I hate this, because almost no one knows it. No one tells kids with curly hair how to actually take care of their hair.
You can’t treat curly hair like straight hair and expect the same results! You can’t! It doesn’t work! Curly hair gets its own routine!
Okay, look, here’s the deal.
Your curls are… curls. They are MEANT to go together into a GROUP. They are not like straight hair which just hands out in one big… thing. Curls have groups.
By BRUSHING it, you are splitting those good-curl groups into separate strands, which, on their own, are STILL trying their goddamned best to curl, but now that they are away from their friends, they are only clinging haphazardly to each other as best as they can and creating tangles!
Here’s what brushed curly hair looks like:
Here’s what well-treated curly hair that has CURL-FRIENDS is supposed to look like (curl size may vary):
See how the curl is NOT only one strand of hair? It’s a whole group!
You know how you get those nice curls?
STOP BRUSHING. Give your curls back their curl-friends!
Okay, here’s the deal - you sit down. You look at this chart. Figure out your type of curl. (guesstimate)
And now you go to this website and you read about what curly hair actually needs to thrive, and you change your routine, and you promise me that you will NEVER disappoint your curls like that again!!!!
Basics:
1) Curly hair is damaged by heat, lack of moisture, and sulfates in shampoo.
- No blowdrying - use a cotton towel or t-shirt to scrunch your hair and get extra moisture out, and allow to air-dry
- Turn down the shower temp while washing hair. I mean it.
- Try to find a better shampoo.
2) Curly hair NEEDS moisture, and it NEEDS leave-in conditioner.
- Use lots of conditioner.
- Use leave-in conditioner
- Try to use water spray over chemical setting sprays.
3) Curly hair does not need to be brushed, only combed with a wide-tooth comb.
- Comb the hair through with your fingers while in the shower and detangle while you have conditioner in.
- Comb again with a wide-toothed comb after the shower if needed
- If you need to, use a twist of some sort to keep hair out of the way, but don’t squeeze it too much - give it room to breathe!
More tips from smarter people probably exist but that’s the basic stuff.
did i ever tell u guys that in fifth grade my class wrote a play bc we were studying ancient greece? it was called persephone and the (not so hot) heroes. i played demeter. basically, persephone got kidnapped by kronos and i strong armed hades into giving me 3 heroes from the underworld to get her back but they were actually terrible and i forget how she was actually saved but bottom line is that you wish you were my fifth grade class
this wasn’t little either, we used the town hall and we wore togas and shit
me as demeter
some lines (this was a joint effort of a bunch of greek-savvy 10/11 year olds):
athena: ‘im the goddess of wisdom but you don’t notice me telling everyone. i’m too smart for that’
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aphrodite: is zeus chasing some mortal woman again?
athena: no this time he and hera have gone for marriage counselling
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athena: we can ask hades to let them out of the underworld to help
aphrodite: he’ll never agree, he’s such a deadly bore (we made a fucking pun im so angry)
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demeter: hades wont pick up. he’s too busy torturing the dead in tartarus
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hades: i can’t undo the laws of death. just think of the paperwork.
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aphrodite: the humidity is messing up my hair. it’s getting all frizzy
athena: is that all you care about?
aphrodite: no, it’s also messing up my dress
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demeter: it’s so dark, and there aren’t any trees or flowers
hades: what do we need trees for, everybody’s dead
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paris: yeah, and i can shoot straight! isn’t that right, achilles?
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(hades enters)
paris: who are you? do we know you?
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achilles: im mighty achilles
odysseus: im wily odysseus
paris: and im hungry paris
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kronos: i really am awesome, aren’t i
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aeton: one wrong move and you’re history
odysseus: fool! we already are history!
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demeter: where are those mortals? i left them right there.
athena: are you sure? this isnt the first time you’ve lost someone.
I suddenly have the need for the entire screenplay, and to direct it at my college.
ive been thinking and honest to god: i think i would actually join a girl gang if the offer came. like a legitimate, hierarchical, “let’s carry knives under our skirts and beat up men” gang. fuck college
bringing back the sukeban girl gangs from the 70’s that wore long skirts against teen sexualization and fucked things up for the patriarchy
and this was no “5 girls in a small town” who made the news—this was yakuza level shit. 20,000 girls getting into gang fights and shoplifting and getting pissed off that only men were allowed to be rough and violent and angry
and y’all wanna know the funniest part? immediately after this trend blew up, the Men decided to sexualize the hell out of these girls. this included movie adaptations and pornos where the skirts were made shorter and the tits were bigger cause apparently they had found their new fetish
but here’s how they actually looked, and it’s actually pretty badass: