Embracing Natural Waves

My hair and I have had a pretty rubbish relationship in the past. From the moment I discovered hair straighteners in my early teenage years, I used them religiously, aiming for that perfectly straight Avril Lavigne look. Then the hair dye abuse started... Pink, black, blue, bleached blonde, green (by accident...), raccoon stripes, red; I've had them all, even achieving Most Frequently Changing Hair in our school yearbook! It wasn't until I was closer to 18 that I actually decided to start treating my hair with a little bit of love but the years of damage took some time for any kind of recovery to happen.

Despite my hair being much healthier than it was in High School, I was still never really happy with it. I'd grow it, cut it, grow it, cut it, never really finding the style I wanted. I'd had every colour & style you could imagine (hello, liberty spikes!) but the one look I'd longed for was the natural one. To be able to wash my hair and leave it - knowing it wouldn't turn into a ball of frizz or resemble a birds nest - was something I'd dreamt of. I'd tried a couple of times to embrace my natural waves but found that I'd quickly get impatient with the frizz & unpredictable nature of it and end up reaching to the straighteners once more. I even considered a perm for a short while thinking it might give me some more hold to my hair!

Then kids came along. I was still going through the grow it, cut it phase, opting to keep it long enough to tie back and reducing washing & straightening to just a couple of times a week (due to necessity more than anything else). But when the prospect of returning to work after having David rolled around, the idea of getting up at stupid o'clock in the morning to singe my hair into place, with two kids clinging to a leg each, just seemed like a complete nightmare. There had to be a better way to achieve nice hair with minimum effort... Google led me to discover the Curly Girl Method. And let me tell you, it's changed my hair for the better, in so many ways! There's not much to it really but when you're in the realms of 'normal' hair habits, it can all sound quite foreign and ridiculous. Let me break it down for you...

The Curly Girl Method is all about letting your hair be, cutting out the products that create a vicious cycle and embracing & loving your curls. Let's start with conditioner. Pretty much very conditioner you buy in the UK will contain silicones, which if you've never really thought about what's in your conditioner before you're probably not aware of, nor particularly care; I know I never! Turns out silicones aren't great for your hair. What they do is create a plastic tubing around the hair strand meaning any moisture (which your hair is likely to be lacking in if your a heat & dye abuser like I was) is kept in but it also means no more can get in either because silicones aren't water soluble. So who's do you get silicones out your hair? That's where your shampoo comes into play!

Like conditioners, shampoo isn't too great for your hair either. Because your conditioner is packed with silicones, your shampoo needs to be packed with sulphates (the ingredient that makes your shampoo bubbly) to break the silicones down and prevent them building up. Unfortunately, sulphates will also take any natural oils from your hair in the process too. In fact, check your shampoo against your dish liquid - you'll find he ingredients are spookily similar, yet you wouldn't buy fairy to wash your hair with! So begins the vicious cycle of silicones & sulphates.

So what's the solution? Simple - cut out silicones & sulphates! But with very few products on the UK market offering silicones & sulphate hair products, it's a bit tricky. There are a few sulphate-free shampoos [sometimes referred to as "low-poo"] out there or the other popular option is to wash with a silicone-free conditioner [often called "co-washing"]. Anyone I ever mention co-washing to inevitably ends up picking their jaw off the floor because the idea of washing your hair with conditioner conjures up images of greasy, build-up covered hair, however with using silicone-free conditioner this isn't that case at all. Because the conditioner you use contains only water-soluble ingredients, there's no build up and it does the job of your shampoo without stripping your hair from its own natural goodness, although a little more elbow grease is needed due to the lack of bubbles; that being said, massaging the conditioner into the scalp to lift any dirt is great for encouraging hair growth!

I'm currently using a variety of low-poo shampoos as because my hair is more wavy than curly, I find this suits me better (co-washing tends to weigh my hair down a bit as it doesn't need the same amount of moisture as someone with tighter curls). I've also found a great selection of conditioners and styling products since starting the Curly Girl Method that work for me too and they're all available on the UK High Street. Best of all, I've only had straighteners touch my tresses once in the past 10 months! I'm most definitely a convert to my natural hairstyle now.

I'm going to be sharing my favourite low-poo shampoos, silicone-free conditioners & Curly Girl friendly styling products with you all over the coming weeks, as well as some tips & tricks I've learnt along the way. So if you've any questions about the Curly Girl Method or how I care for my hair in general, I'd love to know! Just leave a comment & I'll do my best to answer all of them along the way.

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