Help- i don’t understand what my curls are doing!

There are many reasons why our curls misbehave, and as curl specialists with years of experience and having curly hair ourselves, we have seen the frustration first hand, so let us shed some light.

Curls have a mind of their own sometimes, and they do what they like, when they like, and you can fight them all you want but I can guarantee you that this is a fight you’re not going to win.

When you first start following a good haircare routine, it can take some time to undo all the years of neglect or from using the wrong products over a long period of time. When you are first transitioning you will need a little bit of patience and commitment to revitalise your curls.

When you first thoroughly hydrate your hair, you may notice your hair can dry into large clumps of curls (known as “curl families”). This is a great sign that you are on the right track. Regarding styling it, if the clumps are too big for your liking then you can absolutely separate them if you prefer more, smaller sized clumps of curls.

The trick is to go with what your curls want to do- don’t manipulate them too much, and work with what you’ve got. This is where the perfect curl cut comes into play. At UKS, our curl specialists are trained to understand how curls behave and cut them accordingly, using specialised techniques that give a great finished result. Even finger coiling is considered to be manipulating the curls. If you like the end result of styling your curls by finger coiling each curl then by all means go for it. However, it is possible that you will confuse your curls, and you will get variable results every time you style it this way. If you twist your curls in the wrong direction, and combine the wrong curl patterns together then your curls will look confused and not sit right, as you have styled them in a way that they don’t want to sit.

The best way to get your curls to behave is to hydrate them with the best quality curl products, get regular curl cuts to keep split ends at bay, and to allow your curls to clump together how they want to. When parting your hair, if you flip your hair upside down and then back up again, your natural parting will reveal itself and you can style from this parting.

Be patient and trust the process, and your curls will flourish in no time.