Curly Girl Method 101 – Your complete guide to CGM!

Are you here because you’re new to the Curly Girl Method and are feeling a little overwhelmed?

I hear you! It is overwhelming.

There is so much information to take in.

If you are anything like I was at the beginning, you are in a state of apprehension after making the decision to start the CGM method and having bought a gel and sulphate free shampoo, now you’re thinking… what’s next??

First off, don’t panic.

You can take this curly girl journey at your own pace, in your own way, one step at a time. Something I wish I knew at the start was that – YOU DON’T HAVE TO FOLLOW EVERY RULE.

The goal is to fall (back?) in love with your beautiful curly hair.

Use the rules as a guide, and over time you’ll come to learn everything you need to know. Then you can decide what part of the method works for your hair and your style.

OK… Let’s break it down!

Where did the Curly Girl Method come from?

The Curly Girl Method came about in the 90s. It all started based on a book by Lorraine Massey, a stylist living in LA. Having amazing curly hair herself she was fed up with the fact hairdressers are not taught how to style and cut curly hair in their training. She spent years feeling negative about her wild and gorgeous curly hair. Lorraine set out to help curly girls around the world with her book “ Curly Girl – The handbook”.

With the explosion of the internet and content creation industry, The Curly Girl Method has become well known and followed by the Curly masses. 

In Lorraine’s book there are set rules or guidelines which are to be closely followed if you are going to be doing the official Curly Girl Method.

With this article and this website my aim is to break down all the information you need and provide helpful tools, so that you can be successful with the curly girl method, whether you follow it strictly or on your own terms.

The Curly Girl Method “Rules”

The hard and fast curly girl method rules as per Lorraine Massey’s book are:

1. No Shampoo

2. No Brushing

3. No Heat

4. No Silicones

5. No Sulphates

6. No Drying alcohols

7. No Cotton towels

Like I say, these are the rules according to Lorraine Massey original method, and they are good rules for curly hair. Thousands of women world-wide follow them and have great results, but they don’t all work for everyone.

With the growth of curly hair influencers who trial and test out new products and methods of styling, a newer more flexible curly girl method is emerging. One where it’s ok to bend the rules, use heat and sulphates and water soluble silicones if you want to, if it suits your hair.

There is a huge group of curly girls that use brushes and heat. A lot will often experiment with products with some of the ‘banned’ ingredients and find it works for their hair.

My recommendation would be that if you’re new to starting the CGM then start with as many of the rules as you feel comfortable, and over time you’ll get to know your hair. You’ll figure out what works for you, if you want to break any of the rules or not.

You might find that products with water soluble silicones work for your hair. You’ll likely realise quickly that no heat is pretty impossible, not every day anyway, and at least a partial diffuse on low heat is needed. Most curly girls diffuse their hair on a low to medium heat setting after every wash. Who has time for air drying, amiright?

The Curly Girl Method Steps

Now you have the basic rules, let’s talk about the method. It’s recommended that before you start the curly girl method you do one ‘final wash’ with sulphate shampoo. This will remove any build-up of silicones and other heavy product build ups. You can also use a sulphate free clarifying shampoo. 

A regular deep conditioner is also recommended. When you’re starting out the Garnier hair food ones are a good inexpensive option.

Then every time you wash and style moving forward, you will want to:

–   Cleanse

–   Condition (or use a leave in) 

–   Style

–   Dry

–   Protect

A quick note on a popular misconception…  a lot of curly girls have when starting CGM is that it’s best you try to go as long without washing your hair. This is not true. You can wash your hair as often as you like.

Curly hair can dry out easily due to the natural oils not traveling down the hair shaft as quickly as straight hair, so this idea of not washing the hair often may have come from that thought, that you need to give it more time for the natural oils to cover the hair and not dry it out more with more washing. But this isn’t the case.

Most curly girls will try to refresh their hair for a couple of days, and some can last longer than others between washes. Again, it’s whatever works for you and your hair. Which products you use will also affect this, for example if you have fine hair and try some heavier products, you may find that you only get one refresh day and then need to wash again. 

Trial & Error with Styling Methods

Squish to condish, plopping, raking scrunching… any of these terms ringing a bell? If you’ve been on Instagram or YouTube watching curly girls style their hair, then you’ll definitely have heard of them.

How to style your hair can feel really overwhelming. There are so many ways to do it. 

When I first started, after washing, I only used Umberto Giannio Curly Gel, raking it through and then scrunching. That’s all I could deal with. Since then I’ve gone on to use leaves in, cream, mouses, different gels etc.

My point is when you’re starting out, don’t overwhelm yourself unnecessarily. You have ditched the straighteners, bought yourself a curly product and are following the method. Don’t get stressed that you are not trying all the different ways of styling and 100’s of products you see. 

Curly Transition Period

Everyone will go through a period of transition with their hair when they start CGM. This can range from 3 months to 6 months. It’s a period where you may have varying results, you might find your hair becomes particularly dry and straggly. Or you struggle with getting the right protein or moisture balance.

To support the transition phase of your curly journey, there are things you can do to ease those bad hair days:

–   Protect your hair at night

–   Ditch the hair bobbles – Get some nice hair scrunchies, silk are preferable

–   Invest in a decent hair mask

–   Purchase a good spray water Bottle

Keep records of the good hair days!

Make notes on how your hair feels like using them, the slip, the smell, the textures, etc. and record the results – take pictures! Lots of pictures! It might feel pointless at the time, but if you persist and keep going you will be glad you did. When you look back over time and see how far you’ve come, how much your curls have changed and improved your pictures will spur you to keep going. 

Download my Curly Wash Day Diary tracker here to help you keep track of those good and bad days!

Prepare yourself to experiment / with your curly hair

Getting in the right mindset for going curly is half the battle. There will be days you wonder why you started. Or you might start to crave the comfortableness of having straight hair again.

Whether you allow yourself a day or two with straight hair again or not is up to you. The key is to not fall back into that pattern too regularly. Try doing different updos on those days and then trying again the next with a new wash day. 

I would recommend that you use as much of the first set of products you buy as you can, say at least half before you buy anymore. It’ll give you time to see how your hair responds to one or two types of products and the different styling methods. 

Learn to embrace every crazy stage your curly hair goes through.

Patience is key. I can’t stress that enough. A curly transition takes time – Especially If you have very damaged hair it’ll take a while for it to settle down and grow into a workable style that you’re happy with.

Even after the first couple of haircuts your hair may quickly look like it needs another one,

You might find your parting position changes – mine was all over the place for months, it had no idea what to do… after years of being straightened within an inch of its life in one (the wrong) direction it finally landed on a side.

Regardless of whether it takes you weeks or months to get a rhythm with your styling and find your perfect products, my advice is to enjoy the process. Enjoy the learning, the experimenting, the bad hair days. Remember that Curly hair is unique and beautiful, like you.

Welcome to the Curlie Club x