One November evening, your ends are pulling while your last wash was two days ago. A week later, your scarf leaves small knots at the nape of your neck, and your ends break when you try to undo them.
When you see these signs, the most common reflex is to change everything: new products, thicker textures, a spray bottle sitting on your desk. That is precisely what you should not do. Winter does not require a different method; it requires the same one, with a little more product. Our step-by-step tutorial details the six steps of the Rituel Texture®, the very same ones that work from November to March.
What winter really changes
Every fall, I am asked which treatment to add for winter. I do not add any. I keep the same Rituel Texture®, at the same frequency, and I simply use a little more product: a little more mask on the lengths, a little more Styling Cream on the ends, so they are well protected under wool.
Ghana Elin, founderThree things change, and only three. The outdoor air is dry, the indoor air is even drier because of the heating, and the hair fiber spends its days going back and forth between the two. The cold, then, makes the strand less flexible, and therefore more prone to breakage when styled. Finally, wool is everywhere: beanies, scarves, collars, coat lapels, and every rub takes its toll on the ends.
What does not change, however, deserves to be stated just as clearly. The mechanism of hydration is the same in January as it is in July: it is described in our article on hydrating curly hair, and we will not repeat it here. The frequency of routines does not change either.
Summer poses the same problem in different ways: where dry air and wool work the fiber from November to March, salt, sand, and the sun take over in August, and the answer remains the same method, applied at the same frequency. We explain it in our article on curly hair at the beach. If your hair is dry all year round and not just in winter, the season is not your issue: start with the causes of dryness.
Step 1The same Rituel Texture®, just more product
The full Rituel Texture® returns every seven to ten days, in winter as well as the rest of the year. It begins with a gentle clarifying cleanse, followed by The Repair Shampoo, then comes The Repair Mask, which we leave on for ten minutes, under a shower cap if you have one. The cold does not extend this leave-in time: after ten minutes, we add nothing, we wait.
The only seasonal adjustment is in the quantity. A little more mask on the lengths, a little more Styling Cream while drying and styling, focusing on the ends. It is now what helps maintain the hydration provided during washing: The Styling Cream takes the place we once gave to butter or thick oil, and it fills it without weighing the hair down. If the ends remain dry from one routine to the next, a light oil will help, in a small amount.
Step 2Never go out with damp hair
This is the simplest and most effective rule of the season. A water-saturated fiber is swollen, fragile, and the cold makes it brittle; going out like this, scarf over it, brings together all the conditions for breakage. Wash it the evening before, or several hours before leaving.
Drying is done with a hair dryer, after The Styling Cream, in small sections and with constant movement: this is protective drying, the fifth step of the Rituel Texture®, and it is also what protects the fiber from heat, since The Styling Cream is applied beforehand. Contrary to what is often read, this is not the time to bring out the diffuser, which only comes in handy in rare cases for curly hair. The full process is described in the six steps of the Rituel Texture®.
Step 3Do not compensate with water
When the air is dry, the spontaneous reflex is to spray water on the lengths. It is an understandable reflex, and it is a bad calculation. Wetting your hair every day ends up making the fiber more porous: it absorbs quickly, it loses quickly, and you end up spraying it more and more often for a comfort that lasts less and less.
Hydration is done during washing, during the full routine, and is then maintained with The Styling Cream. In between, if an area really feels tight, apply a little more cream to that area, without going back to water. It is the difference between maintaining and starting over.
Step 4Put silk between the wool and your hair
Wool catches the curly fiber, and the ends, which move the most, pay the price. A beanie lined with silk or satin, or a silk scarf tied under the beanie, eliminates this friction without changing your outfit. The same logic applies to the scarf and the coat collar: they are what damage the nape of the neck and the shoulders, much more than the cold itself.
The night extends the same principle, with the same material. The silk scarf and the silk pillowcase replace the beanie, which we no longer recommend as a first choice, and the ends are laid in tight braids on themselves, never at the roots, after a little Styling Cream. Our nighttime hairstyles detail the possible setups.
Step 5Tuck away your ends
Buns, braids, low chignon: a hairstyle that keeps the ends safe saves them weeks of rubbing against wool. It is the season when they are most useful. Two conditions, however. The hairstyle must never pull: a style that still hurts the next day does not settle down, it damages, and our signs that a protective hairstyle is damaging your hair help you recognize it.
Second condition, the duration. No hairstyle is kept until it comes undone on its own, and no number applies to all: a style without extensions will come undone much sooner than a style with extensions, and it is the state of the scalp, not the calendar, that gives the signal. Hidden under a hairstyle, the hair continues, moreover, to need its Rituel Texture®: this is the most common mistake of the season.
Step 6Do not forget your scalp
Under beanies and protective hairstyles, it becomes invisible, and we stop taking care of it. A few minutes of fingertip massage, without nails, are enough to keep it comfortable. If the skin feels tight, a few drops of light oil find their place there; if it is oily or flaking, we refrain and look toward washing.
The oil bath, often presented as the great winter treatment, is not one of them. It lubricates without hydrating and saturates the fiber: once or twice a year at most, and nothing requires it to be in January. For ends that are already weakened, our five steps to protect the ends complete what precedes.
The most common winter mistakes
- Going out with roots still damp under a beanie.
- Spraying water every morning to compensate for dry air.
- Placing wool directly on the lengths and ends.
- Spacing out treatments because the hair is hidden under a hairstyle.
- Replacing the Rituel Texture® with a weekly oil bath.
Is your hair pulling despite a well-maintained Rituel Texture®?
Our experts will review your winter routine with you online: the quantities, the drying, what you put between the wool and your ends.
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