Spin off thread: The wavy imposter, it is not just you.

[kmd303]

Deleted. As in re-reading it was off topic from what you all are talking about.

[Maggie79]

Originally Posted by Froggilore

It looks like I must go find some Ecosytler now. Good thing I have to go to Hobby Lobby anyway (which is right next door to Sally's!)

I think I'm going to try this too. I've seen lots of mentions here. Does anyone else have any suggestions of what I might get at Sally's. I'm brand new and don't know anything about products!

Also, my hair is sort of "fluffy" at the end of my curls/waves in the back. Does that make sense? the waves look ok until the bottom of each curl, where they poke out every which way. They look dry maybe? But I've just gotten it cut so it's not because it needs trimming- could it be because of the cut? Anyway, is there a type of product I could put on it to make it look better.

[Simply Red]

pedaheh, I have been itching to post since becoming a newbie! Perhaps you could consider using a leave-in cream with some pomade to seal and shape instead of gel (leaves the hair really soft too). It depends what sort of effect you wish to achieve. This works well for me, although it may not work for all. Best of luck.


____________________________________________

Location: Queensland, Australia
Gender: Male - straight
Hair type: 3b - long, natural redhead and proud of it!
Cleanse: mop c-system clean shampoo - sulphate free (once a week)
Condition: mop mixed greens moisture conditioner
Leave-in: Joico leave-in detangler
Styling: Redken Fresh Curls curl refiner cream, Murray’s pomade (sparingly!)
Treatment: Redken All Soft Heavy Cream

[pedaheh]

Thanks Simply Red and welcome to the 2 boards. I'm actually pretty happy with my gel. I will definately add pomade to my "to try" list because I know a lot of people with similar hair to mine have had good luck with it.

[Salamander]

Originally Posted by pedaheh

body.
I thought I had the kind of straight hair that didn't dry straight and required some fixing. Duh Peda. Do you know what you call "the kind of straight hair that doesn't dry straight"? That would be wavy. I actually started the CG method to cope with my dry hair and split ends. I didn't think my hair was wavy. I'm nearing 40, so figuring this out at 20 makes you seem like a genius in comparison Finale.

ROFL. This is SO me. I honestly thought I had straight hair that just wasn't very...straight. A curly-haired friend finally explained it to me, and I was like "Oh, but my hair isn't actually wavy. It's just oddly unmanageable, frizzy and sticks up and forms horns sometimes. But it's straight, mind you."

I had the exact same cut as Cheetara for years. And I had to keep it super-short, because once it got to my eyebrows it started forming...hair horns, I used to call them. I was in total wave denial.

I actually used to PERM my hair, in my teens and twenties, if you can believe that. With hilarious results. When you take very fine but extremely thick wavy hair and CURL IT WITH TEENSY LITTLE ROLLERS, the only result you possibly can get is something akin to Ronald McDonald. Three times I did this...always thinking it would be different this time, for unfathomable reasons.

[pedaheh]

ROFL. This is SO me. I honestly thought I had straight hair that just wasn't very...straight. A curly-haired friend finally explained it to me, and I was like "Oh, but my hair isn't actually wavy. It's just oddly unmanageable, frizzy and sticks up and forms horns sometimes. But it's straight, mind you."

Yep. That is me.

I actually used to PERM my hair, in my teens and twenties, if you can believe that. With hilarious results. When you take very fine but extremely thick wavy hair and CURL IT WITH TEENSY LITTLE ROLLERS, the only result you possibly can get is something akin to Ronald McDonald. Three times I did this...always thinking it would be different this time, for unfathomable reasons.

This is a me too, except my hair isn't thick. I permed my super fine porous hair with small rods to get super poodle head. Because my hair is thin and porous (I'm no stylist, but I assume this is why) it would relax in a few days/ a week. The results. Almost the exact same curl pattern I have now only slightly less wavy and with a luuverly perm rod touch. What do you do to hair once you've damaged it that much? Well you dye it, curl it with a curling iron, ratt it, and coat it with 1/2 a can of hairspray. Oh the 80's. When everyone smelled of aqua net. *Aqua net cans always said "Now with 50% more.".*

[eneriyma]

(This is my first forum post ever, so hopefully I do this correctly!).

So happy to find this thread - I can identify with so many of you! My hair has been on a roller coaster of wavy textures the past ten years, twice getting very near 2c/3a, and now reverting back to 2a. Lately I've been worried that I wasn't actually wavy, that the waves were a side-effect of color and highlights. I started growing out the color last summer and my curly-haired stylist warned me that I'd lose a lot of wave - and I have! However, there are still the tighter curls around my hairline and base of my neck, so the wave must be natural (right?) - though I am struggling with the rest of my head, with 2a waves on the side and nearly straight locks at the back.

I can't touch my hair or rake products through it after I get out of the shower, and in the past I've had the best luck with the "grabby" products (one of the best was TIGI Bed Head Curls Rock Curl Amplifier, but lately that's only been weighing me down). I've just started experimenting with CG at the moment to see how my hair reacts. I'm also really curious about the HerCut curly products, but have a suspicion that they're not thick enough for me.

[Kris&herKurlyKids]

I'm still new to this and this thread describes exactly how I feel lately and why!! How happy does this make me feel today of all days when I have scraggly hair that dried w/o product to make it wave.

I only figured out in the last few years that my hair, in fact, is not straight and only recently decided to try and work with it the way it is. But honestly, I have been so frustrated b/c it isn't straight and I have to work so hard to make it wave. I hope it gets easier with time and once I find the right products.

It's so funny b/c a lot of times people see my little girl and comment about how it must be hard to take care of her hair b/c it's so curly and actually I find the opposite is true. Her hair is easy to care for b/c it is predictable. All it needs is moisture and it just curls and curls. I only need one product in hair. And not for curl b/c it will curl w/o it. I just need the one product for moisture. I'm finding I'm using 4-5 products to get my hair to do something and each day it's a guessing game as to how it will turn out.

Thank you for this thread. I'm not alone!

[DreeemingTreee]

So, i used to think my hair only had "a little body" to it, however, since going CG in April, my hair has sprung to life (no pun intended). I am not really sure how to classify my hair...I think maybe 2b/3a?? For some reason I can't upload any pictures outside of an Avatar, so I'm really hoping you get the idea from that teensy picture!

[Robin-in-FL]

No mine is never straight. Even when I comb the gel through, it starts to curl up by itself. BUT without a lot of scrunching it is Very Flat. Without gel it is actually just as wavy but completely undefined, each hair going its own way, and is still Very Flat. It reminds me of one of those videos from the 1960s with some guitarist rocking frizzy ugly waves.

So I much prefer the way it looks with a lot of product in it, it will chunk up somewhat and get much smoother and more organized, and scrunching pops the curls up, and pineapple overnight and/or a little hairspray to make it bigger.

[plunkybug]

Dreeming Tree...your hair is very pretty!

As for my hair, when I am in the shower, and have combed through the tangles, my hair is very straight, with only the slightest bend at the bottom. If left like that, it never dries as smooth or straight as that. It's amazing what a little encouragement and product can do!

[DEL2C]

Originally Posted by asianrunner

Me, me! I have a very weak wave pattern. When it dries without any product, it poufs out from my head which I call "triangle head." I think this is mostly because I have tons and tons of hair!

I remember a hair stylist (I just go to one of the cheap places) commenting on the fact that I have wavy hair and I was totally confused. The next time I went some place different and she said I "had the ability to be wavy." I like my hair wavy but it's a lot of work!

For years my hairdresser kept discouraging me from working with the wave. Every summer I would be in hair hell, get all sweaty blowing it straight, walk outside and instant frizz!

This was ME too! But in addition to frizz it would get BIG. I used to wear my hair wavy off and on since I was a kid. I remember loving my waves when I went to the beach but could never duplicate that look in the colder weather. So I learned to blow it out straight without too much effort. As I got older it got be more and more work it didn't straighten so easily anymore so I had to have it texturized and thinned out constantly. THAT became a PITA too.....Once I became preggers I had to learn to work with my waves because I just didn't have time to deal with my hair anymore. Is it a lot of work now? Kind of but still less work then straightening. I wonder if it's the finer haired wavies that feel like imposters? I don't

Asian you're like me fighting the Poof because we have too much hair!!

peda I don't know that I need "grab" in all my stylers?? I mean I like some that are slippery like DMMG, Darcy's Coiling Jelly, CJ CCClite, CIAB....So where I do look for a grabby LI to stick to my hair in the colder weather I don't need that once it warms up. I can't live without BRHG but I don't know if that's the grab factor or not??

[asianrunner]

I thought it be fun to show pics of my hair with and without product!

Both were taken today. The first one is after I went swimming and then just shampooed and conditioned.

The second one is after this morning's styling. I don't know why it looks so voluminous (usually it clumps together a little more so it's not so poofy) but it definitely looks wavier!

The third is how I really like my hair to look.

[pedaheh]

peda I don't know that I need "grab" in all my stylers?? I mean I like some that are slippery like DMMG, Darcy's Coiling Jelly, CJ CCClite, CIAB....So where I do look for a grabby LI to stick to my hair in the colder weather I don't need that once it warms up. I can't live without BRHG but I don't know if that's the grab factor or not??

Thanks Del 2c. One of these days I'm going to have a crackpot theory that turns out to be true. This one may turn out to be somewhat true.

[eneriyma]

Originally Posted by asianrunner

I thought it be fun to show pics of my hair with and without product!

Both were taken today. The first one is after I went swimming and then just shampooed and conditioned.

The second one is after this morning's styling. I don't know why it looks so voluminous (usually it clumps together a little more so it's not so poofy) but it definitely looks wavier!

The third is how I really like my hair to look.

What a good idea - I hope more people post pictures like these, it would be interesting to see the difference styling makes with wavy imposters. I'm really liking that term...

[Saroyan]

Was pointed here by pedaheh after posting this thread (with pictures). I'm not CG yet, in part because I feel like a wavy impostor and wasn't sure it would work for me. However, all of you have inspired me to try it! I plan to use up my current stock of non-CG products, but I'll be back in a few weeks with a progress report.

[waveofmedusa]

There are times when I, too, feel like a wavy imposter and times when I feel like a true CG. When I was about 14 I had Shirley Temple ringlets. I used BedHead TIGI ControlFreak back then and I only used a quarter-size amount of it. As I got older I developed PCOS and my hair became moody. It adjusts itself according to my hormones. I always had a small area of straight hair in the back of my head underneath the top canopy, but in the last year I've noticed more straight hair cropping up. Also, the curl on top has grown progressively looser.

[Deodand]

Also naturally scraggly, also a victim of hair horns. Since FOREVER.

[clickchick]

I am a curly newbie! At 39, I guess I've realized I have wavy hair, but I feel like a wavy impostor. I have fine hair but TONS of it. I know as a child in the 70's, my hair always looked poofy in photos, even when it was long. When I hit my jr. high years, I started getting perms because it was the 80s and that's what girls did. I (like a few others) would perm it with itty bitty rods and everyone thought my hair was naturally curly.

Flash forward to a few years ago... my hair was relatively short and I decided I wanted to go from naturally very dark brown to auburn. When the stylist started styling my hair, he rubbed some cream on it and pulled out a diffuser. By the end of the appointment, I had curly hair. I was totally confused, but would have felt like an idiot to ask how he made that magic happen. I could never replicate what he did. But, it made me wonder what my hair texture really was.

My normal routine for YEARS has been to wrap it up in a towel, rub leave-ins and defrizzers in it, blow dry, and periodically flat iron. If I don't blow it dry, it just looks crazy with insane ends sticking out everywhere. Last week, after washing, I decided to scrunch and use some product and let it mainly air dry. Voila! Wave! It's not strong wave. It's curly on the underside (hairline), wavy in the middle, and then the top is loose wave with some straight pieces. Some areas have some strong wave in the middle, but then straight ends.

I am still new to all of the terminology (co-washing, ice queen method, etc) but I am learning. I've not yet plopped and I am trying to figure out how to explain the parade of hair products that will inevitably wind up in our shower to my husband.

[pedaheh]

Welcome to the wavy boards Clickchick. There is lots of great info here. Odds are your husband is just not going to get it.
Start with cheap products until you get a handle on what ingredients your hair likes. If you want to try more expensive ones, Kathymack sells samples. Check the fotki in her signature.
Good luck with your newly discovered wavy hair.