The washing mistakes that damage your curly hair (shampoo has almost nothing to do with it)

Wet, wash, rinse, out. Half an hour later, your hair is clean, heavy with water, knotted at the ends, and your hand catches every two centimeters. The shampoo has almost nothing to do with it.

These habits are passed down without being questioned, and most come from an era when the available formulas were much harsher. Here are the seven mistakes we see most often in the salon, what they really cause, and what to replace them with. To place washing in the context of the overall method, our step-by-step tutorial details the six steps of the Rituel Texture®.

Mistake 1Only shampooing once

This is the most common mistake, and the one that explains most disappointments. A complete Rituel Texture® involves two consecutive washes, not one. The first is a gentle clarifying cleanse, sulfate-free, whose role is not to wash in the usual sense but to remove the film left by creams, gels, and the last few days' sweat. The second is Le Shampoing Réparateur, a sulfate-free shampoo for curly hair, which then works on hair that has become available again.

The sign is easy to read: the first pass barely lathers and the water running down remains gray, while the second behaves normally. When you only do one, you wash over the previous layer. The mask applied afterward stays on the surface, and you conclude that the treatment doesn't work, when it simply never touched the fiber.

Mistake 2Getting in the shower without detangling

A curly hair swells as it absorbs water, and this water intake changes its mechanical properties (Robbins, Chemical and Physical Behavior of Human Hair). The knots present before the shower tighten, weld together, and what would have given way to fingers in two minutes then requires ten minutes of pulling.

The remedy costs nothing, but it is done before, and dry. The Tchadienne Finger Detangling opens the session: at least six sections, never more than eight, the root held in one hand while the thumb of the other smooths the strand, then each section closed in a soft vanilla. No product is necessary, and no tool either.

It must be said here where the confusion comes from, because it has been perpetuated for years. You read everywhere that you should "never detangle dry". This is inaccurate, and it leads to wetting tangled hair, which is precisely the worst time. What breaks is the comb passed over a dry and bare hair, not the fingers. The complete handling is detailed in our article on the detangling without breakage.

Mistake 3Washing with scalding water and rubbing the lengths

Two gestures that often go together, and share the same logic: to clean well, you would need energy. Very hot water makes the fiber swell more and carries away more body fat, on a material that already has very little. It gives a feeling of thorough cleanliness, followed the next day by rough hair.

As for rubbing, it is aimed at the wrong place. Shampoo is made for the scalp; the lengths are cleaned with the soapy water that runs down. Kneading them like you knead a sponge tangles them and does not clean them better; the curly fiber breaks preferably at its torsion points, where the diameter is reduced (Khumalo et al., Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 2000). If your hair is in vanilla since detangling, press it between your palms instead of scrunching it. The detail of the gesture and the choice of the formula are covered in which shampoo for curly hair.

Mistake 4Rinsing too quickly

This is the step everyone shortens, because it seems like nothing and you are cold. It nevertheless decides a good part of what follows. A poorly rinsed shampoo leaves a residue on the skin that mixes with sebum and scales, and itches three days later without you making the connection.

The marker is tactile rather than chronometric: rinse until the scalp is no longer slippery under the fingers, not until the water appears clear. On dense hair, this takes significantly longer than we imagine, and you have to lift the sections so that the water reaches the roots underneath. The same reasoning applies to the mask. What the rinse does not remove adds to what was already there, and that is how product buildup begins.

Mistake 5Leaving the mask on too long

Thirty minutes, an hour, a whole night under a shower cap: these durations are everywhere, and they rest on an idea of common sense that does not hold. The leave-in time does not convert into depth of treatment. It comes from an era when formulas worked slowly and you had to compensate with patience.

The Repairing Mask is left on for ten minutes, under a shower cap if you have one. This is the reference duration at home, and it is enough. Beyond that, you gain nothing, and the mask kept all night loses: the fiber remains swollen with water for hours, the hairstyle has to be redone, and the scalp spends the night under occlusion. We detail this point in why ten minutes are enough.

The refinement of this time according to porosity exists, but it is a salon technique and is adjusted with a trained hairdresser, not judged in front of a foggy mirror.

Mistake 6Rinsing the mask before detangling

This is the most expensive mistake, and the least visible, because it consists of skipping an entire step without realizing it. The passage of the Man Dol' Comb is done with the mask in place, before rinsing, on a coated, softened, and slippery fiber. This is the only moment of washing where the comb is really in its place.

Rinsing first means depriving yourself of this moment, then trying to detangle on clean, swollen, and non-slippery hair, that is to say in the worst possible conditions. Many women conclude that they have hair that is impossible to detangle. They have mostly detangled at the wrong time.

The comb goes down from the ends to the roots, without forcing. As soon as resistance appears, you put it down and start again with your fingers on that specific knot before continuing. In case of pain or very significant breakage, you give up the comb for this session and detangle with your fingers only. See also which comb to choose.

Mistake 7Leaving your hair to fend for itself after the shower

Getting out of the shower is the moment when you are in a hurry, and yet that is where the hold of the following days is decided. Two reflexes cost a lot. The first is the terry towel, rubbed vigorously on the lengths: it lifts the surface of the hair and makes in thirty seconds the frizz that you will spend the week disciplining. Press the water out in a microfiber or an old cotton t-shirt, without a back-and-forth movement.

The second is waiting. A hairstyle that you leave to dry alone, without anything, closes in on itself taking the knots with it. The Styling Cream is applied to damp hair, over the entire length, before drying: it protects the fiber from the heat that will follow and helps maintain the hydration brought by the wash.

The protective drying is then done with a hair dryer, in small sections, from the roots to the ends, in a movement that never stops on an area. It is a short and direct drying. This goes against the common advice, which recommends limiting heat: on curly hair, sustained heat and always in motion treats the fiber better than a lukewarmness maintained for hours. The diffuser, on the other hand, is only suitable for rare cases.

Frequently Asked Questions

Go Further

Sources

• Robbins C. R., Chemical and Physical Behavior of Human Hair, Springer, 5^th edition, 2012.
• Khumalo N. P., Doe P. T., Dawber R. P. R., Ferguson D. J. P., « What is normal black African hair? A light and scanning electron-microscopic study », Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 2000.