What Do You Do for Your Curls? What Our Pop-Ups Taught Me

When my wife and I first met, I worked pretty long hours. The first time she really did her hair, she warned me she might not be able to pick up the phone because she'd be doing her hair. I thought that was odd. She wasn't getting braids or anything like that, which back then was the only thing I thought took a long time. I left for work, came back 10 or 11 hours later, and found her watching videos on her phone, brushing one strand at a time, with an hour still to go.

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As a guy who keeps his hair short and has a pretty simple routine, it sounded insane.

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"What do you do for your curls?"

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Yet at our pop-up events, that question often gets a lengthy answer, one that lays out a process I couldn't have imagined. What starts as a market research question often turns into a story a lot like my wife's.

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It goes beyond the collection of products sitting on a bathroom counter. What starts as a conversation about gels, creams and conditioners usually reveals the relationship people have with their hair. A lot of the time they like the results, but they don't necessarily enjoy everything it takes to get there. Some found their routine through years of trial and error. Others stumbled onto something that just worked. Then there are the lucky few whose curls look amazing with nothing more than water and good genetics.

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Either way, I've learned that people's relationship with their hair can be surprisingly complicated. That's where our other question comes from.

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"You know you need to come over here, right?"

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That one is for the people walking past with a few flyaways poking out, or waves that aren't quite as uniform as usual, or curls that look a little weighed down. They come over, and when the follow-up "What do you do with your hair?" inevitably comes up, there's a look. It's not really embarrassment. It's mostly a look that says, I just did not feel like doing it today.

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It's not careless or uninformed. It can just be a lot.

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What caring for your curls actually looks like

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When I first met my wife, I thought I understood what caring for curls meant. Caring was the long morning routine with multiple products, and the deep conditioning days. A day when you just put your hair up was a day you gave up.

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The reality is there's no right answer to either question. Caring is taking the time to test new products and look for advice. It's adapting to what works, and being willing to adjust when a routine stops working the way it used to. Whether you ran through the full library of products this morning or a quick spray of water was all you felt like doing, caring is learning and always trying new ways.

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Still figuring it out

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The most important and best conversations we have aren't about new products. They're with the people who are still figuring out, "What do I do with my curls?"

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Even with no curls, most of us have been there at some point. I know I have. What I've picked up from all those answers isn't how to find the perfect routine. It's finding what works for you, and being okay when that answer changes.

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Still figuring out yours? Our free hair analyzer reads your Curl Signature from three photos and gives you a routine to start from. Doing a little one's hair on a busy morning? Our 4-step curly hair routine is built for short attention spans. Or come find us at the next pop-up and tell us what you do for your curls. We'd love to hear it.