My natural pattern consists of super skinny, piecey ‘s-waves’ with a sprinkling of coils here and there.  While I totally heart my stringy ass defined waves & curls, I sometimes try to smooth a few of them together to achieve a chunkier look.  But no matter how heavy or tacky the styling cream or gel, the manufactured clumps always break up… my waves do what they do… they don’t give a s*** and while I’m usually cool with that, on some real levels, I’d appreciate a few clumps sometimes!

Now generally for me, clumpier wash & gos mean a reduction in volume, but for some reason today, the stars aligned and I got a little bit of the best of both worlds.

What I did:

Like with my successful chunky twist-outs of months past, I applied my products to damp hair rather than in the shower on soaking wet hair.

I applied my products to damp hair rather than in the shower on soaking wet hair. 

I t-shirt plopped clean, naked hair for 5 minutes and then air-dried for 10 minutes.  My hair was probably 70% dry when I smoothed on SheaMoisture’s Coconut and Hibiscus Curl Enhancing Smoothie and then Mop Top Light Hold Gel.

Fail. Fail. Fail. Coagulation.  It’s been so long, I forgot the cardinal rule… test the product combo on the back of your hand BEFORE applying it to your hair to make sure they play well together.  Rookie mistake. White boogers everywhere.

Kneeling over the tub, I rinsed that ish out, plopped, air dried a bit and started over.  I tested The Living Proof Full Thickening Cream + SheaMoisture’s Coconut and Hibiscus Curl Enhancing Smoothie on the back of my hand… smooth as butter!  So I applied the Living Proof first (about a quarter size amount to each half”> and then smoothed the SM into 4 sections.  I didn’t rake this time, I simply smoothed it on with the palms of both hands in a downward motion from root to tip. Finally, I finger curled and smoothed some of the top pieces and was excited at how easily my usually piecey curls held together (thanks to the tackiness of the SheaMoisture Smoothie on my damp hair”>.  I’ve got quite a bit of shrinkage, but it’s the good kind. Momma said, ‘I LOVE the results, it looks thicker’.  I’ll definitely be experimenting with this product combo and technique a bit more… I’ll report back soon!

Later Gators,

Nik

Do you apply product to soaking wet or damp hair?
What’s your current favorite Wash & Go product combo?
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This article was originally published on CurlyNikki.
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