Uncovering Your Perfect Curly Hair Routine

Embracing your authentic beauty can be both a physical transformation and an emotional one. After years of styling your natural texture to meet a narrow standard of beauty, working with it can be incredibly freeing.

Are you curious? Perhaps you’ve watched a few TikTok tutorials or researched the Curly Girl Method, and you’ve wondered what you might be able to bring out of your natural hair with the right products and styling techniques.

That’s why we asked our Edina legacy stylist and colorist, Poppy, to share her insight and help you begin your discovery.

Arriving at a routine that’s right for your natural hair can feel hard to navigate. What’s your advice to those who want to start a curly hair routine​?

There are so many videos online, and it’s an amazing way to learn and get that spark that excites you about trying something—but it’s not always going to translate to your hair perfectly.

That’s why my biggest suggestion is to book a consultation within a salon space or ask the artist you’re currently seeing about it.

Booking a wash and go service or a luxury blowout and having a little style lesson, that’s the best first step. Whenever I have guests come in who want to go through a style lesson, I’ll record them, and they’ll get their hands on everything, too. I also like to listen to my guests and see what they already have at home to see if we can fill in the gap. Sometimes I have them get the travel size products just to play around with it and see how it feels.

This way, you can talk to somebody about it and do some hands-on learning, and you’re going to walk away with the products that you truly need—because it can be overwhelming.

What would you suggest for those who want to play with the curly hair routine at home, and they’re anxious to give it a try…right now?

Look for those videos, and find someone who has the closest hair type and texture density to you as possible. Watch their tutorials and try it.

Let’s say you’re someone who has medium hair density, a medium or finer hair strand with more of a wave when it’s air dried, and you’re wanting to see more of that curl pattern: If you have a mousse and a leave-in conditioner at home, then you have enough to try already.

The leave-in conditioner is going to help hydrate and keep the softness of your hair, and the mousse is going to create a cast.

I recommend keeping the leave-in conditioner and mousse in your shower. Brush them through highly, highly saturated hair, and then scrunch it in. You need to hear that squish of the water in your hair.

When your hair is fully dried—like, where you can hear it make that crunchy noise as you move it—then you can break it up with an oil or serum. It can be anything that’s soft and slippery and shiny. I like to say, act like you’re putting your hair in a ponytail. You don’t want to comb through the cast with your fingers or you’re going to start creating frizz and be left with a wave. Instead, use your hands as paddles. And if you go in to lift, you need to go out the same way you came in.

There are a million little things.

Ultimately, it’s about getting a process that’s catered to you, and that’s why finding an artist in your area who feels confident about styling curly hair can be so helpful.

What are the best curly hair products you’ve tried?

My absolute favorite curly hair product that I cannot live without is the Aveda Be Curly Advanced Curl Perfecting Primer. It gives you a good foundation—it detangles your hair, smooths the curl, and reduces frizz.

A lot of times with curly, wavy, and coily hairstyles, you see more dryness on the external part of the hair. That’s UV damage. As you’re not putting intense heat on your hair, you don’t necessarily need a heat protectant as much as a UV protectant. This primer has that protectant and 24-hour humidity control.

It’s a perfect…everything. It’s something you need in your toolbox, because it’s great for the first day on wet hair, and it also helps reform the curl if you spray it on dry hair the next day and scrunch it back in.

For styling and hold—that really depends on your hair type and texture. One of my favorites is the Aveda Invati Advanced Thickening Foam. It gives you more of a bouncy volume curl, and it helps keep your hair really soft and reduce the frizz. I like to apply it into a Tangle Teaser and brush it through the hair. Then you’ll be able to shake the hair to see the curls forming. The foam helps the curls to clump, and you can diffuse and form a cast with this one. It’s lightweight and dries really fast—but it doesn’t dry out your hair.

These two paired together are a dream.

Then, a good product for breaking the cast and adding shine is going to be the Aveda Miraculous Oil. Because this one’s a sealing oil, it’s going to lock everything in, but it also reduces frizz, adds shine, and is super, super soft.

What advice would you offer on how to diffuse curly hair?

I’d say, it’s not so much about the diffuser itself, but about having the correct heat and airflow setting.

Think of drying your hair in a convertible with the top down versus being in a sauna. You’re going to get less frizz in the sauna setting. So you need to be on your blow dryer at a high heat with a low speed. What that means for each person, though, is different depending on your density.

What you need to look for when you’re doing a hover is—is my hair blowing? Is it moving? If it is, you’re at too high of a speed. If your hair isn’t moving at all, that’s the speed you want to live at. If you’re holding your diffuser about six inches away from your head at the lowest setting it can go, and your hair is moving, just pull it back farther or you’re going to experience frizz.

You’ve helped a lot of guests discover a new way to style their hair. What’s their initial reaction like?

The first reaction is shock. I can see in their faces. It’s something so foreign to anything that they thought they would have, and it’s like that for a split second—then the biggest smile.

Oh, I love that.

That’s the reaction I typically see from my guests, especially when they have no idea that they have texture; they just think they’ve been fighting frizz their whole life. I’m going through all of the guests that I do this with, and I can’t think of one who’s said, “I like it better the other way.” It’s like a weight comes off of them, and the shell is cracking, and they’re able to truly shine. It comes through in their facial expressions and their emotions, and I love it. It’s a huge honor to be able to carry that in the service.

I have one guest in particular who would always wear her hair in a blowout. After her pregnancy, her hair was coming in thicker and fuller, and with that came a different texture. She said, “My hair’s just frizzy. I don’t know what to do with it.” I said, “If you’re open to it, I’d love to style your hair with your natural texture.”

The moment I turned her around in the mirror, she just started crying. She said,” I’ve never felt like I’ve really seen myself until right now. This looks like me.”

It was one of those moments where you don’t realize how much you’re changing yourself until you see it in the mirror.

That’s beautiful. Do you have any last words of advice for people who’ve been inspired to embrace their natural texture?

I think it’s important for people to know that it does take time to perfect a curly hair routine, just like any time you’re trying something new. If it doesn’t work the first time or the second time or the third time, don’t give up. Just lean into it.

And know that if you’ve been blowing out your hair for years on years, it might take time for your hair to remember and have that ability to style up again. It’s not impossible, but it may mean that you might need to add layers into your haircut. You might need to change the way in which you’re used to styling your hair, and not to be discouraged by these changes.

You’re going back to a natural style, embracing your curl, wave, or coils. So, be okay with trying different things—and have fun with it.