Do you keep note of your washdays? If you’re near the start of your curly journey (and your memory is as bad as mine), it might be a good idea to!

Why log your washdays when starting a curly routine?

When you’re starting to embrace your curly hair and you’re trying to build a routine, it’s definitely worth jotting down what you did from washday to washday so that you can remember what did and didn’t work. It’s also a great way to visually see your progress in one place.

Here are a few things I learnt from taking photos and keeping notes of my progress:

• I frequently complained about how my roots weren’t curling, and then came to realise that it’s just part of my natural curl pattern to have soft roots. I can get some root lift with certain products like foams, but my roots will never be as curly as the bottom of my hair.

• I lamented that I had to keep re-washing my hair every 3-4 days instead of reaching day 7 like lots of other influencers I’d followed…and came to accept that that’s normal for my hair too! You don’t get a prize for stretching out your washday – if your scalp is begging to be washed, wash it!

• I realised my wash days were better when I incorporated protein and my hair can get easily overconditioned. After a few months of doing a curly routine and as my hair got healthier, the advice of “deep conditioning every week” quickly became overkill for my hair. I needed to adjust my routine again to ease up on the conditioning side.

• I found silk scarves and bonnets weren’t the best sleep protection for me, and switched to a buff.
  
• Most importantly, although I started out following other people’s routines and techniques, I kept making tweaks until I’d found something that worked for the hair I have. That’s what you see today!

What kind of information to include

Here are a few things that you can keep track of:

• Products used on washday
• Application methods used (raking, praying hands, etc)
• Styling techniques used (brush styling, etc)
• How your hair looks and feels (did you get good volume/definition? Does it feel a bit dry?)
•  Sleep protection used
• Refresh methods
• How your curls held up from day to day
• Haircuts (and what you asked for)
• Any problems you’re having and the steps you’re taking to resolve them

Hopefully you’ll start to spot patterns. For example, if your hair keeps feeling producty and is getting greasy quickly, maybe your products are too heavy, or you haven’t clarified in a while. If you keep getting stringy curls, maybe you need to style on wetter hair, or switch up your styling technique.

Ways to log your curly hair routine

Option 1: Journaling app

This is what I’ve been using for 3 years. I’ve been using Day One, but there are lots of others out there, and Apple has recently released its own Journal app too. With these apps, it’s easy to just add a photo and caption. I still use it now to log the products I use on a washday and how my hair held up, but when I was starting out I also added what I refreshed with, techniques I used, sleep protection I tried, and theories about why my curls weren’t behaving!

Option 2: Private Instagram account

Despite the shift to video, Instagram is still great for sharing (and storing) pictures. Why not set up an account for logging your journey? If you set it to private, only you can see the posts. I started my curly Instagram page @curlsbythecoast in 2021, 7 months into my curly journey, sharing my washdays and what products I was testing out at the time…mainly because I had no-one else to talk to about it. Now I’m part of a whole curly community, where we share tips and cheer each other on!

Option 3: Paper journal

Of course, you could use a regular notebook to jot down your washdays – or @hanzcurls has released a special curly hair journal with prompts to make sure you’re keeping track of the right information! This will help you figure out how often you need to wash or do certain treatments.

Conclusion

Starting to wear your hair curly for the first time can be confusing and sometimes overwhelming, especially if you’re used to just straightening your hair every time it looked “messy”.

It took me 6-7 months of doing a curly routine before I stopped being so critical and started actually being consistently happy with my washday results, and part of this was thanks to being able to see my progress, notice patterns that weren’t working, and come to terms with certain aspects of my hair that I realised were just “normal for me”.

I really feel like my curly journey was a journey in self-acceptance as well as hair health, which is why I’m glad I kept a journal of mine!