She sits down, puts her bag down, and you see her shoulders tense up. It's not you she dreads, but the salon she went to before. For ten minutes, she won't look at your diplomas. She'll look at your hands.
What damages curly hair in the chair almost never comes from a lack of skill. It comes from ingrained habits learned on other hair textures and applied in good faith to a fiber that follows different rules. Seven of them come back in almost all our training courses, replaced here with their alternatives.
Habit 1Taking a client to the sink without detangling her
Many training courses still teach the opposite: never touch curly hair while it's dry, detangle it all under water and during the treatment. The formula is wrong, and is probably the leading cause of breakage in the salon. It's not dry hair that breaks. It's the comb passed over dry, bare hair.
When I train an experienced hairdresser, I warn them from the very first hour: most of what they know about straight hair will have to be done in reverse. You never take a client to the sink without detangling her with your fingers on dry hair. You don't emulsify shampoo over the whole head: you work section by section and area by area. And the diffuser only comes out in rare cases.
Ghana Elin, founderTchadienne finger detangling, with the fingers and on dry hair, is step 01 of the Rituel Texture®, and it comes before the sink. Six sections at minimum, eight for very dense or very tangled hair, never more. The root is held in one hand, the strand smoothed with the thumb of the other, then combed through with a flexible wide-tooth comb. The hand feels the resistance before forcing; no tool does that.
Under water, on the contrary, the fiber swells, the knots tighten, and the comb becomes a pulling tool: a client taken to the sink with tangled hair comes out with less hair. If she arrives with wet roots, dry the whole thing before starting. The Man Dol' Comb is not set aside for this reason: it comes into play at step 04, on hair coated with mask, with a return to the fingers at the first sign of resistance. Our article on detangling a client in the salon details the technique.
One last case deserves to be mentioned, because it often comes up in training: hair that is already breaking a lot. Detangling becomes a precision task, with smaller sections, no pulling, and it is entrusted to the most trained person on the team. This is not the time to help an apprentice progress.
Habit 2Emulsifying shampoo as if on straight hair
At the sink, the reflex is to pour the product on top of the head and lather it over the whole head. On curly hair, this single habit undoes the sectioning that was just done and leaves poorly cleaned areas, especially the nape of the neck and around the ears.
So we wash section by section and area by area, with the fingers on the scalp and not in the lengths, letting the water that runs down clean them. The cleaning is done in two steps: a gentle clarifying treatment without sulfates, then The Repair Shampoo. This first step belongs to every complete routine, and not only to visibly overloaded hair. When rinsing, squeeze the sections without rubbing them.
Tell the client that The Repair Shampoo lathers very little: it is a cream shampoo, and without a word from you, she will read the lack of lather as a rushed wash. Warned, she will instead see it as a sign of a sulfate-free formula.
Habit 3Leaving a mask on for an estimated time
Two opposite mistakes coexist in salons, and they come from the same place: no one has ever given a duration. Some rinse after two minutes; others leave it on for half an hour, thinking that a long treatment is a generous treatment.
For The Repair Mask, the working time is ten minutes, under a cap if you have one. Beyond that, you add nothing to the fiber: you add chair time. Squeeze out before applying, warm the product between your hands, work section by section, from the ends toward the roots.
Once the application is finished, the comb passes over the hair while it is still coated, before rinsing. This step is never optional, even on days when you are twenty minutes late: it is what decides the condition of the ends when she leaves.
Habit 4Treating the hairdryer as a risk
It doesn't come from school, it comes from the prevailing discourse: heat is the enemy of the fiber, so use a diffuser, lukewarm air, or nothing at all. On curly hair, this caution costs more than it protects. Hair sent back damp tangles on the way and does not give the touch for which the client booked three hours.
Protective drying is not a departure from the method: it is step 05. The Styling Cream is first applied to the entire length, on damp hair, and it protects the fiber from heat. We then dry in small sections, from the roots toward the lengths, in bouncing movements, with sustained heat and the device constantly moving, never stopping on one area. No brush, especially not a metal one: the free hand takes its place, the tip held between the thumb and index finger and dried last, very lightly.
The numerical settings, power and distance, are passed on in training using a model: what makes the result is the movement, not a number displayed on a device. The diffuser only works in rare cases on curly hair, and between two routines, open air works very well. The complete technique is covered in our article on drying curly hair in the salon.
Habit 5Bringing scissors close to wet hair
When wet, curly hair is stretched by its own weight, and it does not rise to the same height everywhere when drying. The line drawn at the sink no longer exists an hour later, and it is the client who discovers it, at the exact moment she feared you would cut too much.
So we cut it dry, and on the hair she actually wears. Three rules apply regardless of the method: if she hesitates, we don't cut; the length is decided together; we never cut on hair she almost never wears. The choice of method and the control of the height are covered in our article on dry cutting curly hair.
Habit 6Pulling on the roots for a clean finish
Braids, flat twists, or a bun pulled so tight it lifts the skin: the result is impeccable, and the client will sincerely thank you. The consequences come months later, and are not always reversible.
Repeated tension on the hairline is the recognized mechanism of traction alopecia, documented in women and young girls who regularly wear braids, flat twists, and weaves (Khumalo et al., Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 2008). Caught early, as long as the follicle is only irritated, it recedes. Once established, it leaves a bald line that cannot be restyled.
The rule can be stated in one sentence: a protective hairstyle should never hurt. Firm tension is enough to hold, and the wear time depends on the extensions, the tension, and the condition of the scalp. Announce this condition rather than a single figure valid for everyone, as detailed in our protective hairstyle guide.
The signs that a habit is too much
- The client grimaces, tenses up, or puts her hand to her head.
- Small pieces of broken hair accumulate in the comb.
- The comb gets stuck, and you have to force it to move one centimeter.
- Red dots appear at the base of the braids just after application.
At the slightest sign of this, stop, go back to the fingers, and start again more gently. Patches, persistent pain, or bleeding require medical advice.
Habit 7Deciding for the client
Offering a blowout by default, imposing a length, directing her toward a straightening treatment or toward a botox treatment without having listened to her: she will leave with a head that is not her own, and she will not come back. It is the least technical habit on the list, and the one that decides the rest.
Before the hair, look at the posture. The welcome consists of four gestures: looking at her, placing both hands on her shoulders and asking her if everything is okay, sitting at her level, then asking her to tell her hair story. The proposal then comes, built on her look and the woman she wants to embody, rather than on a grid based on face shape. See the in-salon diagnosis.
What these habits cost the schedule
A salon that masters these seven points gains a clientele that styled their own hair for lack of finding anything better, and who recommends a lot. You still have to accept the actual duration: a complete Rituel Texture® occupies the chair from 2 h 15 to 3 h 15 depending on the styling and the cut. Underestimating this time slot means condemning yourself to rush the two steps that matter most, detangling and drying. See the duration of services in the salon.
The calculation is less unfavorable than it seems. An appointment kept properly is renewed every seven to ten days for home maintenance and returns to the salon without having to follow up, where a rushed service results in a free redo, a lost client, and sometimes both. It is the same chair time, sold twice as well.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should curly hair be detangled dry or wet in the salon?
How long should The Repair Mask be left on?
Does the hairdryer damage curly hair?
Why does a sulfate-free shampoo lather so little?
How many sections should be drawn on very dense hair?
Go Further
Sources
- Khumalo N. P. et al., « Determinants of marginal traction alopecia in African girls and women », Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 2008.
