Help! My curly hair is soft, lifeless, and stringy!

rog1109 · 04-17-2012, 10:23 AM

Hi! My hair has always been a source of confidence and pride, but it has been going through phases of being soft and lifeless. Hairspray, mousse, gel...nothing holds. There is no volume and the curls literally fall out so it looks stringy and thin!

It started with a change to soft water, but I moved into an apt with hard water and it was 'fixed' for a few months...but now it's soft and gross again and I don't know why!?

I've tried argan oil, protein, low-poos, conditioning traetments, washing every 2 days, etc...

I lost hair due to a sickness last winter, and it is growing back...there are 2-3 inch ends alll over, so it's healthy, but something is off here!

Please help if you know what's going on?!

Marci Pie · 04-17-2012, 11:39 AM

Usually that happens to me when my hair is overconditioned.

I would try shocking your hair by using a regular shampoo then your normal style regime and see if that helps.

Also be careful when you try new products. I usually introduce them into my regime one at at time so that I can determine if that product was the problem. If you have too many new products it is hard to tell what causes the problems. You may also find that different combinations of products may cause you problems but the product by itself or another product may work fine.

Another thing is looking at the ingredients of the products that you are using, your hair might not like certain ingredients. For example my hair becomes a cotton ball if I use products with wheat protein.

wavymom · 04-17-2012, 07:00 PM

I agree it sounds like it may be overconditioned. I agree you may want to try a sulfate-containing shampoo to see what happens. Also - if it is overconditioned - find light moisturizing products (stop using any that may be too heavy), and try loading up on protein and seeing what happens. But it's hard to say without knowing what products you use and what your typical routine is. If you could post that maybe we could offer more directed suggestions.

rog1109 · 04-24-2012, 09:34 AM

Thank you girls SO much! In an attempt to try something different, the sulfate-based shampoo with no conditioner allowed my hair to be moldable!

When it's in that 'soft' phase, hairspray doesn't even take!

My normal routine is to use a sulfate-free shampoo and a conditioner by Texture for volume or Pantene for fine hair. I usually use a light mousse for styling and hair spray after dry to hold.

Every 3 nights I put a leave-in protein treatment by Loreal.

That's my normal routine. Minus the protein, I've done that without care of my shampoos ingredients (in college i just used Pantene products) as long as I can remember without issues. That makes me believe the soft water was a catalyst, but I now have an apartment with hard water so it was getting back to normal until recently!

Thank you both for your suggestions!

Fmasuhr · 04-24-2012, 01:34 PM

i was going to suggest protein but i see that your doing that, how is that going? cause it does sound like you need to feed your hair with a bit more protein.