B003YL4KS0 EBOK (2 page)

Botticelli

Waves ’n’ S’waves ’n’ Curls

Red-iscovery

Corkicelli

Corkscrew

Fractal and Zigzag

Silver Sirens

For the past ten years, I’ve spent my days with hundreds of loyal clients as well as the 30,000 new clients who come to our Devachan Salons each year, many traveling long distances to experience the curly transformation firsthand. We listen to their concerns and study their curls. I’m fascinated by the amazing beauty and diversity of natural curls and have started a collection of samples, some of which are shown, right. Yet there is still many a curly girl hiding beneath blown-out, straightened, flattened strands. And there are still many questions about curly hair that need answers.

Readers have asked me about things that weren’t in the first version of
Curly Girl
—like how to trim their own hair, how to make their waves behave, what products to use, and how to grow out their chemically straightened strands to go back
to their curly roots—so I address those issues in this book. In the last decade, I’ve also watched some of my wonderful client friends bravely go through cancer treatments, so I’ve added a section on chemo curls.

The other thing that’s happened since I wrote the first book is the birth of the DevaCurl line of products. Early on, my partner Denis DaSilva and I tried various product lines at our salon, but we couldn’t find any that helped curly hair look its best. We also experimented with whipping up our own homemade formulas (like a lavender spray, which later developed into DevaCurl Mist-er Right, and a sulfate-free cleanser, called No-Poo) because detergents are especially damaging to curly hair. But our clients were begging for these products that weren’t on the market. So we began interviewing dozens of chemists and finally found one who was open to formulating products that were good for the hair. Over the course of a year, he created samples that we tested in the salon and sent home with clients. After much tweaking back in the lab, we proudly launched the DevaCurl line of botanical products that is becoming vital in the curly world.

This and so much that I’ve learned since the first book are on the pages that follow. Plus you get a DVD showing various daily routines for different types of curls, self-trimming, clipping techniques, and curly updos. If you are new to the world of
Curly Girl
, welcome! The book and DVD will teach you a whole new way of living with your curls. Follow the program for your particular type of curls and your hair will be transformed. If you’re already a curly girl, it will provide the latest information on how to continue to treat your curls and new ways to love them. Yes, curls have a will of their own, subject to weather and mood, but once you come to accept this, and work
with
your curls instead of against them, they will respond.

It might sound a bit obsessive, but ever since I can remember, my curls have informed and guided my philosophy of living: Every day is a new day and you’ve got to just go with the flow. Accepting yourself as you are and letting go of what society says you should be are first steps toward freeing yourself. “Free your hair and the rest will follow” became my manifesto. Curls are the wave of the future and this, my curly friends, is just the beginning.

Chances are, if you picked up this book, you belong to the sisterhood of curly girls, women who’ve been fighting their curly hair for most of their lives, blow-drying it straight, hiding it under hats, pulling it back with rubber bands, disguising it with weaves and braids, or flattening it with anything they could find. Depending on what era you were born into, you may have tried chemical straighteners, blow-fryers (as I call them), flat irons, or gigantic juice-can rollers to straighten your hair. I know all about this.