The Curly Girl Method, step by step

The method’s three steps

1. Wet your hair and work a sulfate-free cleanser, or a cleansing conditioner, into your scalp with firm circles of your fingertips. If you’re coming off sulfate shampoo, Massey suggests keeping your usual washing days at first and simply swapping the shampoo.
2. Rinse, then glide a generous amount of silicone-free conditioner down your hair with your fingers. Massey calls this squeeze-quench: when your hair feels like wet seaweed and makes a squishy sound as you squeeze it, it has enough. Work out knots with your fingers while the conditioner is in.
3. Leave some or all of the conditioner in. Tighter or drier curls need more, and so does hair that has been colored, straightened or dried with heat.
4. While your hair is still soaking wet, smooth or scrunch in a water-soluble, silicone-free gel.
5. Blot the water out with a cotton T-shirt or a paper towel, pressing rather than rubbing.
6. Let your hair dry without touching it: in the air, under a diffuser or under a hood dryer. The gel dries into a stiff shell, the cast, which holds each curl’s shape as it dries.
7. Once your hair is completely dry, tip your head forward and scrunch upward to break the cast. That’s scrunching out the crunch, and it leaves soft, defined curls.

Why the method leaves these out

Massey’s reasoning is about dryness and build-up. Sulfates, her site says, strip the hair and leave it dry and dull. Silicones, often there to help detangling, build up a film along the hair that attracts dirt and keeps conditioner from reaching it. Her product line also leaves out drying alcohols, waxes and polymers that don’t dissolve in water, for the same reasons.

The two main rules travel together. Silicones such as dimethicone repel water, so a gentle cleanser or a conditioner wash leaves more of them behind than a sulfate shampoo would. Give up sulfates and keep silicones, and the silicones build up.

Dermatology describes the same chemistry without endorsing the method. A 2015 review of hair cosmetics in the International Journal of Trichology lists sulfates such as sodium laureth sulfate, along with alpha-olefin sulfonate, among the anionic detergents that remove oil and dirt very well but are strong cleaners that can leave hair with more frizz and friction. The same review notes that wavy and curly hair tends to have an oily scalp but drier lengths.

None of this makes the method a treatment. It’s a stylist’s method, built from salon work rather than clinical research, and a few wash days will tell you more about your own hair than any rule.

Where label checkers disagree

Lists of what the method allows don’t all agree. These are the names they split on:

• Olefin sulfonate. Sodium C14-16 Olefin Sulfonate is a detergent from the same anionic family as the sulfates, but its name doesn’t say sulfate, so many “sulfate-free” shampoos use it. Strict lists leave it out; the originator’s list names sulfates.
• Silicones with PEG or PPG in the name, such as PEG-12 Dimethicone, are made to mix with water. Some lists allow them; Massey’s says no silicones at all.
• Mineral oil and petrolatum don’t dissolve in water, and many lists add them under the build-up rule. The originator’s product line names waxes and non-water-soluble polymers instead.
• Cetearyl, cetyl and stearyl alcohol are fatty alcohols that soften hair and thicken conditioners. They aren’t drying alcohols, though a list that flags every word “alcohol” will catch them.
• Behentrimonium Methosulfate has “sulfate” in its name but is a conditioning ingredient, not a detergent.
• Protein isn’t a Curly Girl Method rule at all. Some people find it leaves their hair stiff and leave it out as a separate choice.

Starting the method

Many people begin with one last wash using a sulfate or clarifying shampoo, to clear silicones and other build-up their old products left behind, and then switch. If your current products list none of the four groups, there’s nothing to clear.

You don’t need a new bottle for every step. Check what’s already on your shelf with the ingredient checker and keep whatever passes. Then change one product at a time where you can, so you know what made the difference, and give each change a few wash days before you judge it.

On wavy or fine hair

The full method, with plenty of conditioner left in, can weigh wavy or fine hair down until it falls flat. Massey’s own routine for wavy hair is lighter: conditioner on the mid-lengths and ends, kept off the roots, and rinsed out thoroughly so its weight doesn’t leave the waves flat. She adds that short, baby-fine waves sometimes need no conditioner after washing at all.

For styling she suggests a shallow palmful of gel scrunched into hair that is wet but squeezed out, clips at the roots for lift, and drying with a diffuser on a low to medium setting or under a hood dryer, so the water and gel don’t weigh the waves down while they set.

Many people also use a sulfate-free shampoo rather than co-washing, and wash as often as their roots need; sulfate-free shampoo and occasional diffusing with a heat protectant are among the method’s most popular variations.

What a label check can’t tell you

A label that lists none of the four groups fits the method’s ingredient rules. It doesn’t promise anything about your curls: how much you use, how you put it on and the water in your shower matter as much.

“CG-friendly” or “Curly Girl approved” on a bottle is the maker’s or a shop’s own reading of its label. No official body checks those words, and the lists behind them differ, so read the names yourself.

Questions before your next wash