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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.
Hi Emily! It has been a while. Because of limited mobility in my hands, I recently had my wavy hair cut in a slightly modified pixie style. Like you I wash and condition my hair then apply a small amount of Aussie max hold mousse comb it in and then finger lift and style the top. I let it air dry in about a half hour and then I use my wide tooth comb and comb and lift in a rolling motion to the left. I’m done!