What I Learned about Taking Care of Curly Baby Hair

Little Wiggles lovely hair

My little girl was born with curly hair. Much to my dismay and initial pleasure. I have weird wavy hair that has no idea what it wants to be. "Should I be straight today? wavy? I know! I'll be really irritating and be both!" Um, no thank you hair, I'll take one or the other, thanks.

Anyway, the point is I have no idea how to take care of curly hair. This was not a problem until recently. Before Wiggles' hair was just cute little swirls. perfectly lovely. But lately, oh my, look out! When she wakes up it's a total mess. And her frizz is out of control. I thought that I just needed to wash it. This just made it worse, which I will explain later. So, being the google-aholic that I am I began to research (seriously, I spend hours researching things. I have lists of things that I want to remember to google when I get home. The iphone is a blessing and a curse because I now can google anywhere. Seriously, it's a sickness). What I found I can distill into 5 practically biblical rules about curly hair care.

See those crazy curls? 

Daddy like to run his fingers through them so she always has a poof.

1. No shampoo, like ever. So evidently curly hair is way more delicate than regular straight hair. It is way more dry and brittle which is why it gets so frizzy. It breaks and gets split ends. The culprit? Sulfates. These nasty curl killing chemicals dry out curly (and normal) hair even more. So I was actually hurting instead of helping by washing it all the time. Turns out I only need to wash Wiggles' hair once a week. at the most. The rest of the bath times in the week should be conditioner only. This is so couterintuative to me. If I were to use just conditioner on my hair I just might have grease dripping into my eyebrows by the end of the day. But like I said, curly hair is way dryer than mine. So there you go.

2. Condition, condition, condition. Use all kids of conditioner and use it often. wash with a wash out, finish with a leave in and detangle in the morning and during the day with a spray. The more moisture the better and the more defined the curl.

3. No Brushes, rarely combs, only fingers and only when wet. NEVER dry. This one I think I knew. but brushing breaks the hair and it's even worse when it's dry. This leads to frizz. It is also good news for moms. No more wrestling and wrangling small screaming children and subjecting them to cranial torture. What you do is get a wide-toothed comb or use your fingers and practically drown your child in conditioner. Then you gently, starting at the bottom and working your way up, brush out the knots. Rinse and re-comb. If you must re-comb when it's dry (say in the morning when your child wakes up looking like a child of the 70's) wet with water or spray conditioner until damp and use comb and fingers to reshape the curls.

4. Hands off! Once your child's hair is set and wet leave it alone! Let it dry before you touch it and even then don't touch it unless you absolutely must. And even then I can't think of a reason to touch dry curly hair. See rule 3.

5. Get it cut and styled professionally starting at the beginning. I know it seems rediculous to get a baby's hair cut by a specialist, but if it's curly I hear it makes all the difference. They even have really cute kids salons with cool seats and stylists who specialize in cutting kids hair. Ask them specifically if they have experience cutting curly hair.

Some of these rules I haven't tried yet, but I'll keep you informed. There are also curl products designed for kids. There are two brands on my wishlist at the moment. Curly Q and also It's a curl. I have found that many of the products and advice on the market are for "ethnic" hair. That is deffinately not my white pastey baby. She and I are about as fair as they come. So some of the products might be too heavy for her fine hair. Again. I'll keep you informed.