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Hello, wavies! 

If you’ve just realized your hair is wavy, or you suspect it might be, you know you’ve got to change your routine. But the content out there on social media is so overwhelming. And honestly…some of those hair influencers are doing a lot more than a regular girl might want to do every day. 

This post is going to lay out a simple wavy hair routine that doesn’t require you to go buy a zillion special products. You can start taking care of your wavy hair with the stuff you already have, and add products on slowly. Call it underconsumption core. 

But first…for the girls who are wondering, am I wavy? 

How to know if your hair is wavy

The signs that your hair is wavy? 

If you’hve always treated your hair like straight hair, the big sign that you’re wavy is poofiness. 

Not frizz–anyone can have frizz, though straight haired people tend to have less of it than we do. But that puffy, fluffy, poofy hair that looks kind of straight but doesn’t flow? 

(Depending on your age, you can think of Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries or Hermione Granger in Harry Potter. Both movies intentionally style a gorgeous actress’s hair the wrong way!) 

(photo)

Look at this gorgeous hair! But it’s wavy, and she’s brushing it out when it’s dry as if it’s straight. So she’s not getting the best results. 

For a lot of people, they just aren’t taught to take care of wavy hair. Or, when you’re younger, sometimes a parent doesn’t have the time or knowledge to care for it. But people with straight hair aren’t going to get that poofy look — if you have it, you probably have wavy hair. 

How to take care of wavy hair for beginners

A lot of what works for wavy hair is the same as the classic curly girl method. So, basically, a curly hair routine will bring out your waves. You can get your natural waves started as soon as your next shower! 

There are a couple of ways that you can go about getting your beachy waves set. And, basically, you can go into a full-tilt routine with the bowl and everything from the very beginning. But you can also try just taking the first step, without having to go buy anything new, to start embracing your beautiful wavy hair. 

There’s a few different ways to go here. The next sections of this post will review a couple different strategies and things you can try in order to embrace your waves. Each is a step-by-step guide to embracing your natural texture!

Strategy 1 – simple wavy hair routine without spending any money

(I’m assuming that you already use hair conditioner. If you don’t already use hair conditioner, you’ll need to buy one thing!)

Okay, here’s what you’ll need: 

• your usual shampoo and conditioner
• a wide-toothed comb, if you have one! If you don’t have one, use a regular comb. If you don’t have any comb at all, you can use a brush
• a cotton t-shirt 

An ideal wide-tooth comb is going to look like this: 

​But if you don’t have one in the house, you’ll be okay with a regular comb or brush. When you do end up buying one, there’s truly no point in getting a fancy one. 

During your wash:

Use the CWC method! That means conditioner-wash-conditioner. 

Basically, you slick the lengths of your hair with conditioner for a minute before using your shampoo. This is going to keep the suds out of the lengths of your hair. Curly and wavy hair tends to be more dry than straight hair, so preventing shampoo from stripping the lengths of your hair can really help keep it healthy. 

So: apply conditioner to the lengths of your hair (not the scalp or roots). Let it sit for a minute. Rinse it out and shampoo your hair as you usually would. After your shampoo routine, condition your hair as you normally would. Finish your shower as usual. 

This routine helps balance your hair, so you can keep as much moisture in as possible. Improving the health of your hair helps it express its natural curl or wave! It also means you can use your regular shampoo. I shampoo twice, and the CWC method prevents that from drying my hair shaft. You’ll get better texture and less frizz! 

​After your wash:

Comb your hair while it’s still sopping wet. Many people will do this while they’re still in the shower! Your goal is to detangle it and get the roots of your hair directed the way you want them. 

When you get out, don’t towel your hair! Towels are a recipe for frizzy hair for wavy hair types. 

Once you’re all combed, you’ll add a little more product to your hair. This might be more of your conditioner, if that’s all you have, or you might have other lightweight products that you can use.  

(Key word there is ‘lightweight’! Wavy hair can’t tolerate the heavier products that curly and coily hair can. Too much weight will leave your waves limp and lifeless. If you have very fine waves, you might even need to mix your conditioner with water until you can get a lightweight styler. (I’ll link a few options below later in this post!)

Apply that product to the mids and ends of your hair, staying away from your scalp. Then, scrunch the lengths of your hair.

​What is scrunching?

Scrunching is a way of helping your hair find its natural wave pattern. 

Hover your hand, palm up, under the ends of a section of hair. So gently, cup your hand and catch the end of the hair in your palm. Bring your hand up slowly and gently squeeze the clump of hair. 

When you release it, the wave pattern should be more visible. You might need to try this a couple of times. The benefit of scrunching is that it lets your hair find its own natural shape rather than trying to force it. 

Dry with a t-shirt

You have a couple of options for how to dry your hair:

• if you have time, you can try the plopping method. I hate that word! But it’s a super effective way to let your hair dry on its own while giving you the most voluminous roots. Your waves will be stronger if they dry without gravity pulling them down. (If you have a microfiber towel for hair, you can try that too! But I don’t love those personally–it’s all about what you like.)
• If you’re in more of a hurry and you need to use a blow dryer, start with the t-shirt. Put the t-shirt over your hand and scrunch your hair again. The t-shirt will squeeze some of the water out of your hair, minimizing the amount of heat you have to use. Then, grab the diffuser attachment that came with your blow dryer. Imagine that you’re now scrunching again, just with the diffuser cup! Put your hair dryer on low heat, cup the hair in your diffuser, and hold it still until it’s dry. Moving it around will just create frizz. Dry one section at a time. 

Blow-drying wavy hair (if you want)

You can’t use your Revlon dry brush! (I don’t care what anyone says, I will die with that thing in my hand for days I want to wear my hair straight. But it doesn’t work on wavy days.) 

Blow-drying wavy hair is a skill you need to develop, just like blowing hair out straight. You didn’t get a perfect round brush blowout in one try, and you won’t get perfect waves in one try. But it’s worth practicing. When I say “the less you move it the better”, I really mean that! It takes a while to get used to turning the dryer off before letting your waves go, or not moving it at all. But If you’re doing it on a regular basis, it gets easier and you get better. 

(With that said: a lot of people embrace their natural texture and want to stop using heat tools all together! And you absolutely don’t have to use heat to get beautiful waves. Air drying or plopping are both great strategies for wavies.)

Add-ons for your wavy hair routine

Okay, once you’ve got CWC, combing, and scrunching down, you’ve probably got some noticeable waves going. You can get more! 

To some degree, what it takes to get your best natural waves depends on time. The longer you avoid excessive heat, and the less frequently you are using a flat iron, the more your natural waves will show. Improving your hair health will improve your waves! I’ve been using the capillary schedule method to get my hair healthy again, and I can’t recommend it enough. It’s so easy and all you have to do is plan for deep conditioning a few hours before you wash your hair.

But there are also things you can add to your routine after you’ve got the basics down. Here are some options–you might already even have them: 

Styling cream

In the routine above, you might have had a styling cream already, but we used diluted conditioner. Products like a lightweight leave-in conditioner or a wavy styling cream are great! You might also like mousse (I hate mousse and can’t recommend any though).

This is my preferred wave cream — I apply a dime-size to my short hair while it’s still sopping wet out of the shower. 

A lot of products aimed at curly hair are going to be too heavy for you, so you want to be selective and look for something that mentions waves on the bottle! 

Hair gel for wavy hair

Okay, extra hold gel is amazing for getting super defined waves, but it can look a little 2000s if you don’t do it right. So hold off on this til you’ve done the basic routine a couple times, even if you have a bottle of gel in your medicine cabinet. (And personally I think gel is another area where it’s not worth it to spend more. I am still using the bottle left over from my kid’s first dance recital.)

When you’re ready to try hair gel: do the CWC routine and comb out as usual. Scrunch your styling cream or leave-in conditioner to sopping wet hair. Then, add the gel right after and scrunch it again.

You can still plop or blow dry your hair with the gel in it! It will look crunchy when it’s dry, whether you air-dry or blow dry. Scrunching it again will remove that crunchy cast from the hair. 

(People with curly hair will tell you to get rid of the crunchy cast with a light oil like jojoba or argan oil. And this works! But oil is too heavy for a lot of wavy hair. If you have a coarser hair texture, you can try it! But it isn’t for all wavies. I wouldn’t recommend trying it for the first time on an important day, because you might come out looking greasy.) 

Sulfate-free shampoo and conditioner

When it’s time to rebuy your hair stuff, the right shampoo can make a difference too! It’s not so important that you can’t get started without it or that you have to throw away stuff that still works!

Okay: I put this off til the end because people get mad about sulfate-free stuff! I’m mentioning it here because it really made a difference for me, but you may not need it. If you don’t like sulfate-free shampoo, that’s fine and I want you to have a routine you love. 

But for me…switching to sulfate-free was a huge part of my hair health journey a few years ago. And when I accidentally bought a bottle of shampoo with sulfates, I noticed the difference after a few weeks.

The above is my current set and I really like it. I usually pick it up at Target but it’s cheaper on Amazon.

The truth is: there is an adjustment period where your hair will feel a little greasy. You get through it with dry shampoo and a prayer. 

I hope you love your new wavy hair routine for beginners! Let me know if you have questions or want more wavy hair tips!