Mama Talks Hair

*Disclosure: This post was in collaboration with Madison Reed to share my hair dos and don'ts with you. I was not compensated for this post.*

So, I have something to share with you Blog friends... you may not have noticed, so I just want to let you in on a little secret.... I have a LOT of hair.

What? You're not surprised? Lol. Okay, okay - I know.

I have naturally curly hair; by naturally curly I mean mostly frizzy, often poofy, nicely curly in some spots and weirdly crimped/flat/completely bizarrely straight in others. Yeah - it's all kinds of awesome.

It's also thick - so thick that I regularly have it cut with thinning scissors. And here's the best part about having curly hair - people just LOVE to give me hair advice.

"Don't get layers cut into your hair!" "You should try out that no-shampoo thing for curly girls!" "You should never ever brush out curly hair!" and so on and so forth.

Well, you know me - I just love to follow people's advice. NOT.

Possible Curly Hair Don't #1 - DON'T cut layers into curly hair or you'll end up with Christmas Tree hair
FALSE. I have layers in my hair; many many layers. In fact, without layers in my hair I often look like a triangle head more than a Christmas tree. I would say a much more reasonable "Don't" for curly hair would be: Don't let someone who doesn't know how to cut curly hair cut layers into your hair. Or DO ask your stylist to see some examples of curly hair they've worked on before. I happen to absolutely love my hairstylist - and she is amazingly talented at cutting curly hair.

Possible Curly Hair Don't #2 - Never use shampoo on your hair.
UM. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!
Okay - I've heard this about a billion times, and I even looked into it:  the "alternate" cleaning solutions for the "no-poo" system for hair. Pretty much anything that's not shampoo makes my hair look greasy, and flat in irritating spots. It's just not great.
That said - one of my DOs for curly hair is do skip a day (or 2 or even 3) between washes. Curly hair is a lazy girls blessing. I wear my hair down for about a day, maybe 2 after washing and then I can usually wear it up for another 2 days before shampooing my hair again.  A little steam and a bit of water and fresh mousse or argan oil spray and my hair is good to go for the day! Win!

Possible Curly Hair Don't #3 - You should NEVER brush out curly hair. 
Well I'm sorry(notsorry) - but I just can't do it. I will admit that I DON'T OFTEN brush out my hair. But when I do I use a wide bristle brush and go really really slow and careful. That said - if I don't brush it out I end up with hair falling out all over the place. I DO brush through it with a wide tooth comb while I'm in the shower every time I use conditioner. I know that people say that it causes more breakage to brush out curly hair - but I don't think I've ever noticed a significant loss of hair because of brushing.

 

Madison Reed has a pretty cool hair colour quiz you can take - and check out some of their Dos and Don'ts for your hair.

What's your best hair advice? Have you ever bucked the trends or bucked the rules and done something you're not "supposed" to do? DO let me know in the comments below!