I have a frizzy demonic jungle on my head, help

RubyInferno

Hai! I'm 17, and my curl pattern ranges from 2C to 3A, and I have a couple of 3B curls towards the front. My hair seems to be medium coarseness, but oh my god, there is so much of it, and it frizzes up so easily. It's like a jungle. I put it in a ponytail and measured the circumference, and it was 5 inches. It's high porosity so it tangles very easily and takes a ridiculously long time to detangle. It also appears to be protein sensitive.

My hair is extremely temperamental. If I use something on my hair, whether it be a deep conditioner, apple cider vinegar rinse, or tea rinse, it'll often work very well for the first time I use it, then never again, even if I thoroughly clarify my hair with baking soda, which I do once a month. Nothing seems to work as well as it did the first time I use it. Absolutely nothing. WHY.

I usually wash my hair about twice a week using the Dr Organic argan oil shampoo, which is sulfate free. I then use the vitamin E or argan oil conditioner from that brand, or I use one of Shea Moisture's hair masques (either the raw shea butter, superfruit, or lightweight one), and comb and detangle with my fingers, then go through with my wide toothed comb (which looks like some sort of demonic pitch fork. My hair is probably posessed :laughing6:) to evenly distribute it and to ensure there are no small tangles. This process takes approximately 1 million years due to the endlesss tangles, maybe half a million on a good day, and uses up approximately 1-2 metric tonnes of conditioner. Then I put it in a loose high bun and continue my shower as normal. After a few minutes, I rinse out most of the conditioner with cool/cold water, apply a little bit more conditioner (no raking at this point - just smoothing over), cup some water in my hands and scrunch, then apply argan oil and then the Shea Moisture curling gel soufflé. And then I do more scrunching, then a bit of gentle scrunching with a t shirt. Then I just leave it to air dry, but if I spot a frizzy section of hair, I'll twirl it with my finger and give it a scrunch. Sometimes I skip the argan oil if I'm feeling particularly lazy. And I don't use anything with silicone.

Twirling individual frizzy sections of hair often isn't very effective though, because my entire head begins to look frizzy and mad. Especially if I use the hair masques too often, possibly because they contain protein, and the curls become all weird and undefined. Using the Shea Moisture Jamaican black castor oil leave in conditioner has that effect too, and it contains keratin. And the Shea Moisture raw shea conditioner wreaks havoc on my hair for some reason. It just becomes a frizzy bushy mess. Possibly because of the silk protein?

I fairly frequently wrap my hair in clingfilm whilst it has conditioner in it, and I leave it there for at least 30 minutes, sometimes up to a few hours, before rinsing out and doing what I normally do. This does not appear to help much, however.

This is my hair on a very good day. Even then, there is still some frizz.

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bomega

Welcome to nc.com. I actually think your hair looks really good in that photo. It's hair I could live with. If you mean that it doesn't look like those slick movie star photos, keep in mind they look like that because they spent an hour having a professional stylist straighten their hair then re-curl it for a perfect red-carpet look.

However, it is possible to get more definition even without silicones and straightening. One thing that stands out is that the Shea Moisture curling souffle has tons of humectants in it, which can lead to frizz especially in high humidity (or even just not low humidity) This is largely because they also provide hold. You did well to apply oil first, as that is the work around (the oil seals the hair keeping humidity out) but maybe it happens to not be enough.

Some people around here are having great results using just homemade flax seed gel instead of regular gel curl cream. But really I think your hair looks great.

RubyInferno

Thanks! It's one of the only gels I could find that doesn't contain silk protein (1. I'm vegan and 2. My hair doesn't seem to react well to protein). I will look for ones without humectants though, and I'll try the flaxseed gel. And that photo is my hair on a very, very good day, and it does have some frizz at the back even then, which is out of view of the photo. It normally does not look like that.

Also I apologise for the cringeyness of my first post, I wrote that when I was extremely tired xD

bomega

Haha...no worries. It's good you provided all that information - it's easier to help that way. I just remembered there was recently this article on nc.com where this lady with magnificent curls described her process: How Elaine Gets her Naturally Wavy Hair to Look Like This. Sometimes nc.com articles seem to be promotional for product, and that might be the case here (she claimed to use Giovanni, Shea Moisture, and a British brand called Boucleme). But this lady also described her process in detail, so you might get some ideas. I think she heavily scrunches. You could also try squish-to-condish to see if you get the results you want.

MorrisonFan91

I think your hair looks amazing & lovely :flower: .