How To Plop Curly Hair | Plopping Vs. Not Plopping. Does It Make A Difference?

Hey everyone, it's gina and welcome back to my channel today, we're going to be talking about whether or not plopping really makes a difference in your routine. I'Ve been doing these testing videos where i'm putting different curl techniques to the test and comparing my results side by side. So you can really see if it makes a difference or not. I'Ve covered lots of different techniques such as using a denman brush and if that makes the difference, i've also done an upright routine versus an upside down. Styling routine lots of different topics, so all those videos will be linked down below. So if you're not familiar with plopping in the curly girl world, it basically means where you plop your hair up on top of your head and let it sit for a little bit before you actually diffuse your hair or before you air dry, your hair. It is a way to help absorb excess water from your hair after you're styling, your hair and just sort of let your hair rest before you actually go in and diffuse your hair. A lot of people like to apply their styling products to soaking wet hair, but it's not good to go in with a diffuser on soaking, wet hair, or else you would be drying forever. So plopping really does help cut down on the drying time most commonly. You will see people plop using a t-shirt, a microfiber towel or a cotton towel like these. These are from hair repair. This is personally my favorite form of plopping and scrunching, and just everything, because these towels from hair repair are just so large and it's a lot better to me than using a t-shirt because they're just easier to work with, because of their large size and they're. A lot more absorbent, these are flat weave cotton materials, so they're not going to cause any frizz at all. I personally prefer these over a microfiber towel. These have a complete flat weave to them. So if you look closely, the material is totally flat. There'S nothing! That'S going to snag and cause frizz a lot of microfiber towels are very common, but if you look closely at those, those still do have those little fibers that can really cling onto hair, especially if you have fine curly hair that gets broken off really easily and Just sticks to things and you get static and stuff, but these don't do that. For me, this is just my favorite brand that i have tried and i like how large they are and how many different things you can do with them and they're super absorbent. So to me this is more absorbent than using a t-shirt. You can use an old t-shirt if you have one on hand. That'S definitely what i always recommend, especially for beginners. If you don't already have a towel, but i definitely recommend getting one of these because you will not be disappointed. You wash them reuse them. I'Ve had mine for years, and it's held up great, so this is the larger size one. This is the black version. They do have these in other colors. This one is huge, so you can do a lot of different things with this, you can tie it up. All different ways, so that's ideal. If you have long hair this white one that i have is more of a rectangle shape, so i'm not quite sure on which size exactly that i have. But if you check out the website or on amazon, you can see all the different sizes, but this one is a little bit more narrow. So you can see you have more of that narrow shape, so this is actually easier, sometimes for plopping. But since it's not very wide and if you have a big head, it might not completely go over your head. So just keep that in mind. So let's go ahead and get started with the routine where i'm actually plopping my hair. So we'll start with that and then we'll get into the routine without plopping. So you can see what i do then and then we'll see the results at the end. So i've already shampooed and conditioned my hair, and i usually put my hair up in my hair repair towel just to get out of the shower, and so it's not dripping and i like to sort of blot my roots dry. I'Ve been damp styling for a while. Now i actually did a comparison, video comparing damp styling to wet styling, and i found that damp styling works better for my low density hair, so the first product i'm applying is from bounce curl. This is the clump and define cream. This is a really nice curl cream. It is on the thicker side. I would consider this to be pretty good in moisturizing if you have coarse, hair or medium hair like mine. If you have very fine hair, you might need to water this down or i would go with their leave-in conditioner instead as your base. So now i'm taking that hair repair towel again and i'm just going to gently blot my hair, i felt like i had too much water in there and since i've really been trying to do damp styling, i don't want to have too much water in my hair, But it does helps to have more water, sometimes when you're applying a thick cream like that. So that's why i did start off with a little bit more water, but now i want to absorb that excess water from my hair and then go in with my gel. I have found that when using a gel on damp hair, i get a lot stronger hold. If you have too much water in your hair, then your gel is going to come out. A lot lighter whole because it's being diluted, but this is the bounce curl light cream gel. This has been a favorite gel of mine for a while, especially in the summer and humidity, i found it does a very good job at keeping the frizz at bay. So i apply quite a generous amount of this. You will get a really light hold if you just use a little bit and if you use more product you can get more hold out of this. So now i'm just taking my denman brush and i'm just creating a few ringlets on the very top section of my hair. I have found that this is the best way to get volume and definition for me is really just to focus on that top layer. That way, the underside layer is not too clumped and i can still get good volume because everything's not too clumped together, just creating a couple ringlets around my face and the top layer where you see them the most. So then, i'm just going to go around and scrunch my hair with a little bit of water and gel on my hands. So here's what my hair looks like after i apply the product, it's still pretty wet. So if i went right in with a diffuser, it would take forever for my hair to dry, so i'm going to show you how to plop your hair, so for plopping, i'm going to be using the larger size of the hair repair towel. This one is just in a black color and i'm laying it out across my counter. You want to start on a flat surface. It'S a lot easier to plop. Then i'm gathering all my hair into the center and i'm gently pressing it up towards my scalp sort of like an accordion. You don't want your hair to be misplaced or anything because it could stretch it out and stretch out your curls. So it helps with definition to just fold it up towards your root. Then i'm taking the top half of the towel and folding it over the back of my head and then just straightening out the ends. You can kind of make it a snug to the back of your neck by tucking. It in right at your forehead, then take the bottom half of the towel and fold that up towards your forehead, we're going to create sort of like wings on the side. So then, i'm going to start twisting this bottom half towards my forehead and then we're going to start twisting the wings here. This is going to keep it snug on my head and also create those wings for us actually tie it behind our head. If you're using a t-shirt, you might want to go for a long sleeve t-shirt, so you have something to wrap around your head. So then, i'm twisting all the way to the ends and then i'm going to secure it by tying these two wings and a knot at the nape of my neck. I really only have enough room to wrap it around once, but it does stay pretty secure. When i pull it snug, you can keep it a little bit looser if you don't want your curls to be too smushed against your head. So here's what it looks like when i stand up all of my hair is pressed up in that top little pouch area. That it created and it's tied pretty securely. You also don't want this to be too tight around your hairline, because you don't want to smoosh your roots down onto your scalp. So now i'm going to let this sit for about 20 minutes. Usually, i will go and do my makeup and then come back to diffuse my hair. You don't want to plop your hair too long, though i don't recommend plopping overnight and sleeping in a plot, because it's just not good for your scalp to leave your hair wet for too long. So i just recommend anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. So here's what my hair looks like when i take it down out of the plop after 20 minutes, my hair is still pretty damp, i'm actually going to go in with another layer of gel, because i do find that plopping removes some of the gel. In my hair, because i like a lot of strong, hold and plopping sort of like scrunching, so if you were to scrunch your hair after gel you're, going to remove some of that product, so i do apply another layer mainly just to the ends of my hair. That tend to get frizzy and they need a little extra hold. I also have some water on my hands, so for me the main purpose of plopping is when i'm not ready to go right in and diffuse my hair, but i don't want my hair to start to dry too fast. If i'm going to go, do my makeup or something plopping will actually help prevent it from air drying too fast, because it is protecting your hair from the outside air, and i also use it to help get more curl definition. So it's similar to scrunching, where you're pressing your hair up against your head and letting it sit like that for a little bit. So you are getting more definition. I'M gon na go diffuse. My hair, i have a video i will put down below on how i like to plop diffuse. So here is how my hair looks after i finished diffusing. This is before i fluffed it out and now i'm going to go in and shake out my roots and scrunch out some of the crunch. I still have pretty good volume. I definitely have a lot of definition and a lot of shrinkage today. I definitely have really good strong hold from where i went in with that extra layer of gel. So if you prefer a softer hold, then i would skip that step. So now i'm going to show you how i do that exact same routine, but what i would do instead of plopping and we'll compare the results side by side. So it's another day and another wash day, i'm taking my hair down out of my hair repair towel and i'm going to be doing the exact same routine that you just saw, and the only thing i'm going to be changing up is instead of plopping. I'M going to be air drying, my hair for about five minutes before i diffuse, so i'm starting off on damp hair, just like the last wash day and i'm raking through that bounce, curl, clump and define cream. Then i'm just scrunching out some of the excess water with that hair repair towel and then i'm gon na go in with the bounce curl light cream. Gel then, just like, before i'm taking my denman brush and just defining some of the areas around my part, making sure everything is angled back, that's to help with root volume and i'm also creating some ringlets around my face and with a little bit more gel on My hands and some water i'm going around and scrunching all over. I recently did a quick, curl tip video, where i showed you how to scrunch without causing frizz and how to deal with wet frizz. So i will have that video down below, if you're interested in that now, i'm just using the hair repair towel to absorb a little bit of the excess water that i was feeling right at my root. That'S going to help cut down on the drying time, especially since we're not going to be plopping. This step is very important because you don't want to go in and diffuse your soaking wet hair. You will just be there forever and it's a lot more damaging. So then, i'm just going in with another layer of gel, just like i did in the plopping method. So the only thing we skipped was we didn't plop and said we just sort of scrunched the hair with the towel, and now i'm going out with the other layer of gel. So here's my hair with all the product in and before i diffuse. I feel like the curls look a little bit looser here than before. I'M actually going to let it air dry for just five minutes before i go in and diffuse. If i go any longer than five minutes with my high porosity hair, it will just start to get so crunchy and stringy, and then the diffusing doesn't really work because the curls are already starting to dry and more of that wavy pattern. So if you have that trouble with diffusing where it just never shrinks up your curls and it never looks good - maybe try reducing the time before you go in and diffuse, so your hair doesn't air dry too much first, so here's my hair after i finish diffusing. I feel like i have a little bit less hold here, i'm also going to fluff and scrunch out some of the cast. So now, let's compare them side by side. The plopping routine is on the left and not plopping is on the right. I definitely have more shrinkage on the left, so that's where i plopped my hair and a little bit more definition. I think i have stronger hold with the plopping method, because i went in with that another layer of gel and i was applying another layer of gel on hair that had started to dry in the plot. You tend to get more hold when you apply gel to damp hair, whereas the routine on the right, my hair, probably had more water in it. When i was applying that gel, so that could have diluted it, which resulted in more volume for me. So i do feel like i have more volume on the right side, where i did not do any plopping. That could also be because my hair wasn't squished against my head before i diffused, so that is it for this comparison. Video. Definitely let me know which results you like better and if you can tell a difference in my results, be sure to leave your comments down below, and i will put the link for these hair repair towels in the description box down below as well. If you're interested in getting them, you can either get them on the hair repair website for 10 off with my code or you can get them on amazon for regular price. So thank you all so much for watching! Don'T forget to subscribe to my channel. So you don't miss out on a new video and i hope to see you back next week. Bye everyone, you