If your hair is curly and you want to look more youthful, then you’re going to want to avoid these top five mistakes. I’m going to talk about them so you don’t have to make them and you’re going to be left looking more vibrant and youthful.
But before we dive into this I want to make sure that you understand what I mean by youthful, I’m not talking about looking half your age. I’m saying that we want to look more youthful for whatever age you are at. What I mean by youthful is essentially looking more vibrant and confident and alive and energetic and all that stuff.
Let’s dive into some tips!
Table of Contents
Hair Too Long
The first mistake I see is having hair that’s too long for your curl pattern.
I’m not saying long hair is a bad thing. What I’m saying is that if you’ve got curly hair you likely know that there are a lot of different curl patterns and then within all of those different curl patterns, there are on top of that different curls, person to person, even within those patterns.
A lot of you probably have what we call multi-textural hair where it might be wavier in one area and curlier in the next area and even maybe straight in some areas.
What can happen is depending on how long your hair gets, that length can have a tendency in some cases to pull that curl out.
If you’re in a situation where you have multi-textural hair, it might even pull it out more in those areas and that would make it much harder for it to actually encourage the curl to look more even.
I’m not saying that you can’t have long hair. I’m just saying that you want to pay attention to the length and make sure that the length you have is functioning best for you and not just length to have length.
Let’s move on to the next mistake.
Not Layering
The next mistake is not layering your hair or not doing enough layering. Here’s the reason behind this.
Curly hair or wavy hair has a tendency as it grows to get fuller at the bottom. The problem with that is it has a tendency to bring the eye down because of that compounding effect and because the bottom gets so wide, it has a tendency to make the roots or the top look flatter. That actually compounds this overall optical illusion creating even more of the illusion of that triangular shape.
The other aspect of this is not layering your hair will have less movement. A large part of what creates the vibrance and the life in the overall shape is some sort of movement to the hair.
It’s not to say that one length hair is just not an option, it’s simply to say that without some sort of layering, it’s not going to have the ability to open up the shape that can be created with curly hair.
Since we aren’t utilizing a lot of tools, flat irons, round brushes, etc., to create shape in your hair, we are relying on the shape to be cut into the hair. This is what allows us to relieve bulk from certain areas to accentuate specific things about your face shape that we want to accentuate, help lift the eye up, help lift the face up, and all of these things combined with movement and all of that, gives it more of a youthful appearance.
Wrong Product
The next mistake is using the wrong product. If you’re using a product in your hair right now, you let your hair get completely dry, and your hair is super wet looking and really crunchy and you can’t break that product up and make it look a bit more dry, and a bit softer, then to me, that would be the wrong product for you to be using.
The bigger problem with this is many times that wet look can also be very heavy, it has a tendency to weigh the hair down, making it look a bit flatter and not have quite the same movement and flow that you want.
With that said, this isn’t to say that all products that make your hair look wet after they’re dry are bad. In fact I would actually argue oddly enough it’s a little bit of the opposite of that.
If your product is not creating some sort of that wet look in your hair once it’s dry, it may not be enough to control the frizz. With that said, don’t shy away from those products completely. Just make sure that once you get your hair completely dry and it looks crunchy and wet, that you can then go in and manipulate it.
Scrunch your hair up, break that product up with your hands and make it look soft.
Drying Process
The next mistake deals with the drying process.
This mistake is not using a diffuser when you’re actually blow drying your hair.
I understand a lot of folks with curly hair don’t blow dry. A lot of you will allow it to air dry, which is fantastic. There’s nothing wrong with that.
But in the case that you’re using a blow dryer to speed up that blow-dry time or to enhance curl or to decrease frizz or whatever it may be, if you’re not using a diffuser the probability is high that you’re going to be struggling with keeping the frizz out of your hair.
Part of what has a tendency to really kind of pull some of the youthful appearance out of curly hair is the dryness. Using a diffuser is going to help diffuse the air flow, it’s going to help to minimize the manipulation on the cuticle and that is going to help reduce frizz and reduce that illusion of dryness.
If you’re going to be drying your hair, use a diffuser. Make sure you use it correctly.
Best Curling Iron With Interchangeable Barrels
Wrong Color
The next mistake is doing the wrong kind of color. This is something that a lot of people miss and it’s super important.
In any case, regardless curly or straight, when you’re talking about color, something that really has a tendency to drag the life out of things is when the color looks too monotone, too one color.
Natural hair is not one color. There’s always a little bit of dimension in it. Typically speaking, hair tends to lighten in the front quicker and more aggressively than it lightens in the back.
The thing about curly hair is that when you’re highlighting or low lighting, adding light pieces or dark pieces to curly hair, if you use the same size of section, meaning it’s the same size thickness of highlight or low light, it’ll have a tendency to get lost in the wave or the curl.
That can have a tendency to make things look more monotone. You actually need to take larger sections, chunkier highlights to create the same illusion of dimension that thinner highlights can create in straighter hair.
One thing about curly hair is many times, because curly hair does actually tend to be drier than straight hair, one of the things you want to know when it comes to color is the lighter colors you go with, the more they’ll have a tendency to make hair in general look a bit more damaged or a little bit drier.
The chemicals necessary to create lighter looks also are typically harder on the hair. But just remember that darker tones, maybe adding low lights into that curl, instead of highlights, reflects light differently and can tend to make the hair look shinier and healthier, which will look less dry.
Those are all the tips that’s how you look more youthful.
Samantha is a hairstylist with over 12 years of color and stylist experience. She enjoys using her knowledge to create what her clients really want when they sit down in her chair. Her passion is creating unique looks that her clients feel great in.