How To Revive Damaged Curls

Your curls’ two biggest enemies: chemicals and heat. Over-processing your hair, bleaching it frequently and constantly straightening is a one-way road to damage. Even your protective styles can cause damage if they’re too tight.

Suffering curls look limp and stringy, lose definition quickly, and might have sections where your curl pattern is completely gone. And no matter how much you scrunch, plop or diffuse, your texture doesn’t bounce back.

Luckily, it’s not forever – with proper care, you can bring life back into those coils you love.

Hydration is the first step to bringing back lost curls. Without enough moisture, they lose shape  and become prone to breakage. Jumpstart the repair process by incorporating weekly hair masks like our Heal & Hydrate + Shea Butter mask with hydrating ingredients like aloe, shea butter and oils to get your curls back  to looking healthy. If you have looser waves or lower porosity hair, don’t immediately go to heavy moisture – work in more lightweight hydrating products, like our Flaxseed collection.

For styling products, dive into those ingredient labels – anything that’s rich in humectants, emollients, glycerin and ceramides will help protect your coils from further damage. Our Curl Quench + Coconut Oil gel contains glycerin to moisturize and prevent future breakage, so you can have defined AND healthy curls.

In general, you should avoid products with sulfated surfactants, silicones and parabens. Your delicate curls require delicate formulas, and these ingredients can be too harsh and heavy. We formulate our products without any of these ingredients, so you can treat your curls right with what they truly need. If you’re looking for a new shampoo and conditioner specifically targeted for repair, our new Castor & Neem Oil line helps repair chemical damage by strengthening and softening your strands. So go ahead, toss out your damaging products and trade them in for healing, strengthening hair care.

This one’s probably not a surprise – lay off heat styling for the foreseeable future. Sit back and let that hair air dry! Plopping is one great way to cut down on drying time, but you have to be gentle. Lay a soft cotton T-shirt/microfiber towel on a flat surface, flip your wet coils over and lower them into the middle of the fabric so it becomes a sort of “bag” of curls on top of your head. Tie the material around your head while still upside down, and voila – your curls are plopped and ready to air-dry!

When it comes to wash day, always rinse your conditioner with cold water. This helps close the hair cuticle, allowing all the moisture to stay inside. Before you step out, apply your styling products in the shower on soaking wet hair to lock in all the benefits.

If all else fails, curl training can be very effective in restoring pattern and shape. It’s almost like your hair has muscle memory, and you need to remind it that it’s curly with constant encouragement. You’ll need to start with a hair mask or leave-in like our Curl Quench + Coconut Oil Curl Smoothie on soaking wet hair to smooth and give your hair slip. Then, you can finger roll or twist your hair to “train” it into a curl pattern. Put on a shower cap for 1-2 hours and rinse out – over time, your hair will start to remember its glorious curly days!

All in all, you have to be patient. Don’t assume a product or technique isn’t working because you’re not seeing perfectly healthy, bouncy curls yet – healing intense damage takes time! The good news is your hair will keep growing and becoming healthier the better you take care of it. So don’t give up on your curls – they’re in there somewhere, you just have to treat them right!