‘I had my first curly cut and this is what happened’
As someone with naturally thick, curly hair, I’ve never understood how people can love visiting hair salons. Having my hair cut has always filled me with dread, and most of my experiences have been negative ones.
I remember, as a child, having two hairdressers blowdrying my hair because there was so much of it, yanking from both sides. I remember stylists telling me they’d never seen hair like mine, scraping through it with a brush so hard it made my head sore, and making me feel guilty for its thickness. I remember another hairdresser cutting layers that looked great when my hair was wet, but when my hair dried, the curls sprung up and it looked like an unfortunate mullet.
A post shared by CURL.TALK (@curl.talk) on Jan 15, 2020 at 2:17am PST
Whether I went to expensive salons or not, it always felt the same: no one seemed to know what the heck to do with my hair. I internalised this and believed it was fault for having such unmanageable hair, so straightened my frizzy locks as much as possible – and avoided having my hair cut at all costs.
But that all changed when I decided to embrace my natural curls six months ago, and decided that I would finally conquer my fear of hairdressers. And I soon realised that visiting the hairdresser as a curly girl can actually be a positive experience, if you know where to look.
It’s a freezing Sunday afternoon and I’m bubbling with excitement and anticipation when I head for my first hair-cut in six years with curl and wave specialist, Joleigh Wynter, at her salon Curl Talk, based just off Brick Lane. Joleigh is the stylist behind Rochelle Humes’ gorgeous curl transformation, and she’s trained and certified in the ‘curlbycurl’ cutting method by esteemed American curl specialist, Lorraine Massey. Many curly girls will know Massey as the brains behind the ‘curly girl method’ (known in online communities as CGM), a strict – yet effective – approach to looking after curls, outlined in her book The Curly Girl Handbook.
Its main rules involve banishing shampoo, avoiding harsh ingredients including sulphates and silicones, never brushing when dry and championing all-natural conditioning masks and scrunching gels. Over the past few months, I’ve been following her method as closely as possible, but I still have a lot of frizz and very little bounce, so am hoping a curl cut – by one of her trainees, no less – will do the trick.
So how does the ‘curlbycurl’ cutting method work? ‘It basically involves cutting each curl individually, and doing it all while the hair is dry,’ Joleigh explains. ‘The problem with wetting curly hair before you cut it is that all curls spring into different shapes, so you have a much better idea about how the curls will sit when you do it dry.’
It’s all part of a wider acknowledgement that every person requires a completely fresh approach, because there’s such a huge variety of curl types and textures that all need to be treated differently.
‘Not only is every person different, every curl is different,’ explains Joleigh. ‘You can often find a tight corkscrew, an ‘S’ shaped curl, and some loose waves all on the same head of hair, so you have to completely customise and personalise depending on the client.’ This goes some way to explaining why so few stylists are trained in this method.
When I first sit down in the chair, she asks how I feel about my hair at the moment. I say I’m learning to love it, but it just feels a bit frizzy, dry and straw-like at the ends. It’s hardly surprising, as I have been ravaging it with heat for so many years. She recommends giving my hair a simple trim at the bottom – to remove said straw-like ends – and adding some shape so that the curls sit on each other better. It all sounds good to me – and she gets to work cutting straight away while my hair is dry, which feels weird at first. But it seems to make total sense – she doesn’t stretch my curls or aggressively brush through them – instead, she looks at each one to work out how my hair naturally falls and where is best to chop.
When we move onto the wash, Joleigh talks me through looking after my curls. In the past six months, I’ve learned so much about the completely different maintenance curly hair requires when compared to other hair types, but it really helps having an expert on hand to answer all my questions. I explain that I’ve been washing my hair with conditioner and only drying it with microfibre towels. But Joleigh recommends using a ‘co-wash’ product (a conditioner designed specifically to clean your hair too) and only using t-shirts to dry my hair, as they cause even less friction and frizz.
Next up, she gets to work on styling. I’m pleased to see she’s using a lot of the products I regularly use (a leave-in conditioner, followed by Cantu’s curl activator cream and a non-sticky gel) except she explains that I’m forgetting about a key ingredient: water. According to Joleigh, I have ‘low porosity’ hair, meaning it struggles absorbing moisture from water. This all makes sense, as I’ve noticed that when my hair is soaking wet, it still looks stringy, and droplets seem to sit on top of strands rather than sinking in. To counter this, she continually sprays my hair with water, right at the root, squelching it into the strands as she applies the products. This, she says, will help me combat the halo of frizz I just can’t seem to escape.
‘I love frizz and it can look amazing and voluminous if that’s what you want ,’ says Joleigh. ‘But it should also be your choice. If you want to get rid of frizz, you can too.’
I find this so reassuring, as ‘frizzy’ is so often described as the most negative trait hair could possibly have. It’s incredibly useful to find out more about my hair texture – I had no idea what low or high porosity even meant before going in there. It’s true that you can read all about your hair type online, but ultimately speaking to someone who could physically see and feel my hair, and knew exactly what my hair needed, was invaluable – especially after years of feeling like my hair was an anomaly. Joleigh explains that everyone’s hair needs something different – some curly-headed people might need to use more protein, while others will need more moisture. It’s all about trial and error, she says – there’s no one-size-fits-all.
My hair-cut ends with a diffuser blow-dry using the brilliant Dyson Supersonic Hairdryer. I usually air-dry my hair (hairdryers are normally the enemy of curls because they create so much frizz), but Joleigh highly recommends diffusing, which distributes heat more evenly – ‘you can get much more reliable results,’ she says. My hair has never looked so controlled and soft, and the curls are so big and bouncy. But looking in the mirror, I feel most emotional about the fact this is my first time I’ve ever felt happy in a salon chair. For the first time, I hadn’t felt judged by having ‘too much’ hair – in here, it’s all just another day in the salon. It’s important to Joleigh never to make customers feel bad about how much hair they have – which is why she uses standard pricing for all her cuts (£100 for all adults). As a mother-of-three who had similar negative experiences I had when she was growing up, she also puts special emphasis on cutting kids’ hair – half the salon is complete with small chairs and picture-books. ‘You see kids as young as five coming in feeling so self-conscious about their hair,’ she says. ‘I want children feel good about their curls from a young age.’
As I head out of the salon, I buy the own-brand Curl Talk satin bonnet to sleep in, and I’m amazed when I wake up that my curls are exactly as they were the night before. My hair feels so much healthier, and lighter. And I feel lighter too.
Although I don’t manage to achieve the same styling results after my first wash post-cut (what can I say, I’m not a professional just yet), the way I feel about my hair has improved dramatically. It feels so much healthier and I now know, with the right advice and some love and care, my curls have so much potential. Visiting a specialised curl salon completely changed the way I view hair-cuts. I no longer associate them with feeling abnormal; instead, I can feel like I belong. The atmosphere was one of community – I ended up chatting to both the other stylists and the other customers – but also one that celebrates individuality. It’s such a relief that there are people out there who know, and care, about a hair-type so many of us have, but that we’ve been conditioned to repress.
So if you’re considering embracing your curls full-time, but you don’t know where to start, I highly recommend seeking out a curl specialist and having your first curl cut. It’s safe to say I will be going again.
For more information about Joleigh, visit curltalk.co.uk or find her on Instagram at @curl.talk
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