My CHEAP, EASY AND QUICK Curly Hair Routine For Long Mixed Race Hair

Welcome, my friends, to the post that is only going to be relevant to 0.02% of my readers – my haircare routine. (Or, for Google: my simple, quick and cheap curly hair routine for long and thick hair!) You may be wondering “Mia, why are you sharing this with us? We don’t have curly hair!”. As always, I have many motivations.

A: Uh, Pinterest traffic. My last hair related post resulted in some pins that, quite frankly, blew the fuck up. It was great. If you missed it, the post was: My Top Tips For Growing Long, Healthy and Thick Hair – FAST.

Now seems like an appropriate time for a Pinterest plug, Pin this for me babies!

B: A few people have been commenting about my hair recently and I thought that you guys being able to see how much effort I have to expend dealing with it would make it seem less appealing.

C: Aside from curl activator, a lot of the products I use, you guys can theoretically use too. I say theoretically because I am not suggesting you actually pile oil onto your straight, fine hair – but more that if a conditioner or moisturising treatment has been curly girl approved . . . you know it’s going make your hair shimmer. It’s going to make your hair silken strands of molten gold. It’s going to cure your depression and clear your acne.

D. And finally because . . . curly hair is a bitch to deal with. It’s difficult, it’s expensive as hell and finding what works best for your curl type can feel like trying to break Enigma. (If you didn’t get that reference, go watch The Imitation Game; it’s great.) Us curly girls aren’t born with innate knowledge of “aaaah, Tresemme conditioner and Wella curl mousse”; it’s a lot of trial and error and, usually, a lot of awkward and embarassing years. So I thought that this post may actually help someone! Let’s go.

What Type Of Natural Curls Do You Have?

First off, all my curly girls already know how important this is. There are more curl types than types of guys you will meet in your life (#TrueStory). My curl type is I think 3B.

I have mixed race hair (my mama is black; my dad is darker than me, but allegedly a white guy) that is thick as hell. It needs a lot of moisture and can handle heavy products pretty well, but doesn’t necessarily NEED them all the time.

My Easy Daily Curly Hair Routine

*Dis-fucking-claimer* My daily routine is lazy as hell. It is easy and quick because most of my haircare is maintenance; for a good 3 or 4 days out of the week, my hair is up in a bun with a conditioning treatment or oil on it. This means when my hair is down, I’m usually starting on good hair karma.**

Guys . . . I made a video and I think you should watch it and subscribe to me. Okay? Great.

Step 1 – Comb & Condition

First of all, I get in the shower, wet my hair and scoop that conditioner all up on it. Then it’s twisted to the top of my head and left to condition while I wash, listen to music and cry dramatically because Sense8 was cancelled.

My conditioner of choice is always the fantastically cost-efficient Tresemme because . . . you get so much of it. And, even better, it’s genuinely really high quality!

Once that’s all done and the conditioner has had time to soak in and make my hair pretty, I get my wide tooth comb and, as I’m washing the conditioner out, I comb my hair. I don’t even touch my hair without conditioner. Brushes and combs have genuinely snapped in that savage wildnerness.

After my shower, I literally wring the water out my hair like some sort of limp and useless dish towel. One that will drip down my back for the next hour. Then, because I’m classy like that, I wrap it in my fluffy pyjama bottoms or a t-shirt. (It’s actually because normal towels are very rough and you generally don’t want to dry your hair with them.)

Then I go about my business and get dressed, allowing my hair to somewhat towel try.

^See? Me all dressed up . . . with wet hair.

Step 2 – Define The Curls With Curl Activator

First product up is my curl activator. I have two favourites (both of which are insanely cheap). Number one makes my hair look like a perfect ringlet headed doll and that is the Wella Curl Mousse (and it cost me literally £2). This makes my hair look amazing, but I wouldn’t say it’s particularly moisturising.

My second curl activator is Soft-N’Free and it’s also an insanely cheap curly hair product, being less than £5 for a massive bottle. It keeps my curls nice, soft and frizz free . . . but I wouldn’t say it’s particularly great at helping them curl more than they already would. If you’re like me and your hair does naturally curl, but it needs help staying moisturised and not getting frizzy, Soft’N’Free is super affordable and leaves your hair in really good condition.

Step 3 – Lock In Moisture

Next up are my moisturising products. This varies depending on what my mum and I have lying around the house, but they’re usually leave in conditioning treatments and/or oils in cream version. We usually have one of these floating around.

You may be wondering “but Mia, you’ve already used conditioner and a curl activator – you can’t seriously need more?”. You are factually incorrect.

Curly hair is dry. That is a characteristic of our hair type; everyone with curly hair knows the key to keeping it looking and feeling in good condition is moisture. The first steps are to help my curls defined and give them a bit of jazz – this step is to keep them from frizzing up and to keep my hair in good condition.

Last but not least I go in with my Aussie’s spray in conditioner. This smells like heaven on earth and isn’t too heavy on my hair. I know what you’re thinking: “Oh, now you care about products being too heavy.”

Yes, yes I do. Because the rest of my products are concentrated on the ends of my hair, whereas my Aussie’s spray conditioner is sprayed all over, root to tip. You don’t want heavy products on your roots or you’ll get no volume (or worse, the dreaded mushroom look). So take that!

I know most people diffuse their hair, but I kind of like the wet look (and I’m lazy) so if it’s warm enough I just kind of leave my hair to air dry. Well kids, 1288 words later and my hair care routine . . . is finally done! I don’t quite know what you guys could have gotten out of this other than possibly sympathy towards me, but hey ho.

What did you think of my video? Do you use any of these products? Is our haircare routine even remotely similar? Let me know your thoughts down below!

Peace,

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