Naturally Curly Hair Tutorial

I find a lot of inspiration from looking at older posts from time to time. Whether it's seeing how I used to wear a sweater or as a reminder of things that might be hidden deep in my black hole closet.

As I was looking through LTT's life from the last year or so, I happened to come across a tutorial request for how I curl my natural hair. I'm sure I covered it back then, but I decided to do a real in-depth post to show you all each step that it takes to get my locks just how I like them.

So read on to find out all about it!

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First, I wash my hair. The wetter it is the better it will curl. I also try to keep my natural curls in tact by brushing my hair while I'm in the shower with my fingers or a comb while my conditioner is setting in. 

Side note - I let my conditioner sit in my hair for a majority of the time I'm in the shower. I also don't wash it completely out of my hair. Think of it as a leave in treatment.

Once I get out of the shower, I loosely wring it out with my hands. I don't use a towel because I want to keep the moisture in there.

I start by clipping up the hair from around the tops of my ears and above so I have only the bottom layer of hair down.

With my hair still wet, I apply my Miss Jessie's Pillow Soft Curls -only $14!- all up in it (Coily Custard is also the bees knees if you're looking for something with a little more hold). I use a little more than the size of a quarter. I make sure I apply it evenly throughout all of this layer.

I find that the product works best when the hair is fully saturated while applying. Just FYI.

To get a little extra cool and volume, I scrunch. We all know about scrunching. grab your hair from the ends and scrunch it up to your roots. We'll do this later on too, so stay tuned.

Next I clip up the top layer of my hair and apply the Miss Jessie's to the middle layer, and then the top. It's super important to make sure you have all of your hair covered in this stuff. Otherwise, you'll have a random spot of weirdness, like missing a spot of make up on your face.

Apply, scrunch, repeat.

Once you have applied the product all over your hair, stop and take a happy picture.

Next, I break out my hair dryer. I have a Chi Pro (linked and on sale!), which I love to death. It gets nice and hot and I appreciate it so much more each time I'm without it. Like at a hotel. Or a friend's place.

I use this crazy looking this called a diffuser to make the heat spread evenly throughout a larger area. I put it on a lot speed, and flip my head upside-down to dry. I am all about the volume, so I do anything I can to add it!

You want to basically use the dryer as a tool to help you scrunch your curls again. start by placing the ends of your hair onto this spikey thing and scrunch the hair all the way up to your roots. This helps to form the curls and let them know where they need to be. It's like training your hair. 

I do this all over my head, but in sections at a time. It's also important to use a low dry speed because you don't want to blow your curls around too much or they'll lose their shape. So to recap high heat, low speed. 

I don't dry my hair fully because I want the curls to also form on their own from drying naturally. I just blow dry to so it doesn't soak my pjs and to start the curls off on the right step.

To sleep, I sunflower my damp hair all around my pillow. I haven't quite figured out the best way to do this, but it seems to work best if I'm not sleeping on my hair. So, sleep sitting up?

Just kidding.

Just don't sleep with all of your hair under your head. 

In the morning, it should be perfectly dry and perfectly curled. If you need to fix a few things here and there, simply splash the area with a few drops of water, and repeat the whole process. Apply, scrunch, dry.

We all know that our hair can get real weird if you sleep on it funny. Like, sometimes i wake up and have hair literally matted down to the side of my face. Awk.

So there you have it! All about my curly hair with help from Miss Jessie's. I was lucky enough to receive a few free samples to try out and I am seriously not even sure how I've survived 25 years of having naturally curly hair without them. It holds my curls without making them crunchy.

I wear my curls most when I know it's going to rain or if I feel a little lazy. Surprising that this takes much less work than my everyday routine. Easy peasy my friends!

Happiest Monday and have a wonderful day! Remember, it's the only Monday August 18th, 2015 you'll ever have, so make the most of it!

xx -S