r/Swavyhair

any tips on holding waves when my hair dries? the first pic is my hair directly after being washed, I scrunched it a little with a t-shirt but haven’t applied any product. the second is my hair after drying!

I feel like it has wavy potential but it just doesn’t want to hold them! I often plait my hair overnight and take them out in the morning it has no issues holding the waves then?

Hi r/curlyhair, newbie here. Have been working on my curl routine the past month or so with mixed results. My current routine is: shampoo and conditioner once every four days or so using Pantene pro-v defined curls range, using a wide tooth comb to detangle my hair. I rinse out the conditioner then apply a curl activator (revlon style masters orbital 2) and scrunch, followed by Umberto Giannini curl whip mousse and scrunch, then microplop as I do all of this while my hair is dripping wet. I then diffuse to dry on low heat, low speed. First pic is a more recent attempt with a bit more success.

My problems are: 1) where my curls do form, they’re like ringlets, but I can’t replicate this across my entire head. Some of my hair is almost completely straight under a top layer of curls. 2) getting my curls to stay put, 3) what on earth to do to refresh my curls between washes. I sleep in a satin bonnet and wake up looking like a scarecrow with my hair all over the place. I’ve also struggling with scrunching out the crunch, it seems to remove any definition I had to begin with…

Edit: my wording might have been confusing, I meant the top layer of my hair seems to form and hold curls much better than the layer of hair underneath.

I tried the bowl method after seeing someone make a post about their hair never cooperating because they didn't realize it was wavy. These are my results.

My hair is fine. I usually wash, condition, stick it in a towel, and then blowdry upside down and brush it out. This makes it look pretty straight. (Last photo). I have trouble with it looking frizzy no matter what - everything is super smooth until around mid-ear, where ends begin to stick out even though not all of them are broken. It just seems to be how my hair is! Now I'm questioning everything...

Do I actually have wavy hair or am I just deluding myself to explain frizz? 😅

I feel like it’s got some bend but not able to hold an S-shape after it’s fully dry. Then I’m left with this unkept looking frizz that’s not straight and not a consistent wave. This was diffusing with just some heat protection.

I think I want my hair cut like this but is it a blunt bob just off the shoulders? Do you think it’s easy to style?

I have relatively thick wavy hair and a fringe so think it’d work for me but I never go to hairdressers so am a bit lost as to what to ask for.

Also, any styling tips for this look are much appreciated! Thank you!

Hi!! I used to have glossy straight hair that felt super smooth after brushing it. Now when I brush it, it kinda poofs out and I have a few little wavy pieces underneath after showering. It doesn’t really have waves in it before I brush. Any advice? What’s happening 😂😫

This is about the best I can get for my very fine, very thin wavy hair. I feel like the volume and wave is there, but from the sides and back it looks like a hot mess. I can't get it more orderly without the wave just falling out. This is a bit of styling cream and gel on soaking hair, plopped then diffused.

The last photo is my hair (pre-haircut) scrunched and air dried with no product.

I've tried a bunch of products with mostly similar outcomes. I think my problem is my technique. Or my hair, lol. Help!

ETA: This is wash day, fresh styling, not actually bed head.

This is 90% dry with gel cast still in it. Looks so stringy to me 😭

Recently wanted to see how my new volume shampoo looked air dryed to know if i need heat tools or not for vacay is not unormal for little waves when air drying but falls flat quickly but this is new tho any thoughts? Also i dry brush it normally no frizzy mess either

My hair is frizzy normally but more frizzy in front..

idk what to doo.. I use loreal hyaluron range as my shampoo n conditioner. and use dove 10 in 1 deep repair mask.. I really need good suggestions.. please help me out..🥺

I found out I have swavy hair after always thinking it was pin-straight, and this became more clear when I cut it shorter. I have been attempting a wavy routine for a last 2 months or so and I’ve had mixed results. I feel like my wash day, I am forcing in smaller thinner waves that aren’t there, while my hair settles into the wave pattern it wants to be in on the second and third day. My hair is quite flat on top, with the waves starting a few inches down. I now use root clips to help with this.

Wash day (pic 1 taken after scrunching out crunch): shampoo x2, condition. On very wet hair, a little bit of spray leave in conditioner on ends, then Cult and King jelly. Brush with my wet brush. Coat with a bit of NYM curl talk gel. Scrunch scrunch scrunch. Add in root clips. Pixie diffuse or air dry. Pixie diffusing is something I have only recently tried. It seems to break up the waves more? So maybe it’s not for me. It does seem to keep the waves in better than air drying though.

On days 2 and 3 (2nd and 3rd pics*), I mist with water to activate the waves (which have straitened out overnight) and scrunch with a tiny bit of product on my hands, either the jelly or gel.

In this routine, on wash day I can’t get my hair to clump into the larger waves that I get on my day 2. Also, my hair is very thin and dries VERY fast, especially at the roots, when I step out of the shower. I am constantly misting it with more water, but it’s just in these thin strings instead of thicker strands.

*these pics were taken day after the salon where it was cut and styled with different products. I did not purchase all of the products, as they are $$$$. I did purchase the jelly but the stylist used cult and king set spray as a base (with jelly on top of waves), so maybe I need to splurge… My hair has probably never looked better than that second day. 😂 when styling, they did this thing where they sprayed it with a bunch of the set spray while wet, and then took strands of my hair and rolled them into ringlets with a comb/fingers, scrunched it all, and then put me under one of those diffuse dryer hoods. I haven’t been able to recreate the ringlets at home. They don’t seem to hold to themselves, if that makes sense…they just unravel. So I’ve nixed this technique. (Also, she ended up needing to undo it all when we found a few a few stray hairs needed cutting. So I never got to see the result. I just know that whatever she did made the next days look great too)

As mentioned, low porosity fine hair
Pic explanation:
1: current routine Rizos sea salt spray, Rizos curl foam, Curlsmith hydrogel. Very hit or miss routine for me
2-3: air dry zero products
4-5: NYM curl talk mousse, NYM gel. Made my hair look greasy and stringy
6: hair after thoroughly soaking and only squishing against head
7: products I have

My air dry curls/waves are awesome but they don’t hold for much longer than a few hours. I’ve been trial and erroring for about a year now, I WFH so if it looks bad I just throw it up and try again the next day

Hello all, I wanted to ask this to the r/wavyhair but the mods and community seem kinda brutal and I'm sensitive LOL so I'll post this here if that's okay (fyi some pictures are vertical if u can't see the full pics when sliding ♪).

I just recently discovered that I have a hidden hair texture (probably 1c) after thinking I was a pin straight hair girl all of my life.

I'm asian and it always baffled me why I could never naturally achieve silky straight hair like those around me, and I would have to go out of my way to make it straight such as flat ironing it.

I live in Japan so it is a bit hard to get ahold of hair products that target textured hair unless I order from US Amazon, but I tried out the scrunching method after doing conditioner during last night's shower and it seemed to hold waves well when wet.

Once I got out the shower I tried the "plopping" method and scrunched it up with my towel, did not brush it out and let it airdry. Although when it was all dry, only the back hair showed prominent waves, and the front parts sort of dropped dead with really weak S waves. My hair is thick, coarse, but long and I heard that's what could be weighing down my natural texture.

I was hoping anyone knows any tips on how to maintain it because this is kind of driving me crazy. I try so hard to take care of my hair all for it to frizz up, puff out at the bottom, and it's still not straight so I'll just try to embrace this although I have zero idea on what I'm doing LOL

I have an awkward hair that’s like in between wavy and straight, a little more on the wavy side (and I get a little more actual curl underneath)

There’s days when I love my hair because it curls up so nicely, doesn’t have tons of frizz, etc. But then there’s days when it looks awful — a couple waves / curls but then frizzy and half straight hairs all over, and it makes me super insecure

I feel like I’ve noticed that the longer my hair gets / the longer I go without a cut, it maybe weighs down more and that’s why it doesn’t end up looking so nicely ? I want to try to find a routine or something to do to help it look nice even when it’s getting longer.

I’ll share some pics of my hair to hopefully help (first pic is an example of now when it’s getting longer, more frizzy, not as many waves/curls and just looks kinda messy). Other pics I’ll share what it looks like on a better day:

***side note lol, the third pics are a REALLY good day lol couldn’t find other examples, but anywhere in between the two would be good for me. I typically dry my hair in a micro fiber towel / let it dry mostly before air drying and/or total air dry. I rarely blow dry unless i’m in a hurry or trying to use my diffuser (although maybe i’m using the diffuser wrong because I feel like it just causes frizz and mess for me). My after shower routine is It’s a 10 leave in spray, and then I scrunch Marc Anthony curl defining lotion (first with my hands, then with the micro fiber towel before putting it up in the towel)