I need help for volumized hair!!
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free skin care · Wed Aug 29, 2007 11:16 am

All of a sudden, I've entered a phase where I want to stop straightening my hair, because it brings my face down Crying or Very sad

I have naturally thick, wavey hair but I've straightened for so long that it dries semi-straight...and now I'm trying to go curly again!

In the last few years of my life, it seems that my hair dries out or gets oily within two days. I'm not sure which of the two is correct, but I definitely notice oil within a day, and I don't know if that's due to my hair being dry, or what.

My hair seems okay after it's been washed, but the day after, it's all flat and straight again- not pushed up or wavy! I'm having trouble trying to give it some body, and I don't know how to bring back my waves. Going to sleep with wet hair seems to work, as it gets very kinky and messy as I sleep and stays that way for a week. If I just let it dry on its own or blow dry, it will straighten out.

I'm at my wit's end! It seems I can never be happy with my hair!!

edit: I usually put baby powder in my hair after two days to soak up the oil and give it volume which REALLY helps, but I'm concerned- doing so doesn't hurt your hair or scalp, does it?

free skin care · Wed Aug 29, 2007 11:43 am

Hey Freva,

I have thick, coarse, naturally wavy hair that loses its curl if I touch it a lot, but that I can wear curly or straight depending on what product and styling methods I use. Here are some of the products I use to oomph up curl and volume (but please note that many finer-haired gals have remarked that these products totally weigh their hair down, so it very much depends on your texture):

-Kiehl's Creme with Silk Groom: this stuff has always been good for defining curl and weighing down my frizz a bit. I apply about a nickel-sized blob when my hair is wet, comb/rub it through focusing on the ends and staying away from my roots and bangs, and then I manually twirl or scrunch into curls, or sometimes blow-dry with a diffuser. If I use too much, it gets very greasy-looking, so I try to keep a light touch.

-Kiehls Hair Conditioner and Grooming Aid 133: I've never bought a full size of this, but on a recent trip to Virginia I used a sample this on a curly day, and I was an instant poodle! The thing is, though, it was incredibly humid the whole time, so I think the weather was responsible for 90% of my sudden oomph, but this stuff seemed to do a great job of keeping my curls less frizzy and more defined, so I'll probably get some for regular use on curly days. It has a very different texture than all the other things mentioned here (more like Bumble and Bumble's curl creams - which by the way I had NO luck with, and same with their shampoo and conditioner, so if you decide to try their stuff DEFINITELY buy the small trial-sizers before you get the big bottles as I found it to be a total waste) in that it was much less rich/emollient and felt much more like a leave-in conditioner than a styling cream. But it sure did the trick that one day!

-Giovanni Natural Air Turbo-Charged Mousse: There are a couple threads on EDS that mention this, and I should point out that again it does NOT work well on all hair types, but I find this stuff to be GREAT for pumping up my hair volume on curly days. Again, I use this on wet hair and manually scrunch, and I find with this stuff I can add quite a bit and it helps. It does dry to a sort of crunchy-hard finish, sort of, so it's not exactly for SOFT curls, but it keeps them well-defined and pretty.

-Paul Mitchell Smoothing Collection: I find when I use all three elements of this set, it actually works quite well to enhance my natural curls (if I'm in humid conditions anyway). I was surprised, as I bought the set for days when I flat-iron, but if you manually scrunch or diffuse, it gets lovely shiny bouncy curls going, at least for me. I don't think it holds them as well as the other two products I mentioned, though.

-Aveda Be Curly Curl Enhancer: This is actually the least effective of all my methods listed above, but I have a whole giant tube of this stuff so I feel the need to use it up. It's much "stickier" in texture than the others, and it still allows for quite a bit of frizz, but I do think it helps define and encourage curls a bit. I think this would weigh down straight or fine hair, but it does okay on my coarse strands. Not my favorite though.

-The Body Shop Define and No Frizz Cream: I don't even know if this stuff is at all effective, but I've been addicted to the vanilla/caramel fragrance since I was a pre-teen and I first read about it in a British magazine before it had even come out over in the states. Now I'm hooked, and I use it sometimes - in extremely copious amounts - but I'm not really convinced it helps "define" or "no frizz" my hair. I just love the smell so much! Honestly, if you look at the ingredients, they're pretty emollient, so I'm sure it helps some (definitely better than bare strands as far as curl control goes). This is literally the only Body Shop product I am willing to purchase, but I've been going back for it for over a decade now and I don't think I'll ever stop - I hope they don't discontinue it! Oh, they seem to have tweaked the name, and they've repackaged at least twice since the original version, but every time I get some I inquire as to whether they changed the formula at all and they always say no as it's one of their most popular products.

Hope this helps, and I hope you're not too overwhelmed with all my feedback! I hope you're able to tame your curls and pump them up effectively. If you can't get anything you're after in your area, PM me and maybe I can help out with that.

free skin care · Wed Aug 29, 2007 2:26 pm

Ah Freva, m'dear, we could be sisters. I've been blowdrying my hair straight all my life because my hair is very fine and naturally wavy/slightly curly, and if I don't blow dry it I don't get any volume at the roots and the waves look a bit messy. However, recently I've been wearing my hair wavy/curly on some days for the first time in my life and it's great, actually! When it's curly I don't need to wash it as often (in fact, it seems to get curlier each day I don't wash it for some strange reason....), and it has more volume. However, I still think that my bangs look messy/flat when they dry naturally, so I still either blowdry the hair around my face OR wear a cute headband which just looks adorable with volumized, wavy hair (you should try it!).

Anyways, on to your question. Actually, I wondered the same thing myself--- if you take a look at the pictures on this link, you can see that I've been blowdrying my hair straight for quite a while, so when it came to leaving my hair to its own devices and still getting some volume, I was pretty clueless.

http://www.essentialdayspa.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=22697&highlight=pelusi

However, I've found that the Pelusi mousse I was using on my hair when it was straight is working wonderfully on my hair when it is wavy/curly, so I would definitely recommend it to you as well. In order to coax that curl into your hair you can do one of two things: just sleep on it wet, or dry it using a diffuser. Either way, after you wash your hair I would recommend working a generous handful of Pelusi mousse throughout your hair, and by all means work it in vigorously. If you wake up and slept on your hair funny or need a little more oomph, add a little more mousse to your roots and crown and fluff with your diffuser. Works like a charm for me. (Also, some ladies may laugh at me for thise but other fine-haired ladies will understand--- a tiny bit of teasing here and there never hurt anyone!) HTH!

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