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Curly Girl Method terminology explained
No Poo Cleanse
This involves cleansing your scalp and curls with a sulphate free cleanser, avoiding shampoos that suds and bubble up, and strips your curly hair of its moisture and hydration.
Co-Wash Cleanse
Co-wash Cleanse is a technique that requires no shampoo or cleanser, opting instead to perform a conditioner wash on your curls.
This method enables a gentle curl cleansing action with the fingertips combined with the nourishing properties of conditioner, gently removing dirt and grease from your curly hair and scalp. No lather allows minimal curl agitation meaning less disruption of your curls. This gentle cleansing action needs to be worked through the entire scalp for a longer period of time than with shampoo.
The co wash process needs to be done with a conditioner that is able to perform a light curl cleansing action during the conditioning.
Squish to Condish
This technique involves a gentle squeezing motion to disperse a mixture of water and conditioner into your curly hair. This helps push water into the hair cuticle of your curl, which encourages moisture into each strand of curly hair.
Praying Hands
Praying hands is a curly girl method technique where a styling product is spread across the hands, it is then distributed through your curly hair with your hands in a praying motion. This encourages even distribution of the styling products through your curly hair gently without putting unnecessary stress on your curls.
Scrunch out the Crunch
Scrunching out the crunch means to break your gel cast with your hands.
Each curl gets locked in by gel as it dries to form a cast, (your curly hair must be 100% dry before you scrunch out the crunch). This gives curls their defined shape.
This cast needs to be broken to release the curls, and that is where the term "scrunch out the crunch" comes to play. With each scrunch of your hands, the gel cast is broken, revealing very soft curls.