How To Balance Protein & Moisture In Your Curly Hair Routine

In today's video i'm going to show you how to build a protein and moisture balanced wash day routine for your natural curls. If you are new to my channel welcome, my name is gina. I make videos about naturally curly hair. I try and simplify things for beginners. So that everyone can achieve healthy hair protein versus moisture is a big topic in the curly hair community, because we're always wondering how to tell which one our hair needs, how to incorporate both in a routine and which protein is right for your hair type. I'M going to be covering all of that in this wash day routine and i'm also featuring some products from the new curlsmith strength recipe line that they just came out with. Thank you to carl smith for partnering with me for this video and helping share the information about protein versus moisture, because i definitely think it's very important to understand so before we get started with the routine. Let'S cover some of the basics when it comes to protein. In moisture, i have done a full video on how to correct protein overload where we go into more depth about protein. All the sciences stuff. We talk about which proteins are right for your hair type, so you can check that out down below. I also show you how to do a stretch test. That is the most accurate test you can do to find out if your hair needs protein or moisture. So i recommend checking out that video to see how to do that. So first off. Why does protein versus moisture even matter you hear it talked about a lot with naturally curly hair? Well, all of our hair is actually made up of keratin, which is a protein no matter. If you have straight hair, curly hair. All over here is made up of keratin. Naturally, curly hair is also normally more on the dry side, so we need a lot of moisture, but we also need protein to help give our curls that structure, strength and prevent breakage. Both of them are essential because they both work together and did you know that protein actually helps keep your hair moisturized protein helps to temporarily fill in the gaps in our cuticle layer, which is the outermost layer of our hair. That gets worn down from wear and tear from bleach from chemical damage. Color damage heat damage, so protein actually helps the temporary fill in those gaps to help keep your hair from losing moisture and losing water, so both of them are essential for hydrated curls. So how do you know if your products have proteins in them? Well, a lot of times. You will see the word hydrolyzed. That means that that protein ingredient has been broken down to where it's small enough to actually penetrate the hair. So look for things like hydrolyzed, wheat, protein amino acids, keratin, collagen and peptides, so who needs protein and how often, if your hair is more damaged, if you previously heat styled your hair, if your hair is bleached, if you color your hair a lot, then you likely Need more protein if your cuticle layer is naturally more raised, if your hair is more porous, then it's going to need more protein to help, keep it moisturized and give it that structure and strength that it needs. Also, if you have fine to medium texture hair, so that means your individual strands are very fine they're hard to see they're hard to feel between your fingers. They can really benefit from protein because that helps give it strength and structure to prevent breakage. On the flip side, if you have very coarse hair, it might feel rough and bumpy. You can feel it between your fingers. It'S very dark. You can see it that type of hair needs less protein. You can tend to get protein overload if you use too much protein with coarse hair, because it already has that strength and structure. It doesn't need more coated on it to just get more brittle and break off. Also, if you have low porosity hair, which means your cuticle layer is very tightly bound, it doesn't easily let moisture in or out that hair type can also get protein overload more often because, especially when you're using those vegetable type proteins like hydrolyzed wheat protein, those can Sit on the surface and lead to build up protein overload on low porosity hair. I actually have a chart that compares hair texture, whether if you have fine, medium or coarse and hairs porosity and how much protein that you need. So i will link that blog post down below, because, basically, if you have coarse hair, that's also low porosity, you definitely want to be careful with proteins, because that hair type can get protein overload. On the flip side, if you have fine hair, that is high porosity, you can really benefit from protein, so that matrix chart will be on that blog post. The next thing i'm going to cover is how to choose the right protein for your hair type, so proteins such as amino acids, peptides even hydrolyzed, silk, protein, keratin and collagen. Those are smaller in molecular weight, so they can actually penetrate into the hair. They are less likely to cause protein overload because of their smaller size that they have so, if you're, someone that has very coarse, hair or even low porosity hair, these would be the ones that you want to go with. Hydrolyze wheat, protein quinoa protein hydrolyzed, rice proteins. Those are much larger in molecular weight, so those could lead to protein overload if your hair doesn't already need protein and is not damaged, those are the ones you would want to use with caution, but you can definitely still incorporate them in your routine as long as You'Re balancing it out with moisture. So that's what i'm going to show you here in this routine. So let's go ahead and get started with the wash day routine and i'll walk you through which products that i'm choosing and why so prior to filming. I did a treatment using the bond curl rehab style from curl smith. I'Ve already done a full review on this, so i will link it down below, but this is a bond treatment that targets three types of bonds in our hair, disulfide bonds, which are damaged by bleach and chemical treatments. Salt bonds, which are damaged by a ph imbalance and hydrogen bonds, which are damaged by an excess of moisture and heat this product, does have strong proteins in it, like chia seed extract. So you have to be mindful of how much you're using this and also make sure that you are following up with a deep conditioner, which i will show in a moment. So here is my before and after from that bond curl video. So if you want to see the full demo, you can check that out down below, but i had great results. My curls were so much more defined and bouncy. Then after the bond curl treatment, you're supposed to shampoo afterwards. So i use the vivid tones vibrancy shampoo, which is protein free. Then anytime, you do a protein treatment or a bonding treatment. You always want to follow up with a protein free, deep conditioner, so i use the curlsmith double cream deep quencher, which is a super moisturizing protein free, deep conditioner. This has avocado oil, aloe vera, apricot kernel, oil rose of jericho and lots of other natural extracts. Now, moving on to the styling portion of the routine, obviously the treatments and deep conditioners and all are optional, but i do like to do them when i have more time so, usually about once a week i'll, do some type of treatment and deep conditioning treatment to Help repair damage and add lots of moisture back. So i already rinsed out the deep conditioner i wrapped my hair up in my cotton hair repair towel just to absorb excess water at the root and then i'm just spritzing the link. So everything is evenly wet. So for the first styling product, i'm using the curlsmith featherlite protein cream, which is the new cream from the strength recipe line, so this cream does have protein in it. This is designed for weak damaged curls. It has wild rice, protein press, hemp, oil, prickly, pear cactus, and then it also has moisturizing ingredients such as sweet almond, oil, shredded kale, guava, fruit juice and shiitake mushrooms. So, just because a product has protein in it doesn't mean that it's going to make your hair brittle and hard a lot of times. It still contains really moisturizing ingredients for balance. So the main thing you want to keep in mind is: i would avoid having a protein ingredient in every single one of your products. Unless, if your hair was super damaged, you don't always need to have a protein cream and a protein gel i like doing one or the other so for this routine, i'm doing protein in my cream and then the gel that i use is going to be protein. Free, so this step is completely optional, but i did want to show you the other styling product that is in the strength recipe line. This is the bouncy strength volume foam. If you want a little extra volume at your root, you can apply this foam. This is a styling foam for curly and wavy hair. It has hemp, seed, oil, wild rice, protein blackcurrant, shiitake, mushroom, green kale, leaf and mashed guava. So still really moisturizing ingredients. It'S a very watery liquidy foam, but it does help to add some really light hold some texture to your roots. So it's going to help. Give you volume now for my gel i'm using the curl smith curl, defining styling souffle, which is from their moisture recipe. So this is going to be protein free. This is great for all hair types, but i specifically like it for my hair type, which is really prone to tangles, because it has a lot of slip to it. It has irish moss which helps improve manageability, so it gives it that slippery feel it also has avocados. So it's very moisturizing. It has flaxseed rosemary babasu, which is really moisturizing and helps detangle as well and adds lots of shine. So you will see in my final results, how shiny my hair is. After using this, i've really been enjoying this souffle. I think i prefer this one over the in shower style fixer, which is their stronger hold gel. I do still feel like i get strong hold out of this. I think, because i tend to use a lot of product. If you were to use less, though you would get less of a crunch look or you would get less cast. So it's just up to you. Next up, i'm using the mania beauty, magic, detangling, brush i've been testing out this brush for detangling. I actually used it to dry detangle before i wash my hair today and it did awesome. I know this is not technically a styling brush, but i did want to see how it would work with just creating some separated ringlets. I don't like my curls to be too clumped together, because i have low density hair. So i like more of a separated look when i'm creating ringlets. This is more meant for detangling, because it actually doesn't create much tension at all. It'S supposed to help detangle your hair without causing breakage. So it's very flexible. It doesn't really pull or add any tension. I actually am having a valentine's day giveaway with the media bundle for valentine's day that includes this brush in it. So if you want to head over to my instagram page, if you are still watching this around the time, this video is live on valentine's day, you can enter to win a minia beauty bundle so i'll have the link down below for that giveaway and also make Sure you check out amanda walker, who is the creator of media beauty? I do have a discount code as well for 10 off if you're interested in checking out her brand. So now i'm going to be using my hair repair towel to help absorb excess moisture. If you saw my previous video on how to reduce your drying time, this step is key for cutting down on your drying time, especially if you style your hair, wet it's good to absorb excess moisture, and after you do this, though you might want to add in Some more product afterwards, because this can remove some product and if you're, trying to get really strong hold. This might take some of that away, so i'm going to go in with another, really thin layer of the styling souffle. I just glazed this over. I don't want to disturb all those curl clumps i just created and ringlets, so i'm just glazing it over. This helps tame any remaining frizz and help add some hold back. If you do like that stronghold. So now it's time to diffuse, you can also check out my previous video about how to reduce drying time. If you want to see how i diffuse - and these are my results after diffusing and before i scrunched out the crunch so now once it's completely dry, i'm ready to fluff and scrunch out all the crunch. You guys always ask me if i do this step and i do usually do this step - i don't always show it in videos, so i'm showing it here, i'm just going through and shaking out my roots and scrunching out the crunch. Then i'm going to do a little trick. I saw mine somewhere. I can't remember who did this trick? I'M sorry! I wish i could remember who created it, but you can take any type of satin or silk material that you have, whether if it's a silk scarf or a pillow case, i'm actually using a satin pillow case here to scrunch out the crunch. This is a great way to scrunch out the crunch without creating any frizz, so i just wanted to show you up close. My hair is actually very soft. It'S not crunchy, although it looks like it might be a lot of times the bright lighting when filming and combined with the shine of these products make it look shiny and wet, but it's actually really soft, very touchable. I still have great hold and there's a lot of shine, especially with the souffle i find it gives great shine to the hair. So you can see the amount of movement and flexibility the curls have. They are very soft and they do still hold up on next day hair. So it's a great combination of having really good hold without a hard crunchy look, so i can tell when my wash day routine was properly balanced. When my hair feels soft, it doesn't feel dry, but it still has really great definition and bounciness to it. So it's balanced with protein and moisture. I wanted to also put together this chart. That shows you each product that i use and how much moisture and protein is in each of them. Hopefully, this chart summary will help. Give you an idea of why i put the products together that i did and how much protein versus moisture was in this wash day routine. The link for my blog post will be in the description box down below where you can check out this chart and more information. So that is it for this video but don't forget to check out curlsmith in the new strength recipe line, as well as their moisture collection. I will have all those products linked down below if you found this video helpful. Please don't forget to subscribe and i hope to see you back next week. Bye everyone