What's the best gel for beginners?
 

I'm very new to all this stuff. Im gonna go no-poo really soon and I don't UAE gel or mousse or anything at the moment. What would be the best gel to use, how do I use gel to enhance my curls/waves, what ingredients should I avoid in gel? And if you have any more tips for me that would be great, thanks! :icon_smile:

Also what is plopping and how do you do it?

What's the best gel for beginners?
 

LA Looks Sport Gel is pretty popular around here, as was their Curl Look Gel(which has been discontinued and a new product in its place). Available at any drugstore pretty much for not more than $4 a bottle. Although I haven't tried this myself, Herbal Essences Totally Twisted and Set Me Up gels are also pretty popular. Great thing about both products is that they're not expensive, and available anywhere, a plus for those of us with plentiful hair where a nickel sized-blob of anything only deals with one SECTION of our hair LOL!
People have varying ways of applying gel. Traditionally people tell one to have one's hair nearly DRY before applying, but IMO, that makes it harder to apply evenly and one ends up using more product. Many people, including myself apply the gel while hair is wet, work it through the hair, and do some form of scrunching, often plopping in a microfiber towel or t-shirt. What counts is the way that works for your hair type - try different ways. Having a really good hair cut makes all the difference in the world too.

Why would you apply gel to dry hair?? I've never heard of that!! (unless you're referring to the smaster's method?)

I would try LA Sports Gel, HE Set Me Up or Aussie Instant Freeze. You can either rake in or scrunch in your gel to wet hair to help set your waves/curls.

Here's a video that shows plopping (they call it plunking):
Plunking - YouTube

I don't think we have LA gel where I live D:
I think I'll use the HE because I've heard it's silicone free :D
Thank you guys so much for the help!

I just bought Down Under Naturals gel
I didn't want the HE one because I read the ingredients and it had parabens:blob6:
I hope this gel works! Do you think I should've gotten the Garnier Fructis Pure Clean Gel?

Where do you live, in the US?

I'm a noobie too and I'm considering Garnier Pure Clean since I already like Garnier's curl cream gel. But y'know, it has cones and junk.

I live in Canada :home:
Yay for noobs! :occasion7:

I'm really pleased with the gel I got!! It doesn't leave my curls crunchy (except For when I put a giant blob on my bangs to plaster down my cowlick, and even then it isn't as crunchy as most gels!!)
It holds my curls really well, and it creates new ones! It's para en free and the ingredients aren't so bad
Also it smells delicious :)
I recommend the Down Under Naturals extra hold gel!!
P.S. I have only used it about 2 or 3 times so we'll see how it goes

I like Aussie and suavea

Sent from my PC36100 using CurlTalk App

The only gel I ever used when I started out (and I'm still new to all this) was the one from as i am naturally and it feels so good on my hair. Very nice ingredients too. It's $8.00 for a big size amount so maybe you could try that? It did well holding down my edges the entire day, and can be used as a nice refresher. Plus it smells really nice!

I've never seen that one!! Well this weekend Shoppers Drug Mart is having tresemme on sale for 2.99 a pop, so I'm going to stock up. I'm gonna look through the product section and see if it's there! Will I only find it at salons?

If you're talking to me, then I think you can buy it from most Sally's now. I don't know if there's one in Canada though...

You can also order it off curlmart and their site.