Do you struggle to get your natural curls to curl more at the back of your head? This is a common problem among people with curly hair, and there could be a number of reasons behind it.

Your products, styling, and even how you sleep could be affecting your results back there! So if you want the back of your head to be curlier, read on:

Make sure you’re applying enough product at the back

When we’re looking in the mirror to style our curls, it’s easy to mostly focus on the front pieces of our hair, and especially our face-framing pieces.

When you’re applying your styler and scrunching, make sure you are distributing your products evenly and scrunching the back as much as the front, to give the curls at the back a chance to spring up.

If your hair is more dry or damaged at the back, it could need a little extra conditioning, such as more curl cream. Or if it’s the front that’s more damaged (which is common if you touch your hair a lot), the back may not need as much curl cream – but still needs lots of gel!

Be sure that your hair is wet enough, too – you should be able to hear a squishy noise as you scrunch. If your hair isn’t wet enough, this can affect your definition and cause more frizz.

Make sure you’re actually reaching the back

If you like to style your hair upside down, as lots of curlies do, it’s easy to miss out big sections of your hair. When you flip the right way up, the parts that you covered in styler may actually end up as the underneath layer of your hair, rather than the top.

Try to figure out which sections of your hair actually make up the back, and don’t neglect those sections while styling. Dividing your hair into smaller sections can help with this. If you struggle to reach the back of your head, try tilting your head to the side to style, followed by the other side. When you’re scrunching, be sure to pulse the hair with your fists to really encourage the curl.

Dry the back of your head first

Water is heavy, and the longer you leave your hair wet, the more weighed down and elongated your curls can get. Before drying your hair, try microplopping the back of your head: covering your hands with your wet towel and gently scrunching your curls one more time.

If you dry your hair with a diffuser, try prioritising the back of your head first, to get rid of that water weight. Again, tilt your head to the side if you can’t reach behind you with your hairdryer.

Try “Smasters” while drying

If you’re halfway through drying your hair and you think the frizz is already creeping up, or you suspect you haven’t applied enough styler to the back of your head, try the method known as Smasters: glazing a little more of your styler when your hair is around 50% dry. Hopefully, this little extra hold will boost your definition.

Think about your sleep protection

Your curls might be getting stretched out because you sleep on your back. Try a sleep protection method that piles your curls on top of your head, such as medusa clipping or wearing a jersey buff instead of a bonnet. More sleep protection methods can be found here: The importance of sleep protection for curly hair.

The importance of sleep protection for curly hair

Some sleep protection methods may still stretch out the underneath of your hair, but this is less visible once everything is the right way up the next day.

Consider other sources of friction

Do you wear a lot of scarves or hoodies? Or is your hair particularly long? If your hair rubs your clothes a lot, this friction can lead to damage over time, which in turn causes frizz and affects your curl definition. To reduce friction, you can get a satin-lined hoodie, such as these ones from Only Curls (get £5 off with code COAST5), or there are loads on Etsy.

Alternatively, you could protect your hair from day to day with some cute updos. @Sophiemariecurly on Instagram has a bunch of tutorials, as does @the.curly.carr and @charlottecurls.

Get a haircut

For some curl patterns, the longer your hair gets, the more weighed down your curls get, which means your curl pattern stretches out further up your head. Consider getting a layered haircut and a rounded shape, to relieve a little weight from your hair.

The ends of our hair are also prone to breakage and split ends, which can also negatively affect your curl pattern, so in any case, regular trims are a good idea for general hair health.

If curly haircuts are new to you, check out my post Everything you need to know about curly haircuts.

Everything you need to know about curly haircuts

Don’t overthink it

Don’t forget that it is normal to have multiple curl patterns all over your head – maybe you just naturally have a looser curl pattern at the back. It’s also one of those things that looks more obvious to you than to other people – most of the time, it’s not as noticeable as you think!

My final piece of advice is to maybe just look at the back of your head less. As the saying goes, the back of my head is none of my business. 😆