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| I am confused by my curl patterns. |
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| Mystery curl. |
The reason for this investigation is my discovery--thanks again to Pinterest--that I am not the only white woman in the world with hair like this and that there are inexpensive ways to prevent it from becoming a mass of frizz. But how one goes about doing that depends on what kind of curly hair one has.
I asked my sister (who has hair somewhat like mine) over Facebook whether she thought my hair was 3B according to the chart, and she replied that it was hard to tell without product. All the models were covered in product.
(I lost my male readership way back, didn't I? Product means stuff you put in your hair after you rinse out the shampoo and/or conditioner.)
So I undid my then-damp hair from the airplane blanket it was wrapped in and smooshed some Body Shop shea body butter into it.
"You'll make it all greasy," wailed B.A., who has soft straight hair he washes in sulfates every day.
"Nothing can make my hair greasy," I replied, smooshing away. "It's too dry." Then I tied my hair back into its airplane blanket
And, behold, I awoke this morning looking like the photo, only without the MAC Mineralize Moisture Foundation (NW 20), the eyeshadow, the mascara, the eyeliner, the eyebrows and the lipstick. When I say "natural", I mean my hair. I'm in my mid-40s. I don't wake up looking like that.
(Sorry about the hint of ghost-white cleavage, by the way. It's that colour because it never, ever sees the wrinkle-causing sun. Have I mentioned sunscreen lately? If I look younger than I should, it's because
Naturally four hundred eyes are better than two, so if you are at all interested, would you have a look on the internet curl charts and VOTE to say which kind of curl you think I possess? And please mention any curly hair tips and favourite moisturizing styling products in the combox. I have quit shampoo, so I can't use any leave-in product with one or more of the silicones in it. Oh, and no alcohol either, as it is drying. My hair has been dry my whole life, so the project is to make it, er, damp. Moisturized. More like hair in the movies and less like hair on the sheep.
That reminds me that I had an amusing time in Sally Express, today, looking at curly hair products. The ingredients were written in print so tiny, I had to get B.A. to read them to me. Just about everything had stupid dimethicone in it. We ended up in the "Ethnic" section. And there we found KeraCare Butter Cream, a "moisture-locking soufflé that not only hydrates" it cures cancer, etc. Most importantly, it is mostly water, shea butter and veggie oil.
Afterwards we went to Tesco, where I was accosted by a crazy youngish bald man who stared at me with manic eyes and shouted into his phone, "It's my favourite kind of HAIR!"
"Darling! Darling!" called B.A. and I swiftly deked around the nutter to hide behind my husband.
"That was him," I hissed as he went out.
"Darling," said B.A. affectionately. "He's harmless. He's just a junkie."
The Close Encounter of the Hair Kind in Tesco is too. funny.
ReplyDeleteI vote for 3B. The 2s all look like they have a bit of curl in their hair and they've "scrunched" it with product to accentuate the curl. The 3s look like actual curl that needs special attention.
Caveat: I have stick-straight hair and would give anything for some curl, but I've had a host of friends and roommates with curly hair who've bemoaned the puff-and-frizz factor. It looks gorgeous to me, but with hair, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Anyway, my vote is pure observation and no personal experience.
Thank you! The 3Bs seem to be winning. Currently I have my hair rolled up in modified Princess Leia buns. The "moisture locking souffle" seems to have done a pretty good job making my hair softer. Stay tuned.
Delete3B.
ReplyDeleteThat picture makes you look like a redhaired River Song btw. Could be a good costume for you, if you haven't used that one before.
I don't run with a Doctor Who crowd, so the River Song costume has gone untried!
DeleteI have always done a great Princess Leia imitation.
DeleteI'm another stick-straight hair person, so no help really. The only tip I've heard is to avoid shampoo (which you already are) and only use conditioner.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of the no-name supermarket shampoo my family used for decades--plus the terrible "white bristle brush"--it all begins to make sense. Let's face it: white people in the 1970s and 1980s just did not understand how to deal with super-curly, super-dry hair. And my poor paternal grandmother, who was mocked by neighbourhood kids as "N--- Wool" (this was before the end of WWI), completely fried her hair with mid-war perms. I shudder to imagine what perm lotion was like in 1945, let along 1935 and 1925!
ReplyDelete3B is my vote. The other is a bit too loose to be your hair type. I've heard coconut oil and/or argan oil works well for moisturizing hair. :-) It's a nice picture, btw.
ReplyDeleteCan you go and consult a stylist about it? Someone who deals with curly hair. I also vote 3B as the closest of the given options.
ReplyDelete