Eleven bottles on the shelf, three half-empty, two used only once. Every two months, you start from scratch after watching a video. The problem isn't what you buy, but something else.
The problem is almost never what we think it is. It's not that you're missing a product, but rather an order, and above all, the patience to stick with it long enough to judge. Here's how to build a routine that works for you, what belongs to you in it, and what doesn't. Our step-by-step tutorial details the six steps of the Texture Ritual®, the sequence it is based on.
I never advise a customer who doesn't already use any products to add another. What transforms hair is a complete routine every seven to ten days, carried out with the same products, the same motions, and the same tools. Consistency does far more than novelty.
Ghana Elin, founderYour routine, and the method
Let's start by separating two things that everyday vocabulary mixes up, and whose confusion explains a good part of routines that don't last.
On one side is the method. Ours is the Texture Ritual®, six steps in a fixed order, carried out every seven to ten days. This order is not a house preference: each step prepares the hair for the one that follows, and interchanging them ruins the result. What they do and how they follow one another is explained in what is the Texture Ritual®, and they are detailed one by one in the six steps of the Texture Ritual®. There is no need to relearn them here: they are there, with the motions.
And on the other side is your routine, which is everything else. The day of the week when you settle in, the amount of product that suits your density, the hairstyle you choose for going out, the way you protect your nights, what you do when you come home from sports on a Wednesday evening. That is what belongs to you, that is what is built, and that is exactly what this article is about.
The distinction seems theoretical. It is not. A woman who changes methods every month will never have a routine; a woman who keeps the same sequence and adjusts her daily life around it will have one in a few weeks.
Start by observing, not by buying
The most costly initial mistake is to buy first and then look for how to incorporate what you bought. The reverse order costs less and works better. Before any purchase, two observations are enough, and they require nothing other than attention for two or three washes.
The first is porosity, that is, the way your fiber lets water in and out. It is identified by simple signs: the speed at which your hair absorbs water in the shower, the time it takes to dry, and the way it reacts to a rich treatment, by absorbing it or remaining weighed down. A fiber that dries in an hour and dries out immediately does not require the same thing as a fiber that takes half a day. We detail these signs in curly hair porosity.
The second is density, that is, the amount of hair on your head. It determines the product volumes and the size of the sections you work in. A very full head of hair is treated in eight sections where another sticks to six, and the same pea-sized amount of cream that suffices for one does not cover a quarter of the other.
Your hair type, 4A, 4B, or 4C, counts much less than we think in these adjustments. It describes a curl shape, not a behavior with water.
What can be adjusted, and what cannot
Here is the point that settles most hesitations. In the sequence, some things are fixed and are not up for discussion, others adjust to you. Confusing the two leads either to a rigid and tedious routine, or to a method dismantled piece by piece until nothing is produced anymore.
| Moment | What adjusts | According to what |
|---|---|---|
| Detangling with fingers | The number of sections, from six to eight | Density, length, degree of tangling |
| Cleaning | The action time of the gentle clarifier | Amount of accumulated products |
| Mask | The quantity and care given to the ends | Density and length |
| Drying | The duration and desired effect | Planned hairstyle for going out |
| Sealing | The amount of Styling Cream | Density and porosity |
| Between two routines | The number of washes, up to two per week | Lifestyle, sports, scalp |
Three things, however, cannot be adjusted. The order of the steps, first: it is not permuted and none are skipped, especially not the passage of the comb through a fiber coated with a mask, which is the step most often sacrificed and the most costly to sacrifice. The mask's leave-in time next: ten minutes, under a shower cap if possible, and that's it. The refinements by porosity exist, but they fall under salon technique and are adjusted with a trained hairdresser, not judged in front of a mirror. The rhythm finally: seven to ten days, no more spaced out.
A routine is judged by what remains in the comb and by the suppleness of the ends on the seventh day, never by the effect of the same evening.
Building your own in four steps
Four weeks are enough to lay a foundation. What follows is not a sequence to be followed to the letter, but the order in which decisions are made most easily.
Observe before changing anything. Carry out a first complete routine by the rules, without changing anything, and note three things: the drying time, the amount of product actually consumed, and the state of the ends on the seventh day. That is your starting point, and it is better than any grid.
Reduce to three treatments. A cleaning, a mask, a cream. The rest of the shelf waits for a month in a closet. A loaded routine cannot be adjusted: there are too many variables to know which one works.
Stick with the sequence for four weeks. That is three to four complete routines, without changing anything in between. This is the difficult part, because the first complete routine often disappoints hair accustomed to something else, and the temptation to add something arrives as soon as the second.
Then adjust only one parameter at a time. The amount of cream, the number of sections, the frequency of washes between two routines. Changing two things in the same week makes it impossible to know which one produced the effect, and that is how you end up attributing everything to the last product bought.
What makes you give up
Routines almost never collapse all at once. They wear out, through a series of small reasonable decisions made one after another. The next seven come back in almost all cases we see.
What wears out a routine
- Adding a product as soon as it doesn't work. This is the most natural reaction, and the one that makes the diagnosis impossible the next time.
- Changing the sequence every three weeks. No method shows what it is worth in two washes.
- Passing the comb through dry and bare hair. The detangling with fingers on dry hair opens the session; the comb comes later, on a fiber coated with a mask.
- Skipping the sealing. Without The Styling Cream at the end of a complete routine, what was brought to the wash leaves in two days, and the whole week seems ruined.
- Confusing oil and hydration. An oil does not contain water. It complements the ends between two routines, it does not replace The Repair Mask nor The Styling Cream.
- Spraying a veil of water every morning. Letting water enter then leave the fiber several times a week ends up making it more porous.
- Copying someone else's routine. The sequence is shared, the adjustments are not: two heads of hair of the same texture and opposite porosities do not require the same quantities nor the same number of sections, and that is precisely where the result is played out.
Sticking with it for the long term
The best routine is not the most complete, it is the one you can really carry out on a November Sunday when you are tired. If it takes two hours and seven products, you will skip it, and you will conclude that it does not work.
The rhythm remains the same all year: a complete routine every seven to ten days. Between two, The Repair Shampoo alone suffices if you need it, up to two times a week, without clarifier before. It was designed for this, and especially for athletes, who do not have to look for anything else after training. The rest of the time, it is better to avoid wetting your head every day, even if it is pleasant. See how often to wash curly hair.
Nights count as much as washes, and cost less effort than everything else. We undo the hairstyle of the day, we put a little Styling Cream on the ends, we make a few braids tight on themselves but never at the root, and we sleep under a silk scarf, on a silk pillowcase. Our night hairstyles give the variants.
As for the seasons, they change less than we say. The sequence does not move; in winter, we put a little more product, and in summer, we think to wet the hair and apply a mask on the lengths before a prolonged exposure to salt or chlorine. If your shelf has filled up again over the months, our article on routines that have become too loaded explains how to lighten without stopping everything.
You don't know where to start?
Our experts review your week with you online and adjust each step according to your porosity, your density, and your daily life, rather than giving you a list of more.
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