How can I embrace my natural wave?

[chameleonmary]

My waist length hair has a lovely natural wave to it... well, that is, when you look past the frizz and flyaways!

What do you ladies use to embrace and enhance your natural wave? I am over the wet look with hair mousse, and am trying to stay away from heated styling tools, at least until the weekend when I kill my hair with a straightener!

I have tried leave-in lotions and creams and style oil drops don't really help either!

[knoxydoll]

I'd suggest a nice salt spray. It'll give your hair a 'just off the beach' kind of look. I don't have frizzy hair so I can't recommend anything for that other then to not brush your hair. Brushing makes your hair full of static and breaks up the natural curl.

I don't know what this wet mousse look is, when ever I use mousse my hair doesn't look wet at all. Maybe you're using too much?

[chameleonmary]

Hey there, its more the stiff and sticky look of mousse that I dislike... but I think I may indeed be using too much! I have tried a salt spray off a recipe a fellow Spectra member provided, but I was a little scared I would smell like the beach!

[knoxydoll]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chameleonmary

Hey there, its more the stiff and sticky look of mousse that I dislike... but I think I may indeed be using too much! I have tried a salt spray off a recipe a fellow Spectra member provided, but I was a little scared I would smell like the beach!

Add some vanilla into the sea salt mix.

[frocher]

Use a good conditioner, and lots of it, it will help tame the frizzies and make your waves more sleek. The healthier your hair is the better it will look in it's natural state.

Salt sprays are nice but use them sparingly, they can dry out your hair and make the frizziness and fly aways worse.

[MissChievous]

Add layers throughout your hair to give the waves more volume and "bounce". When I had layers, I would scrunch my hair with a wave diffuser on my blowdryer. They look like this:



It really made my hair super wavy...

I also used Sebastian Molding Mud that I would scrunch into my hair, and even letting it air dry and scrunching every now and then as it is drying, the product really helped to enhance the wave. Get out a small amount, work it on your hand a bit, then scrunch it into your hair. It will give you that piecy, bedroom look. Just don't use too much or it can get greasy, and focus on the ends of the hair (not the scalp.) Some people on MUA complain about the smell, but I happen to really like it, it smells a bit like bees wax to me. This is what my hair looks like when using this method: click to see a pic




For a night out, I would use TiGi Curls Rock Amplifier, but the drawback is that it does make your hair a bit crunchy, so you have to wash your hair the next day. But it held the waves and curls really well. Just use it sparingly, I found 1.5 pumps was enough, and I'd dilute it with a bit of water too.



If you already have dry and frizzy hair, I would def not recommend a salt spray, as it will only make it more dry and frizzy!

[Amaranth]

I have an absolutely IMPOSSIBLE natural wave to my hair and it drives me insane. As my hair dries it gets poofy and frizzy and just...BAD overall. I've tried a billion products and my favourite is definitely Matrix's Curl.Life Cream:
Matrix - Hair Products - Curl.life - Contouring Cream
They have a lighter one if your hair is finer, but I need something heavier to reduce the poofiness. I love that stuff, and it smells soooo nice. Also, not touching your hair at all while it's drying will also help keep it tame.

[Hilly]

Ok dumb question, but how do you use a diffuser? Do you scrunch it into your hair?

[MissChievous]

^
For the diffuser:

What I do is I apply a bit of a curling lotion to towel-dry hair, then gently scrunch a piece in my hand and place the wad of hair fully scrunched into the diffuser, and hold it there for like 4 seconds. Then I move onto the next bit, until I move all around my head scrunching and placing into the diffuser. It helps to keep the curls defined, instead of frizzing, because the more you touch them with your hands, the frizzier they tend to get from scrunching. This works best with your head tilted all the way to the side, or flipped over.