Many curly people think that curly hair is a curse because they have no idea how to refresh it in the morning.
In this article, I am clearing up everything about curly hair refresh: how to do it, and what products to use.
What is a curly hair refresh?
Curly hair refresh is the restyling of your curls after sleeping with the help of water and (or) styling products.
What you need to know about refresh:
There are no rules to curly hair refreshing.
Curly hair refresh can be absolutely different: from fixing one strand with water to adding styling products to soaking wet hair.
To refresh or not to refresh, – it's up to you.
First 3 steps of curly hair refresh
First, shake your hair and forget about it for a few minutes so they can naturally lie down.
Two, assess the situation.
You must figure out if you need to refresh your hair. Sometimes it is enough to change the hairline from one side to the other.
Third, determine how it is better to refresh the hair.
Ask yourself, if you need hair styling products, how much, and what exactly.
There are many options. I will highlight the main ones.
In order to understand how should you refresh your hair, just touch it!
Do you need to use a leave-in conditioner when refreshing your hair?
Touch your hair. If your hair is tactfully drier than usual, or there are tangles, then it is necessary to use a leave-in conditioner or cream.
The conditioner will help to untangle the hair and add the smoothness, and softness to the curls.
Which styling products should you use?
Start with water! If the hair after wetting is felt slippery and has slight stickiness, then there is a styling product that remains. In this case, water activates the styling. You don't need to add anything else.
If there is nothing left, then you need to use some styling products.
It is better to use lightweight gels to refresh the hair. An excellent choice is also a foam.
Choose a lightweight styling for a refresh so as not to build-up your hair.
You can also apply a leave-in conditioner before using a gel to untangle the hair or comb it through.
Gels, creams, and leave-ins can be mixed in the palms with water. This will help to avoid an overload of products.
The choice of styling product is also determined by what results you want to get after refreshing.
Most often, there is a need to give the hair softness, and smoothness and add some moisture. In this case, you should focus on moisturizing hair products. They often contain moisture-retaining compounds (Glycerin, Propylene Glycol, Propanediol, Panthenol, Sorbitol) and do not contain proteins.
But there is another problem when hair is too soft that it stretches down and does not keep in curly shape. For such hair, I recommend choosing foams or gels with proteins. Most often, such products make your hair feel a little tougher so the curls can reactivate their shape.
Foams are also a great choice for a refresh in a case when you want to add some volume to your hair.
How much water should you add to your hair when refreshing it?
Soaking wet curly refresh
There are situations when you need a thorough refresh when your hair is soaking wet. This most often happens on the first steps of the hair journey when you haven't learned yet how to style the curls on the wash day properly.
A thorough wet refresh is also necessary when hair is damaged and severely tangled.
Do not use the brush to untangle your curly hair after sleeping!
Such actions cause a lot of mechanical damage to your hair. What to do with tangled curly and wavy hair after sleeping:
Wet a length of hair.
Apply a conditioner.
Start untangling your hair with your hands, then comb through with a brush.
Rinse off any excess conditioner.
Apply a leave-in conditioner or cream.
Use a light moisturizing styler to fix the curls in the desired position.
Allow the hair to dry.
In the most neglected situation, when normal conditioning does not help, or is too time-consuming, a conditioning technique called "bowl" can help:
wet the hair and distribute conditioner over it
pour warm water into a bowl, and add conditioner here too.
dip the hair in the bowl in and out for 1-2 minutes.
Thanks to the "bowl" hair better swells and becomes more pliable to untagling.
Soaking wet hair refresh is not equal to washing the hair.
Due to the fact that the roots of the hair remain dry, the process of drying is reduced many times.
The classic refresh
In the classic refresh, the hair is lightly sprayed with water. They remain semi-dry.
Spray the hair with water.
Smooth the water all over the hair with your hands.
If necessary, add a styling product: mix it in the palms with water and smooth the hair with the palms.
Dry your hair with a hair dryer or let it dry naturally.
The Partial Refresh: How to Reduce the Time to Restore a Pavement
The refresh of individual curls
If you're not happy with a couple of loose curls, pay attention only to them. Do a partial refresh:
Moisten a curl with water
Brush through with a comb if necessary to detangle it and make it smooth again.
If the curl won't hold, apply a styling product to it.
If the curl is dry, use a leave-in conditioner to soften it
Blow-dry the curl with a hair dryer to speed up drying.
Just remove the frizz
If there is a frizz that bothers you (by the way it appears naturally at the end of the day or after bedtime), then smooth it down with a hair cream:
moisten your hands with water
take a small amount of cream and rub it into the palms
smooth the hair.
Highlights on refresh techniques.
If you want more definition, split the hair into several sections when refreshing it. This will help remove frizz and add definition to the inner layers of hair.
Wet the hair gradually: go over the strands with wet hands several times. For a refresher, it's best to use a continuous spray. It evenly sprays water, which improves the quality of refresh.
Apply the styler gliding the hair while refreshing. This will help smooth out the hair cuticle, remove frizz, and add shine.
Use a comb when needed. It always helps to create a neater style and smooth out the surface of the hair.
Use a blow dryer to dry hair or individual strands after refreshing.
How to avoid refreshment and keep your curly hair styled while you sleep
How to keep your hair styled while you sleep:
tie your hair in a high, loose ponytail (so-called "pineapple")
sleep on a silk pillowcase. Natural silk reduces the friction of hair on the pillow and electrification
sleep in a silk sleep cap.
Refreshing curly hair is improvisational.
If you love your natural curls, sooner or later you'll learn how to style it and pick up products so that the curly style lasts for days.