Your shelf tells the story of ten years of research: a leave-in, two oils, a spray, a half-used mask. Nothing is bad, and yet your hair breaks in the same place, and the softness never lasts more than two days.
It is almost never a product issue, but an order issue. The eight principles below follow the order of the Rituel Texture®, the method we use in the salon: six of them are its six steps, framed by what comes before and what holds the rest of the week. None of them require buying anything else. Our step-by-step tutorial details these six steps one by one.
Principle 1Look at your fiber before your products
Before looking for the right product, you need to know what you are dealing with. One characteristic matters more than the 4A, 4B, or 4C classification: porosity, the way your hair lets water in and retains it. It can be observed without equipment, at the time of washing. On a low-porosity fiber, water beads and slides off, you have to insist to really wet it, and drying takes a long time. On a very high-porosity fiber, it enters immediately, and the hair dries quickly.
This guideline does not change the method, only the quantities. A low-porosity fiber saturates quickly and does not tolerate the stacking of layers well; a very high-porosity fiber drinks everything up and loses it quickly, and needs to be refreshed at each routine rather than drowned between two. The curl type remains convenient for recognizing yourself, but it is porosity that decides.
Principle 2 · Step 01Detangle with your fingers, on dry hair
It is the principle that surprises the most, because the opposite has been repeated for years. Dry detangling is not the enemy: it is the first step of the method, detangling with the African method finger. What breaks is the comb passed over dry and bare hair, without anything to make the tooth slide.
It is done before the shower, in at least six sections, eight on a very dense or very tangled head of hair, never more. You hold the root with one hand so it does not pull, and with the other you smooth with your thumb, little strand by little strand, from the ends toward the roots. Each section closes in a soft vanilla, so as not to re-tangle during washing.
Two adjustments. Roots already wet: dry the entire hair before starting, because the gesture does not slide on damp hair and the strand gives way. Already significant breakage: detangling is entrusted to a trained hairdresser. Our detangling method details each step.
Principle 3 · Step 02Wash in two steps
The step has a name, the Hydrating Detox, and it counts two successive washes: a gentle clarifying cleaning, without sulfate, then Le Shampoing Réparateur. The first removes what has deposited since the last wash, creams, gel on the edges, sweat; the second cleanses and hydrates a fiber finally freed from this film. A single shampoo, on loaded hair, slides over the residues without reaching the skin.
The clarifier is therefore not a big occasional cleaning to schedule once a month: it opens every full routine. The two products are applied to the scalp, with a few minutes of massage with the fingertips, without the nails; the lengths are cleaned with the water that goes down. On rinsing, you press the vanillas between your palms instead of rubbing them.
The pace is seven to ten days. Between two, Le Shampoing Réparateur alone can come back up to twice a week: it was designed for athletes, and is used then without clarifier before. See our article on washing frequency.
Principle 4 · Step 03Ten minutes of mask, not overnight
Le Masque Réparateur is applied on damp hair. We heat it between the hands, then work section by section, from the ends toward the roots, massaging the length. The step is called the Lengths & Ends Massage, and the word is not decorative: it is what decides the obtained effect.
It sits for ten minutes, under a bonnet if you have one. Neither thirty minutes, nor a whole night: long poses come from a time when treatments acted little, and a mask kept until morning mostly holds the wet fiber for eight hours.
Ten minutes are enough. At night, we protect our hair, we do not leave it wet under a mask.
These ten minutes are not a break: they prepare the next step, the only one where the comb is allowed.
Principle 5 · Step 04The comb, only on coated hair
The mask is still on the head, and that is precisely the moment. The Man Dol' Comb passes over fully coated hair, from the ends toward the roots, without forcing. At the slightest resistance, we put it down, undo the knot with fingers, then start again. The rinsing comes after, not before.
This step is not optional, and it is not skipped on days when you are in a hurry: it is what decides largely the length kept from one routine to the next. A hair left tangled breaks during styling, and that length is not made up.
The tool matters. The Man Dol' Comb is hand-carved in Vietnam, from buffalo horn from the food supply chain and revalued: no animal is slaughtered for its horn. It slides without snagging, and the teeth are wider than those of combs of the past. In case of pain, or very significant breakage, detangle with fingers. See also which comb to choose.
Principle 6 · Step 05Dry after La Crème Coiffante, never before
Protective drying is the fifth step, and the order matters more than the tool. La Crème Coiffante is applied on damp hair, on the entire length, before approaching the hair dryer: it is what protects the fiber from the heat. Drying first and creaming afterwards is like heating a bare hair, then covering it once the damage is done. It is not the heat that needs to be avoided, it is the heat on a bare fiber.
We dry by small strands, from the roots toward the ends, in bounce movements. The heat is sustained, but always in motion, without ever stopping on an area. The tip is held between the thumb and index finger and dries last, very lightly. No brush. For stretched hair, we also stretch the ends; for vanillas or a twist out, we leave them a little moisture.
Between two routines, open air works very well. As for the diffuser, which has become an almost automatic reflex, it only really helps in rare cases on curly hair.
Principle 7 · Step 06Seal in moisture, then maintain it
The last step bears its name well. La Crème Coiffante is applied generously, one last pass of the Man Dol' Comb distributes the product, and we close everything in a protective braid or vanilla, which we leave to set before undoing and styling. A hairstyle set afterwards, vanillas or braids, is not this step: it is a separate job.
It is then that the most work is lost. You come out of a full routine with hair that moves from the root, then the spray comes back as soon as the next day, because the fiber appears dry to the touch. A few days later, it is.
The mistake I correct most often is wetting your hair every day, with water and oil sprays. At the salon, I see very well what that results in in the long run: a fiber that becomes more porous, and which gets damaged.
Ghana Elin, founderHydration is not redone every morning, it is maintained: it is the role of La Crème Coiffante, which helps to preserve that which was brought by the wash. If the ends pull between two routines, a drop of light oil is enough to soften them, as a complement and not as a step. A full routine every seven to ten days holds better than daily doses of water: our article on curly hair hydration explains the reasoning.
Principle 8What holds the rest of the week
The six steps take up a morning every seven to ten days. The rest of the time, two habits separate a routine that holds until the next from a routine whose nothing remains by Wednesday.
At night, a scarf rather than a bonnet
We undo the hairstyle of the day, braid, bun or vanillas, and put back a little La Crème Coiffante insisting on the ends, without putting too much. The comb only comes out if the hair is really tangled. Then come six tight braids on themselves, never at the root, which lock the moisture in the length.
They are tied behind with a silk scrunchie, or tied under a silk scarf. Ghana prefers the scarf to the bonnet: it holds the hair without locking the entire scalp. A silk pillowcase completes the set, in case the scarf slips. See our night hairstyles.
What is played elsewhere than on the head
Hair is made of keratin, a protein, and it is made with what the body receives. A varied diet counts, without any food making anything grow faster, and supplements are taken with the advice of a pharmacist. Drinking enough does not shorten any cycle: we explain it in does water make your hair grow. Remains the least measurable of these principles: hair that you look at without impatience is handled with more gentleness.
What is best to avoid
- Passing the comb over dry and bare hair, or detangling from the roots toward the ends.
- Keeping a mask all night, or more than ten minutes.
- Spraying water every morning on already styled hair, or sleeping on a cotton pillowcase.
- Stacking products, which weigh down the fiber without hydrating it: see the routines that became too loaded.
You do not know where to start?
Our experts review your routine online and tell you which of these eight principles you are missing.
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