when I wash my hair, use gel, plop, then take it out, my hair is wavy (about 2b). however, once it dries, it looses most of its wave. Does this mean that my hair isn’t wavy? (I will admit that I will scrunch intermittently while it is drying so maybe that has something to do with it?)
Thanks for your help!
Did you scrunch your hair while in the shower or only after? If you scrunched it in the shower and it got wavy while in the shower then it’s definitely wavy. If it only got wavy after plopping then that could be straight hair that just started to dry while in a wavy position in the plop. I can’t really tell which of those is more accurate to your experience based on your description.
Did you get a hard cast (stiff/crunchy feeling) over ALL of your hair? If not, I’d try again and try to not scrunch it as it dries as that can disrupt the cast from forming. If I don’t get a good cast, my hair will fall flat a lot faster than if I let a cast form. This blog post I’m linking is about how to tell if you got a cast as well as reasons why you may not be getting a cast. A cast can be really critical to getting good results. So I’d recommend trying again and trying to get a cast if you didn’t get a good cast. It’ll give you better insight into whether your hair is wavy or not. 🙂
https://wavyhaircare.com/why-you-arent-getting-a-gel-cast/
Hello, I wanted to try to see if I have wavy/curly hair since a lot of signs are showing that my hair isn’t actually straight, but I only have hair styling clay at home right now.
Can it be used for the gel cast, or should I wait to buy hair gel or a hair mousse?
I haven’t tried any styling clays so I don’t really know for sure. If it claims to have medium to hard hold, then I would then it could potentially be used in place of a gel or a mousse.
Hello, am I the only one having troubles with drying my hair with the cgm if I use gel or mousse to form clumps?
I plump for 1/2 hour.
It takes hours to airdry ( washing at 19:00 – still wet at 23:30 and then diffusing for more than 1/2 hour).
It is very difficult to not touch your hair at all for so many hours. My hair is shoulderlenght.
Anyone have Some tips?
Hello :).
That’s not terribly uncommon. This particular post is aimed at people who haven’t started the CGM yet, so I assume many of them don’t have a diffuser so I suggested that they can try air drying if they don’t have a diffuser. Some people are lucky and their hair will air dry in an hour or less even with product, it’s one of the ways that hair can vary a lot. But it sounds like you are one of the people who really need to diffuse dry instead. My hair is the same way, my hair would stay wet for 8+ hours if I didn’t diffuse. What I do is plop for 10 minutes and then diffuse for about 45-50 minutes which gets my hair about 95% dry, so then after diffusing I Wait about an hour to make sure my hair is truly 100% dry before I “scrunch out the crunch”.
I started air drying my hair around 6 months ago due to damage from the blow dryer. It took a while to find air drying products my hair liked (fine but not thin, currently just at shoulders) – my hair gets frizzy and my scalp oily if something doesn’t “agree”. I was surprised to note that a wave pattern developed (no scrunching, no plopping, no nothing) after I co-washed a few times and extended out my wash days to once every 3 days (thank God for dry shampoo!!). I always suspected my hair some “turns” in it but never expected waves like I’m seeing recently. Like you my hair wasn’t sleek and straight unless I used a flat iron, and if it was raining I was screwed – anything that got damp would frizz up and look awful. Who knew I was wavy all this time! 45 years on planet earth you’d think I would have gotten a clue before now! I’m not a proponent of heavy conditioning or co-wash only due to build up and silicone damage (fine hair is finicky), but I’m definitely learning to embrace my hair as it chooses to be. Thanks for your blog – finding it very interesting!
So cool to hear that you ‘found’ your waves! I was pretty surprised to discover mine in my 20’s but I’ve come to realize that it’s very common. I know I grew up believing that everyone was supposed to brush their hair after showering and each day while ti was dry, too. I had no idea that brushing hair while it’s dry is really only something that is ideal for straight hair. My mom had truly curly (not wavy) hair when she was younger but she had always been taught to brush it so it was really “big” all the time, and her mom and others in the family had curly hair, too. I think that it’s just taken a really long time for people to recognize that wavy and curly hair need to be treated a lot differently than straight hair, and also that straight hair isn’t the most common hair type. Anyway, you aren’t alone at all in discovering it “later on”.
So I just tried this without the gel or mousse, just did the washing, and scrunched, as well as the plop in the t-shirt, what sorcery is this!!! My hair has always been stick straight! Couldn’t hold a curl for my life! And just using the bare base of your tutorial it has actually held a curl!!! Not even just waves, curls! My hairs still drying but I know I am going to buy some gel or mousse later this week and try this again!
So I just tried this without the gel or mousse, just did the washing, and scrunched, as well as the plop in the t-shirt, what sorcery is this!!! My hair has always been stick straight! Couldn’t hold a curl for my life! And just using the bare base of your tutorial it has actually held a curl!!! Not even just waves, curls! My hairs still drying but I know I am going to buy some gel or mousse later this week and try this again!
I followed your tutorial with my ogx argan oil shampoo and conditioner as well as some light hold algabo gel I had on hand.
Wow! Where do I even begin. I don’t have waves, I have freaking ringlets! Your tutorial was so easy to follow I already recommended it to another friend who suspects she has wavy hair.
I can’t thank you enough, I will no longer complain about my hair having so much volume, frizz and behaving like crazy when I leave it to dry on it’s own without any special treatment. Now I know it’s only like that when I don’t manage it well
You have no idea of how long I felt so insecure about going out without a hair tie because I barely ever had good hair days. My hair was a source of insecurity for years until I got a pixie cut and could manage the frizz and volume better. But now that I know that I have beautiful curls I have other options!
I wish I could send you a picture of the before and after. It’s astonishing
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU ❤
Love from Paraguay 🇵🇾
Aww! Thank you so much for leaving this comment, it made my day. It’s so awesome to get to be a small piece of helping others to “make peace” with their hair type. So glad you’ve discovered your hair texture! I’ve found that understanding that my hair is wavy has helped me to accept it more even on the days where I haven’t styled it very well. It’s easier to accept the frizzy, poofiness when I recognize that it’s wavy hair that needs to be cared for a certain way to have definition, rather than feeling like it is “misbehaving” straight hair.
I’m looking forward to trying this tomorrow, my hair takes ages to dry a 10 min plop would barely take any moisture out of it, should I plop longer or just use diffuser? 🤔
From starting in shower to the finished look how long would you say it takes you?
With you knowing that your hair takes a long time to dry, I’d recommend that you diffuse. It’s really wild how much hair can vary when it comes to how quickly it dries. If I use any sort of leave-in products in my hair, it would take literally all day long to dry! So I always have to diffuse when I use products, but other people can air dry in like an hour even with products, it’s wild! Anyway form what you’ve expressed here, I’d recommend diffusing.
I’ve timed my diffusing in the past but I’ve never timed the shower portion so I’m guessing somewhat. But I’d say I probably spend about 20 minutes in the shower, 10 minutes plopping, and then 30-ish diffusing these days? So I’m probably at just about an hour total now. I got my hair cut a couple months ago, which didn’t cut that much length off overall but it added a lot of layers so it really de-bulked my hair and that has saved me 10-15 minutes of diffusing time which really surprised me that layers could help so much with drying faster but they do! It used to be more like 45 minutes of diffusing. So prior to my haircut I would say it probably took me an hour and 15 minutes all together?
So I had really curly hair when I was like 2 and 3 years old but it became later on really straight sadly I couldn’t do all the steps of testing if I have at least wavy hair because I realized I don’t have a hair gel and idk what mousse is my English isn’t the best :’) also I have much problems by Washing my hair when I bend over cause I have really long hair and it feels heavy while I wash it so my neck hurts a bit :’) but yeah after scrunshing my hair it got a wavy/curly pattern but since I don’t have any Mousse or gel I couldn’t continue but I try to buy a hair gel tomorrow but yeah I just wanted to ask if there is a other way I could wash my hair since my neck Hurts a bit when I bend over to wash it?:’)
It’s okay that you can’t wash your hair with your head upside down. I recommend that way to most people for two reasons. One, it can help with root volume. Two, having your head upside down pulls your hair away from your scalp, which makes it easier to get products like gel up high on your hair strands without getting it on your scalp. However, it’s definitely possible to get good results while washing upright. You can just wash your hair while standing up. I’d recommend leaning to different sides after your shower to help get your hair away from your scalp. For example, you could tilt your head to the right and scrunch your hair on the right, and then tilt your head to the left and scrunch your hair on the left side of your head. You could also try to tilt your head backwards and scrunch the back. I’d tilt your head in those different ways while applying product, too. Again the main goal is just to get your hair away from your scalp so that you can get the gel all over your hair strands while not touching your scalp.
Hi. I am hoping you can help lend me some insight. I have just finished part of this test. My hair is still very wet post plop, but seems to kind of have some wavy pattern. I have been heat styling my hair for more than 30 years. I have always struggled with air drying because my hair seemed to never know what it wants to do. It wasn’t curly. It wasn’t straight. It has successfully been (when air dried) a frizzy full mess of weird wave underneath and straight on top. I haven’t heat styled it in a few days and have been trying different creams and mousse products that claim to enhance curls.
I guess my question is, how will I know if it’s worth pursuing this wavy hair journey.
I have taken a picture but I don’t see if there is a way to share this with you.
I think that what makes it ‘worth’ pursuing (or not worth it) is a really personal decision based on how much time you feel is worth dedicating to your hair. My personal experience is that I can’t get good results from air drying, but my hair takes a long time to dry so diffusing it is time-consuming. It used to take me 45-60 minutes with a regular blow dryer, though my hair is thick so others can diffuse for less time. I get why that is more time than it would feel worth to other people. Now that I have a Dyson dryer, it only takes about 25 minutes to dry my hair, but the Dyson is very pricey and even 25 minutes is a lot of time to spend on your hair, so again, I can easily understand why it’s not worth it to some people. For me, spending the time to diffuse my hair is worth it, as I am far more confident in the results I get from diffusing vs if I air dry. I feel like my ‘just washed and air dried’ hair does not look good. If I did feel like I could get decent results without doing all of this, I probably would skip it. So, I can easily see why it may not be worth it for some.
From what you’ve shared, if you wanted to pursue your hair journey more I’d recommend getting a blow dryer and diffuser as that will likely make a big difference in your results. But that will likely mean spending $50 or so if you need to buy a hair dryer and a diffuser…or perhaps jus $15-$25 if you have a hair dryer and just need a diffuser that fits it. If you have fine low density hair it’ll likely take at least 20 minutes to diffuse your hair, or if your hair is thick and/or long it may take a hour or more. So that’s kind of what I’d recommend asking yourself…do you feel it’s worth the time you estimate it will take for your hair to diffuse dry, and worth the $50 or $20 that you may have to spend to get a blow dryer and/or diffuser? If you think it would be worth the time and money I’d take that step. If not, then this probably isn’t for you and that is 100% okay. It’s not for everyone.
Great article, you’re doing a fantastic job at explaining the whole care routine for people who have wavy/curly hair. I just got back from the pool and randomly left my hair to air dry completely without touching it(which I almost never do) and noticed some pretty neat waves have formed. I have really dense and long hair and whenever I wash it, I also brush it a lot so it always ends up straight and frizzy, and the frizzies “relax” only a couple of days post washing. So yeah, I started wondering if I might have naturally wavy hair(I always wish I had) so I ended up googling how to tell if i had natural waves. I stumbled across a lot of articles and videos that weren’t really that informative and were focusing on advertising plenty of products. But thankfully, I found your article in which you greatly explain the methods and what basic products to use. So yeah, this is a comment to point out my appreciation for your work, thank you. It’s concise, clear and pretty much everything I needed to know. I can’t wait to try out these methods next time I wash my hair.
Have a lovely day!
Thank you so much!
Hi, so i have a problem.
Ma hair look wavy if not even curly when it’s wet but as soon as it dries it becomes straight. I usually brush my hair normally and put some hair oil on my ends when it still wet and when dried it has a few flyaways but nothing serious. What do i do?
Following a routine like the one listed in this post should help a lot if you’re looking to maintain the wavy curly look you have when your hair is wet. The key changes to make would be applying a gel after the shower, crunching and then letting it dry without touching your hair.
When my hair is wet it’s relatively curly and I tried this 3 times already but my curls fall the next day. I already put a lot of mousse(I got a cast and everything) and a little mouse to see if that helps but I just can’t seem to figure this out. Do you know how I could fix that or why it’s happening at all?
You might benefit from using a gel that is harder hold. Even if the one you are using says it has hard hold, not all gels that say they have hard hold are the same intensity of hold. I’d also encourage you to look at when your curls seem to fall. Is it before your day is over, or do you go to bed with curls but wake up with flat hair? If you lose them overnight, it could be that you need to try a different method for protecting your hair overnight. I have two posts on sleeping on wavy hair that might help if you havent’ seen those already.
https://wavyhaircare.com/how-to-sleep-on-wavy-hair/
https://wavyhaircare.com/i-tested-what-is-the-best-way-to-sleep-on-wavy-hair/
What parts of my hair is wavy and parts are straight, what do I do then?
Do you mean that you get part wavy and part straight results when you use gel and diffuse and such? Or that is how your hair looks if you don’t do those things? If your hair is part straight and party wavy when you just wash, condition and air dry, then I’d suggest using gel and diffusing to see if the straight parts will also become wavy when treated that way.
If you meant that you get mixed results when trying to style your hair wavy, then I’d ask if you have damaged hair or not. If you have bleached, dyed, used a lot of heat, or permed or chemically straightened your hair in the past then you may find that your hair will either get curlier or go bak to being straight all over if you don’t bleach/dye/perm/etc your hair in the future, but that would take quite a while to determine as you’d have to wait for the damaged parts to grow out.
If you don’t have any of those forms of damage, then you’re likely seeing what your hairs max capabilities already. So then you would just have to decide if you prefer to try styling all of your hair as straight as you can or if you prefer to treat it like wavy despite part of it being straight. It’s really just about your personal preference.
I’ve tried your recommend method n my normally straightish hair and it has resulted in something very not straight I wish I could show you a picture to get your thoughts on it. Will try it again incase it’s a fluke.
so I just did your test to see if my what normally seems to be stick straight hair has wave. while wet and scrunching I get a ton of waves and volume. after it’s been dry for a bit, the waves seem to fall out. would you consider me to still have straight hair? or would that be more due to lack of encouraging the waves over the years?
It’s common for loosely wavy hair to lose it’s shape as hair dries (or shortly after your hair dries) if you don’t use products with hold. Loosely wavy hair is sort of a “fragile” curl pattern so it needs support from products to stick around. If you used gel when doing the test but your shape still fell out, I’d bet you didn’t use enough. When that sort of thing happens it’s usually using a lot less gel than usual. Maybe try doubling the amount you used the first time and see how that goes. 🙂
I’ve tried this method and post plopping when I let me hair down it was as though big chunks had wrapped around each other at the back of my head (maybe not the right way to describe it) but it made me look as though there was no hair and made me worried they would form big matts so I pulled them apart and found that it took away some of the wave. Is this common and will they eventually fall out with gravity/my hair drying? What I really mean is can I leave them alone and they’ll sort themselves out to not affect the curl or was I right to pull them apart while still damp?
That makes me think you plopped for too long for your hair type, so your hair started to get “set” in the style it was in while in the plop. For me, the second I take the plop off, my hair falls down into a natural position because my hair is still quite wet. Given that your hair stayed sort of matted, I assume your hair was more dry than what you ideally want it to be after plopping. Given that that happened, I think you were correct to separate them. When you start diffusing, you want your hair to be in the style/shape that you are trying to maintain longterm. In the future I’d try plopping for maybe half the time you did this first time. If that still results in that happening, it might be that your hair naturally dries so quickly that plopping isn’t a good technique for you. You can skip it if you find that it works better to go straight to diffusing.
Hi! Just tried this method and when I took my hair out from plopping, it was super wavy with pretty defined curls. After it dried the curls started to fall out a little, and when I tried to scrunch out the crunch I couldn’t really find a way of doing it without ruining the definition of the curls. Some of my curls in the back have even pretty much straightened out except for a flick at the bottom, but at the front they’re still pretty wavy. Is the curls falling out just from not using any products to hold the curls or is it something I might have done wrong in the method? My hair is only about shoulder-length so maybe that has an effect?
Thanks!
With it having been really wavy after you removed the plop, it should be able to dry wavy if you find the right combination of techniques and products. Did you air dry after the plop? My guess is that the weight of the water may have pulled your hair straighter before it had a chance to dry and that might be why only the ends were left wavy.
Yes I just let it air dry. Do you think a diffuser would be better? I wondered about finding a gel rather than a mousse, would that keep my curls more defined than the mousse or would you say they have pretty much the same effect?
Thank you so much for your help!
Yes I think diffusing is likely to help a lot. It’s not true for absolutely everyone, bu t most people with wavy hair will find that diffusing helps keep their waves a lot tighter than air drying as air drying means water stays in your hair a lot longer and the weight of the water tends to pull waves a lot straighter before they have a chance to dry. We want them to dry in a tighter position so drying faster (by diffusing) usually results in tighter results.
If you’re getting a good cast from the mousse, then you’re unlikely to see better results from a gel in my opinion and experience. If you aren’t getting a good hard cast over all of your hair then using more mousse or a product (whether mousse or a gel) that offers stronger hold may help some.
Hi,
I’m new to your site and tried to use your method. I noticed that my hair was very wavy (I had pin straight hair as a kid and apparently my hair style hasn’t been like that for the longest) so wavier than I’m used to. Would I be able to determine the waviness without my hair being completely dry or scrunching out the cast of the mousse?
Thank you!
Not necessarily. If your hair is really wavy before it’s dry or while it’s in the cast, then it’s definitely some degree of wavy. But it’s common with wavy hair for it to be wavier/curlier when wet or when in the cast than it will be able to stay after you scrunch out the crunch. It does vary by person though, some are able to maintain that level of curliness after scrunching out the cast if they use the right products..so if you’re new and looking to maintain a curlier look, you might try using a greater amount of gel or a harder hold gel to see if you can hold on to that tightness after SOTC.
Wow, thank you for this…I just identified my hair as Type 1B but after reading this post, it might change. I might be a Type 1C, who knows….The photos when you were young looks exactly like mine but I wasn’t allowed to let my hair grow long and I always hated it more so because I have a round face.
I’m gonna have to try this method on my next wash day as I just washed my hair today. But I’ll have my hair colored this Saturday though. Will this method still work?
Hi! I’ve always wanted wavy/curly hair-and my mum thinks I have straight haie too-and i thought so too until i tried to scrunch my hair while it was wet, and it came out wavy-like 2b, 2c look. I dont know what to say. Am i forcing my curls???
Here is an article of mine that goes over if you’re forcing your waves or curls – https://wavyhaircare.com/is-your-hair-actually-wavy-or-are-you-forcing-it-wavy-imposter-syndrome/