Do I really need a hair care schedule?

You need a routine, not necessarily the rigid table that circulates online. What matters is alternating hydration, nutrition and rebuilding according to what your hair is asking for — and that changes through the year.

Can I blow-dry without ruining my curls?

You can, with heat protection and spacing. Damage comes from frequency and temperature, not from a single occasion. An occasional blow-dry on healthy hair does not permanently loosen the curl.

How often should I wash coily hair?

It depends more on the scalp than on the strand. An oily scalp needs more frequent washing, even on coily hair — skipping washes to “avoid dryness” is the shortest route to flaking and itching. The strand is protected by styling, not by build-up.

Curly and coily hair: the care guide that was missing

Definition, shrinkage, transition, braids and safe chemistry. What actually works and what only sells product.

Reviewed August 2026 · Nelma Faleiro

Curly and coily hair has a cuticle that naturally lifts at every bend of the strand. That means two things at once: it loses water more easily, and it absorbs product more easily. Almost every curl problem comes from unbalancing those two.

Why curls “will not define”

In most cases it is not the lack of the right product — it is too much of the previous one. Silicone, oil and cream build-up weighs the curl down and prevents it forming. The second most common reason is an unsuitable cut: layers that are too short break the curl column. The third is styling on hair that is not wet enough. Before buying another cream, do a deep cleanse and see what happens.

Shrinkage is not a problem — it is a property

A coily strand can shrink by 30–70% as it dries. That is a sign of elasticity and health, not damage. What goes wrong is cutting wet without accounting for it: the client asks for shoulder length, the cut is made at shoulder length wet, and it dries five fingers higher. That is why we cut dry when the shape requires it.

Going natural

During transition the hair has two textures and two behaviours at once, and the line where they meet is the weakest point of the strand. Three things help: trimming the processed length gradually, avoiding heat at the junction, and using styles that blend the difference — braids, buns, twists. There is no single haircut that solves it; there is a plan across months.

Braids: what nobody warns you about

A well-made braid does not hurt. If it hurt, it was too tight — and repeated tension at the hairline is a leading cause of traction alopecia, which in advanced stages does not reverse. Another rule: box braids left beyond eight weeks accumulate residue and overload the root. At take-down, deep cleansing before any other service.

Chemistry on coily hair

Relaxing, straightening and colouring are all possible — with a test strand, always. The risk is not the chemistry itself: it is mixing incompatible chemistry without knowing what came before. Sodium hydroxide over hair treated with thioglycolate, or bleach over a recent relaxer, break the strand irreversibly. Twenty minutes of testing save months of rebuilding.