What Are the Best Tips to Dry Curly Hair?

Curly hair is prone to dryness and often feels coarse and brittle to the touch. It might also be frizzy. The best way to dry curly hair is to let it air dry. Using a hair dryer to dry curly hair will only dry out the hair even more, because forced heat rips moisture from the hair’s follicles. If you can’t let your hair dry naturally and need to use a blow dryer, use an attachment called a diffuser if you can.

Before you dry curly hair, remove as much extra moisture as possible. After you shampoo and condition your hair, use your hands to squeeze as much extra water as you can from your hair. Avoid rubbing a towel over your wet hair, because this might cause the hair to frizz. After you’ve gotten rid of the extra moisture, get rid of any knots by combing your fingers through your hair.

If you need to use a hair dryer or diffuser, use them sparingly and not every day — maybe once or twice a week at the most. Before you dry curly hair with a heated product, apply a straightening balm or gel. This will help protect the hair follicles from drying out.

After you’ve applied a product to your hair, lean forward at the waist until you are at a 90 degree angle and your hair, if it is long, is draped toward the floor in front of your body. Position the blow dryer or diffuser so it’s under your hair, then with your other hand, cup and squeeze small sections of hair while applying heat. Scrunching your curls will only cause the hair to frizz. Keep cupping and squeezing different sections until your hair is dry.

If you want to style curly hair, apply a styling cream first when the hair is still wet. Make sure that the styling cream is designed for curly hair. It will say somewhere on the front of the bottle or container if the styling cream is intended to be used on curly hair styles. If your hair feels extra frizzy for some reason, rub a fingernail-size amount of styling serum in your hands first before applying it to your hair. Comb the styling serum through your hair using your fingers, then style as usual.

You can control the frizz with a daily conditioning in addition to using a deep conditioner once a week. After you wash your hair, apply a smoothing cream and hair gel to lock in moisture and protect the hair’s overall health. Work both products into the hair by rubbing a thumbnail-size amount of each product into the scalp first, then to the end of the hair. Using a wide-toothed comb will help evenly distribute the products before you let the hair air dry.