I’m so grateful that my husband’s super supportive of the things I do and am curious about — ICYMI, I made him eat pancit for a week — because I get to find things out even though I don’t try them myself. To be fair, it is easier for him to do the things I ask him to do. I don’t have one type of food I can eat every day for an entire week. And for the most recent thing I was curious about — the curly girl method — well, I just don’t have curly hair. My husband apparently has. He has waves, and they’re considered to be a type 2A curl pattern.
“A frizz is just a curl waiting to happen,” Lorraine Massey, author of Curly Girl: The Handbook, said. Well, my husband did have frizzy hair though it was nothing one cannot manage. Now, though, his waves are more pronounced thanks to the curly girl method a.k.a. CGM.
What is the Curly Girl Method?
It’s a specific way of caring for the hair, which is said to have been devised by Lorraine Massey (yes, the same Lorraine quoted above), that enlivens the curls instead of taming them. There are a lot of steps involved depending on your curl pattern, but the basics are as follows:
- Cleanse your hair with a non-sulfate shampoo
- Condition your hair until it feels “slimy” — fully saturate it with the product
- Style using a gel
- Dry with a cotton tshirt or a diffuser
What makes the curly girl different from other hair care methods, aside from the steps are the products used. For instance, you can’t use just any shampoo that’s available. It has to be sulfate-free because sulfates strip moisture off the hair. And if there’s one thing curly hair needs to thrive, it’s moisture. Don’t know which shampoos fall under this category? Somebody actually made a website to answer that question! Check out Is It CG?
Products with silicons are also a no-go. Aside from leaving curls looking limp, greasy, and flat, silicones can only be removed from the hair with the use of sulfates. Yup, it’s gonna be a cycle of moisture stripping if you use this. Meanwhile, waxes and mineral oils are also not advised because they build up on the curls. On the other hand, alcohols strip off moisture — so these are not recommended either. I’m sure you’ve already caught the drift so you may have already expected that heat tools are also not meant to be part of any step in the curly girl method.
CGM remix
Since my husband has just waves, and because we live somewhere humid, we thought of modifying the method for him. While a general rule for CGM is to wash the hair just once a week, it’s not possible for us who live in the tropics. Plus, men typically produce more sebum than women, so skipping washes may lead to more problems than benefits. So we remixed the method to cater to my husband’s hair needs. He does a reverse hair washing method — but conditions again after it. That’s condition, shampoo, condition. He doesn’t style his hair and puts on Vitress for shine only when he remembers. He just airdries his tresses, too.
While sleuthing on the internet for products that might suit my husband, I came across a Shopee store called Curlify. Everything they carry is for curly-haired people — it was like stumbling upon a pot of gold, only the gold is shampoo, conditioner, and gel. I picked up the Zenutrients Gugo Shampoo, which, aside from being sulfate-free, also promotes hair growth and strength, and the Human Heart Nature Strengthening + Rosemary Conditioner.
Results + my husband’s thoughts
Since my husband’s hair isn’t the typical definition of curly, it’s definitely not straight. I noticed his waves are more defined and his hair seems to have more volume.
“My hair has felt more robust since using the method, notwithstanding the hair fall problem I’ve been dealing with in the last few years. My hair hasn’t suddenly become curly, but there feels to be greater volume,” my husband says.