Do you love how your hair looks on the first day when you’ve put in all your hair products but on the second day, you wake up to flat curls or fuzzy curls or even frizz?
I know the frustration of having to do so much with curly hair because I have curly hair myself.
And I always get annoyed when my hair gets frizzy on the second day or one part looks more voluminous than the other and I wake up with wonky and unbalanced hair.
I’ve tried a lot of methods and in this post, I thought I’d talk about what worked for me.
So, I’m going to teach you how to revive second-day curls quickly and easily!
Let’s begin!
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What are second-day curls or second-day hair?
It is the second day of wearing your curls post-washing.
If you wore a lot of curly hair gel, then your curls might be better maintained than most and you’ll still have a lot of definition.
However, if you don’t sleep on a satin pillowcase or tie your hair up in a protective hairstyle, your hair will become prone to all the friction while sleeping and you will lose definition.
I’m lazy and I don’t always tie my hair up in a pineapple or put on a satin bonnet.
So, yes, I do wake up to second-day curls being mostly frizz.
It is not healthy to keep washing your hair every day just so you can restyle it – this is going to get rid of the healthy sebum that your scalp is producing and cause over-dryness.
It is also going to waste a lot of hair care products so this is just a bad idea.
That’s why every curly girl needs to know how to refresh her curls.
Refreshing is important!
Step 1: Section your hair into 2 parts
You cannot go in into your whole head and just randomly start doing your curls.
It’s going to take way too much time.
I section my hair into two parts and usually do one section before attempting the next.
This actually saves a lot of time.
Step 2: Spritz your hair with water
I use one of these beautiful spray bottles that are very cheap and are perfect for spritzing hair in a nice hair mist.
You want to make sure that your hair is damp and not wet.
Your hair should not be soaking wet because it won’t be able to absorb the curly hair products.
Curly hair absorbs products well when it’s damp and not soaking wet. It also dries easily.
So, this spray bottle is essential.
Just fill it with filtered water if you have hard water in your taps or tap water if you have good water and spritz it all over your hair until your hair is somewhat damp.
Step 3: Detangle your hair
You don’t want any tangles while you are refreshing your curls because that will not look good.
It will also become a nightmare to detangle on your wash day because if you wet your hair while there are still tangles and do nothing to remove them, they only get worse till the wash day.
Apart from this, you won’t get defined and pretty curls.
You may even end up with a long or matted deadlock. I am saying this from experience.
So, run your fingers through your curls while it’s wet gently and try to detangle your hair – take your time with this.
You don’t want to break your curls or cause split ends.
Step 4: Use a nice curly hair product
I use the Cantu Cream because I love, love, love this cream.
It not only gives me a beautiful hold, but it also gives me very nice, defined curls.
This is my day 3 hair after drying:
You can use any curly hair cream or smoothie. Here are my top picks:
Just take a little bit and gently apply it to the length of your curls.
You don’t need to use that much if you’ve already used hair products the previous day.
After applying the curl cream to your hair, scrunch your hair upwards to help the curls form better.
You can also use a gel if you want more definition – I usually am pretty happy with the results I get from a curl cream – so I stopped using gels a long time ago.
If you want more definition and have very long curly hair – then you can use a curly hair gel. Here are my top picks:
Once you finish applying the cream and gel, you can also use a Denman brush to get more defined curls.
I don’t do this all the time, but only on special occasions.
Step 5: Let it air dry or diffuse
I always air-dry my hair and use a diffuser only if I am in an absolute hurry.
I highly recommend air drying if you have the time. But if you don’t diffuse your hair on the cold setting.
Avoid touching your hair with the diffuser when diffusing.
Wait until parts of your hair are dry before you flip it around. You can also push the diffuser underneath your hair to make sure you get more volume in your curls.
Or flip your hair over and diffuse from the bottom to the top.
And after drying your hair, you should have beautiful, defined curls.
And that is how you revive second-day curls.
Enjoy your beautiful curls!