Help :(

Hi! I'm new here and this is my first post. I've been struggling for the last few years with my dry, frizzy type 2a hair. I'm posting in Curly because my hair stylist told me the texture is that of curly hair. I'll explain my story now:

My hair has always been extremely dry. I was not being kind to it for most of my life, but for the last 2 years have been taking EXTREME care of it. I did not straighten, blow dry or dye my hair for a little over a year now and the last time I dyed it was October 2011. YET. It's a mess. It has a nice defined wave but it's out of control with flyaway/frizz.

I just went to a stylist at the most expensive salon I could find, paid $450 to get my old red hair dye stripped out of my hair, 4 inches of dead cut off (it's now just above my chest) and a relaxing treatment. It looked BEAUTIFUL, felt soft; amazing. I waited 2 days, washed my hair with kerastese shampoo and conditioner, and BAM back to it's natural state of frizz flyaway central. my hair is REALLY thin and really fine to boot it's so frustrating.

prior to buying kerastese i used LUSH hair products and treatments. it improved my hair significantly but did not solve the frizz problem.

i use (not all at once) organic coconut oil, organic argan oil, the Moroccan oil hair line (i actually just tried my husbands for a few weeks, he is Arab and has thick black curly hair and it works amazingly on him) i've done V05 hot oil treatments, tried hot oil treatments with olive oil, NOTHING. WORKS.

i could never wash my hair and it would never get greasy. ever. i wash my hair about once a week. before keratese i used to use LUSH's trichomania, which my husband can use WITHOUT conditioner and have the most beautiful shiny smooth curls. but when i used it... still rough waves. no difference with the keratese. the only time i've ever seen it smooth was when i came back from the salon after throwing down almost half a grand.

can someone please help me before i spend my entire life savings trying to have nice hair?

oh i also wanted to add before washing my hair i always do a treatment, whether it be LUSH (roots or H'Suan Wen Hua) or a treatment via a prolonged slathering of organic coconut and argan oil. wash it, still unbelievably dry.

Sounds like you are taking some of the right steps. It is a good idea to lay off the heat styling, chemicals and dying while you are trying to work on your hair.

Have you considered seeing a doctor to make sure you don't have any underlying health issues? There are some conditions that can cause your hair to be extremely dry and if you have been trying everything I think you should discuss these possibilities with a doctor, it couldn't hurt.

That being said naturally curly hair tends to be dry but you can combat the dryness and have soft curls. Oil is great but it doesn't always add enough moisture for everyone.

What helped me add moisture back into my hair is doing deep treatments. I use the Nexxus Humectress deep conditioner, the Macadamia deep repair masque, the Shea Moisture deep treatment mask and the Pearl of Argan hair masque. I usually do a deep treatment once per week. I wrote a blog post dedicated to the different methods you can use to deep condition your hair. Using heat to do it is a lot more effective, there are great products such as hair steamers that add moisture while you deep condition. The link for that page is: http://ericafashionbeautytravelandmore.blogspot.ca/2013/03/how-to-deep-condition-your-hair.html
if you want to read it. I would suggest that you do a deep treatment more than once per week since your hair is extremely dry.

I would also suggest trying to use products with natural ingredients. You mentioned you were using Lush products but there are other brands that are great for curly hair if you didn't get enough results from that brand.

Many girls with curly hair achieve frizz free, defined curls or waves by using some type of holding product and styling products. I would recommend trying a leave in conditioner. Some great ones are the Mixed chicks leave in, the Kinky Curly leave in (and no you don't have to have kinky hair to use it it works great on all types of curls). You can also add a cream styling product if you want more moisture, I like the Shea Moisture curl enhancing smoothie. There are also serums you can use along with your styling products to give you more softness and some shine. Some curly girls also use gel along with their leave in conditioners when they need the extra hold. Gel also helps with frizz because it keeps your curls or waves pretty intact. A great natural gel is the Eco Styler gel, I like the argan oil one. After you wash your hair, apply your leave ins allow your hair to dry without touching it so you don't disrupt the curls and cause more frizz. Then if your hair dries a little hard you can scrunch out the crunch. If you don't know what I mean by this look it up on Youtube there are some video examples on there. Scrunching allows you to maintain your curls without having them be crunchy from all the products.

I would also suggest using a sulfate free shampoo or trying the curly girl method of conditioner only cleansing. Shampoo tends to dry out the hair. For more info on the curly girl method you can search for some info online it is rather popular right now and has helped a lot of people so it may be worth looking into. There are also books dedicated to the this method of hair care.

naturallycurly.com has some great forums, you can check on there to see what other people have done to help combat frizzy difficult hair.

Good luckEricachristina2013-04-15 16:33:51

Very use full information

Hi there! I had this problem before too and my confidence level hit rock bottom. :( But not anymore. I found a great haircare product that took care of my dry and frizzy hair. I know you mentioned that you've tried argan oil already, but the one I'm using is different.  I got an argan oil hair serum, shampoo and conditioner. The serum's not greasy and it smells really nice. The salon I go to uses the argan oil products. You only need to put a few drops of the serum on towel-dried hair and you're good to go. Since you only need just a few drops, it's guaranteed to last for AGES.  Karen Shelton2014-05-06 04:06:35