Curly Hair Cuts
- houseofebbittsalon
- Mar 21, 2018
- 4 min read
Women with curly hair may be the envy of many, but they can have an awful time finding a stylist with the specific training and experience needed for them to be able to cut curly hair well - even when frequenting a respected, high end hair salon. Curly hair poses unique problems to a cutter. There is a huge variety of textures and types of curly hair: frizzy, thick, thin, kinky, fragile, coarse, big curls, tight curls.... so there is no perfect one-size-fits-all solution. Curly hair requires its own specialist.
Some curly heads give up, give in and just straighten their hair. Historically this meant hours under a hair dryer in huge rollers every single time they washed their hair. It certainly is how my college roommate spent most of her time. (she used the time to study
These days it is possible to get a Brazilian or keratin blowout of course, which lasts a lot longer. But even though this is a longer term solution, these expensive treatments still don’t last that long, and the chemicals involved can be toxic.
Besides, not every person with curly hair wants to abandon her signature look. Curly hair is a gorgeous frame for the face. The array of up-do's and braids, and ways to wear those curls is endless.
Fortunately there are a lot of very successful ways to work with curly or textured hair.
Deva Curl is both a very popular curly hair cutting process and product line. And we can thank Deva Curl, for bringing curly hair care fully into the mainstream of hair care and hair cutting. No longer treated merely like something unusual, or merely to be corrected (by straightening) you can go to any drugstore, any salon these days, and you will see rows of product devoted to curly hair care.Unfortunately this branded curly hair cutting technique is still no guarantee of a good cut even though that is the entire brand of the product and process.
What happens during a Deva cut is:
1) your hair is washed and dried to its fully curly self
2) the hair is cut while dry and curly, one curl at a time, with the curls unstretched/held loosely, into the length/style/shape you want,
3) the hair is again washed and dried to its naturally curly state, and
4) the stylist checks to make sure that the cut still looks good, and makes any necessary adjustments.
Why cut hair using this process?
Curly hair is easier to cut when dry because it is easier to see what a particular head of hair’s curl is like when dry. This cutting technique allows even a hair cutter who doesn’t have a lot of skill or experience with curly hair a shot at doing a decent job. This sounds like it should work - and it does, to a degree. Unfortunately, with the Deva method, the hair is being cut in chunks with no regard to cutting the hair evenly. This means you cannot blow out or straighten the hair, as the resulting cut will be ragged at best. In addition, your curls will grow out as unevenly as they were cut.
A true curly hair specialist is able to read the hair when wet, and prefers to cut it wet because shampoo renders curly hair less resistant in general. This allows the experienced stylist to see how it grows, where the curl is, where the part is, and what the growth pattern is.
Instead of freestyling and cutting hair in arbitrary chunks based on how it dried that day, experienced stylists like Thomas Ebbitt (of House of Ebbit salon in Annapolis) prefer to cut curly hair in sections, building the cut and also making sure he is creating the proper angles with it, so the cut cut works from all angles. In fact, all haircuts are about angles. And really good haircuts are determined not only by how the hair looks when you walk out of the salon, but by how the hair grows in.
Stylist and curly hair expert Thomas Ebbitt says:
“My approach is simple, even though it is definitely NOT one-size fits all. First I listen to how my clients style their hair. And I pay attention to not only how they style their curly hair but what kinds of products they use and when they think that their hair looks its best. Because we all know our own hair better than anyone else does. “
Once you get a great cut you still need to know how to maintain it. And here is an implrtant bit of advice - throw away the towel! For curly hair, regular towels create more frizz! So instead, use paper towels, or an old t-shirt or a specially designed curly hair towel. This will help eliminate frizz and help set your hair in curls.
Click here for more information on washing curly hair
Click here for info on conditioning curly hair.
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