Hi! My name is Chelsea and like many people out there, I have been cursed with the natural curl gene. Now, I say cursed because it has taken me years to make my hair at least semi-presentable and control-able. I have stacks of photos from an awkward decade of chaotic curls that I had no idea how to deal with, and I will admit, I still suffer from triangle hair every once in a while.
What's interesting about my curls is they are right in between the tight curls a la Bernadette Peters and that wavy beach hair celebrities do when they want to look casual on the red carpet.
Let me take you through a typical hair day for me. I wake up, shower and wash my hair. I usually use a T-Gel shampoo because I get bouts of pretty bad dandruff sometimes, and then I condition with Herbal Essences Anti-Frizz conditioner. I do the worst thing possible for curly hair when I dry my hair with a towel: I rub it back and forth, resulting in a frizzy mess. I then brush my hair and style it with Herbal Essences Tousle Me Softly gel. I scrunch and scrunch until the front of my hair at least has curl. The back is usually always flat. Now, this is the beginning of the day. Around lunch time, my curls have died down a little. By four o'clock, my hair is just a frizz mess and that is when the hair goes up in a pony tail until I wake up the next morning and the routine starts again. Sound familiar to anyone else? I also have a nervous habit of messing with my hair that makes it frizz even more, which doesn't help any, and just draws attention to the growing mass that is my hair.
I found out about the Curly Girl Method from one of my cousins. She mentioned the idea to me, and after much deliberation, I decided to try it. Now, almost everything I do in my daily hair routine is completely opposite of what the Curly Girl Method entails, so this should be interesting, exciting, and possibly demoralizing. I've read that sometimes your hair looks worse before it gets better, which I am a little worried about. But, if this means that my curls will be a little bouncier and prettier, than I am willing to give it the old college try.
For those of you who don't know, the Curly Girl Method was designed by Lorraine Massey. She even wrote a book about it. In this method, you don't use shampoo to wash your hair. This is because some of the chemicals in shampoo dry out hair and don't provide the moisture that curly hair needs. Instead, you wash with a conditioner, massaging in that much needed moisture. This might sound a little gross, but it's supposed to still clean your hair and head, just in a different way. You comb your hair in the shower instead of after you get out. Actually, not brushing your hair is an important step. Also, doing that towel rubbing drying method is prohibited. Instead you just squeeze out the water with the towel. And blow drying is also against the rules (but I never blow dry)--instead you just let your hair air dry, and you can't mess with it as it dries. Again, like I said, I break almost every one of these rules.
This blog is mostly going to be about my attempts at the Curly Girl Method. There will be laughter, tears, cries of frustration--you name it. I welcome comments or questions as well, especially from those suffering from the curly hair curse as I do.
Every post isn't going to be about the Curly Girl Method though. I like cooking and doing crafts. I like music and movies, and being an English major, I LOVE reading. So you might find posts about those other things as well.
My plan is start the Curly Girl Method when I get back to school, which is the beginning of January. Think of it as a New Years Resolution; I'm going to break all of my bad curly hair habits so I will no longer call my curls a curse.
