Hello there. No, this is not a review and it's not even really makeup related. But I thought I might as well write my experiences down and maybe one day it will help someone like me, who struggled a lot.
What is CGM? It's the curly girl method. I wasn't even sure I was gonna do this, because I don't really have curly hair in the typical sense. My hair has been a mess since I can remember, wavy mess to be exact. I used to iron it all the time, especially the front bits, which were just never the way I wanted them. So I figured, I might as well try to lean them more onto the curly side, because the straight side clearly isn't working. And there's plenty of time in quarantine to try new stuff.
The begginer's confusion
There's so much online about CGM that it gets very overwhelming very quickly. There are several ways of escaping that. Either you say "f*ck it" and just give up thinking it was a dumb idea. Or you say "f*uck it" and just do it kinda your way inspired by the mess you read in last 5 days. I took the route 2.
There's so much I don't know about my hair. You have to balance hydration and protein, I had no idea if I even provide any of those to my hair. There are many techniques and procedures and some people can do them and some people can't. And your hair might have high or low porosity and based on that you can or cannot use certain things. It's all very confusing to me and I'm pretty sure I'm not doing it really right. Please don't get angry at me in the comments. I'm just trying to get a hang of it, I'm not really trying to be the best professional curly person in the world.
My hair type
If you're reading this, it probably won't help you much unless you know what my hair is like, so you can compare it to yours. I am still not sure in any of these terms, but my hair probably is:
2A/B - I think to determine this I actually need to wait a little longer to see
high porosity - considering I have bleached hair
strong - just something I've noticed through the years
probably needs both hydration and protein
I tried a couple tests on determining hair type, but I was never too sure about the answers, so I didn't really get anywhere with these. But we will see how this changes as my hair gets more used to this new routine.
One of the things with this method is that it only works if you have something to work with. If you had straight hair your whole life, it might get healthier using this method, but it won't get curly. My hair has always been a wavy struggle, I never liked the way it curled. It always felt just wrong, I didn't like the look of it so I decided to style it with heat, as you would in such situation. I never thoughts that there is more potential in my hair.
Products
Around the products there's a lot of information as well, but I'm not going to be too strict. My hair likes certain products and if there's one silicone at the bottom of the ingredients list on my hair mask...well, then it's there. I'm not going to sweat it that much.
In general, you want to avoid sulfates and silicones because they weight your hair down and it won't curl up as well. But sulfates are fine for deep cleaning your hair...so again, a little confusing. Some people even go for non-toxic products, but again, I'm not that strict. There are many websites which can tell you if a product is CGM approved and I've used it on everything I've been using so far and on everything new I've purchased for this method in particular.
I've been trying to figure out if my hair needs protein of moisture or both. I haven't been really succesfull with that, but I've read that at the start, majority of people need moisture. And I have bleached hair, so it needs some care for sure. Even though it's strong and healthy, it's still probably structurally damaged by the bleaching. So right now, I don't worry about protein too much.
In general, what I used to use was:
shampoo
mask
hair milk (color care when I had any pastel color on my hair)
I found out that the shampoo is actually CGM approved and the mask and the milk have one silicone ingredient each. The silicone is not at the top of the list and I don't use anything else with silicones, so I will keep using them and if I don't get great results I might take them out of the routine. But I really like them both and I don't want to just waste them and throw them out.
Now, to try the CGM routine, you need a little more than that. Some people who do CGM are very low maintanence, but I have some wavy hair to revive and that not an easy task from what I've read. So now, I'm using:
shampoo
mask
conditioner
leave-in conditioner
hair gel (custard)
sometime blow-dry spray
For washing my hair I decided to get one of the spikey brushes, which look a little intimidating, but should really help with any build-up. I use quite a lot of dry shampoo if I feel like my hair needs more volume and feels gross. And we all know that dry shampoo can create a lot of build-up. Especially if you use it multiple times in a row. I don't have the vibrating one, just the regular one. But it doesn't hurt at all, I feel like it gets to my scalp better than my fingers and my hair feels a lot cleaner after using it to shampoo my hair. I really like this little tool. It looks a little like a gimick, but I can tell a difference.
Another thing I had to change was using a towel. I always used regular towels and never thought they might damage my hair. So I switched my regular towel for a fast drying one from a special micro-fiber which is not "hairy" at all and according to what I know it should be fine. It's one of the sports towels you can get at Decathlon.
I also found my old diffuser which I wanted to get rid of so many times. Thank God I didn't. You shouldn't blow dry your hair at all if possible, but that's just not how I choose to live my life. So I opted for drying it on medium heat and medium speed with the diffuser, which is fine and not damaging your hair that much. And I also use the blow-dry spray, which should help with the possible heat damage.
Just a sidenote, I know that many people use a co-wash, which is a special conditioner, which is suitable for washing your hair. I'm not about that life, I need a good cleanse, because I wash my hair once a week. Right now, I'm not trying to venture into co-wash or low-poo methods at all.
List of the products I use
As I mentioned, I know that two of the products I have aren't CGM approved, don't come for me. I try to balance that by using the rest of the products which are actually CGM approved. With my skincare routine, I went for trial and error approach and it worked very well, so I'm trying to do pretty much the same thing here.
For my shampoo, mask and the hair milk, which I already mentioned, I use product I got from my mom. She's a hairdresser and those are products she uses in the salon and products she also sells. So they are more "professional" hair products and you cannot really get them everywhere. But I've always been happy with the products she gifted or recommended to me. I use the Color Lock line by Black Professional. As I said their mask and hair milk have both one silicone, so they are technically not CGM approved. But I literally have a barrel of that mask, I like it and I try to be more strict with the rest of my products, because I don't want to be wastefull.
For the conditioner, I tried two from Balea which I've had since like 2016. So they are pretty expired but still brand new. I had a teatree one which I used during my first wash day. A more nourishing one which I used during the second and then I actually purchased two Garnier Fructise Hair Food Conditioners. They were brand new at the drugstore, CGM approved and I've heard great things about the hair food line, so I wanted to give them a shot. I bought Aloe Vera and Papaya. Aloe Vera is supposed to be very moisturizing and lightweight. And the papaya one is more nourishing but not too heavy. Both of them should work well for wavy hair.
I also use hair mousse after every washing, that's something I've been using for years. I use the Subrina Hair Code L Wonder Mousse. It's a hairdresser brand again and I really like this product and I believe it's CGM approved as well. I've been using this since forever, because it's the only mousse that doesn't make my hair gross and sticky and actually helps it to hold a styling. It's quite strong if you have very fine hair, but I really like it.
Besides from the mousse, which I just have to use to make my hair cooperating, I also use leave-in conditioner to nourish my hair further since it's been bleached. I purchased the Giovanni LA Weightless Moisture Direct Leave-in and the Shea Moisture Manuka Honey & Yoghurt Hydrate + Repair Multi-action Leave-in. The first one is very nice, weightless indeed and smells amazing. I just don't really like that it's in a bottle, because it's harder for me to refresh my hair with it. So I purchased the other one, the Shea Moisture one, which actually has a spray and smells so good you'll want to put it on your cereals in the morning. Both of them make my hair feel very nice and nourished. The Giovanni one feels a little lighter to me in texture though. Other than that I also have a blow-dry spray, which should protect hair from heat damage.
For further styling, I have two curl custards / hair gels. I first got the Cantu Define & Shine Custard with shea butter which is supposed to be very moisturizing. I also heard many people say that it's too heavy for them, so I panicked and I ordered Shea Moisture Coconut & Hibiscus Courling Gel Souffle. Then I saw the Shea Moisture table, which tells you which products are for which hair, and this one is for more curly hair than mine, I think, but we'll see how that works.
Except for the sports towel, I also purchased a hair turban, which is supposed to really help drying the hair. It's from Aquis and I got it on sale at Sephora when I ordered some makeup bits. It's nice to look into haircare once in a while as well, they have some interesting things there. So we'll see how that works, I hope it will help me with the time I spend on drying my hair because it takes long especially with the diffuser. So I hope to actually dry it to about 80% in the turban and then just take the diffuser for the rest. We'll see how it works when it arrives.
My wash day
I just want to write this down more as a reminder for me. So I can look back at what I've been trying and what has been working for me. I have multiple products at the moment I can test out and see what works the best for me. I have a too-much-gene when it comes to shopping new products, so I tried not going too crazy from the start in case CGM doesn't work for me at all.
Wash day 1
They call it "final wash" or something like this, but I didn't use shampoo with sulfates in the first place. So it was more of a normal wash for me. I washed my hair, put on a mask, let it absorb for a couple minutes, rinsed it off. Then came the new part, conditioning. You just took a ton of conditioner and tried to squeez in as much as possible to the hair. And in the process the hair gets wavy as you squish it. I have to rinse it off afterwards almost fully because my hair just feels gross when I leave in too much product. That's the washing part.
Then I just squeezed the water out with my sports towel and started with the styling. At the time, I didn't have anything for styling, so I just took the hair mousse, which I use every wash since like 2016 and the hair milk and applied both of them one by one. During each application I tried to squeeze the hair to make it curl again and it was working pretty well. I then dried it with the diffuser and here's the result. I was stoked it did anything to be honest. I didn't expect it to work almost at all but it did. My hair felt really soft though and really deprived of something. I couldn't tell what, but something wasn't right. But I kept trying.
Wash day 2
This time I actually managed to get a leave-in conditioner. I order the Giovanni LA Weightless Moisture Direct Leave-in Conditioner from Amazon and it smells sooooo good. I love good smelling hair care. So I repeated the same procedure with the same products in the shower. When it came down to the styling process, I skipped the hair milk, because I had fresh blonde highlights in my hair, so that wasn't needed. Instead, I took the hair mousse, squished it in. And then I took the leave-in, applied it with "praying hands" to distribute the produst evenly and started squeezing as well.
At first, I thought it's going to be too heavy for my hair. I never liked applying a lot of products to my hair because it felt very heavy and didn't have any volume. But maybe it was because I was trying the wrong products. This leave-in actually makes my hair very happy and less frizzy than it was after the first wash. It also felt a lot less fine.
So then, I took the diffuser again and I have to get a hang of that. It's not easy to use when you have my hair length. But the overall result was much, much better. I could already see the difference and my hair didn't feel as brittle and soft as before. Maybe it needed more moisture afterall.
Wash day 3
I wash my hair once a week, so this "first month" thing is just a couple wash days. Anyway, for this one I actually got a curl custard from Cantu. I ordered it from Amazon as well and I was realy curious to see how it works. It seemed to me that the gel makes the most difference in the CGM routines.
So I did everything the same as before, but at the end of the styling period, I added the gel. And omg, it feels so odd. I've never really used gel and putting it into wet hair is such a weird sensation. But well, I did it. And I looked like spaghetti monster by the time I finished drying it. I suppose that was the well-known crust. Any gel can do that, it doesn't happen to everybody though. What you have to do after you create the crush, you have to scrunch it out and reveal the curls. So I tried. It's a lot harder than it looks. I managed to scrunch it out with a towel and actually my hair looked even better than before. It's a really odd sensation, the whole gel thing, but I think it actually works. Cannot wait to try it again.
I wasn't as happy with the overall look of the hair, it was a little messy. But I managed to make it work for a couple days. The waves fall around the 4-5 day after I wash my hair, but I think that's expected. No styling can really hold for a full week, right?
Wash Day 4
I decided to try a damp styling method today. So far I've been drying the hard quite a lot and then adding the products, but I've read that there's quite a difference between damp and wet styling. So let's see what it does. Today I also want to try the Shea Moisture Curl Souffle. I get so excited over new hair products these days.
I did majority of things as usual. Used my spikey shampoo brush to wash the hair, twice, mostly at the root. I used a mask on the lengths of my hair, washed it off in a couple minutes. Then I took the GHF Aloe Vera Conditioner and squished it for a couple minutes. I used quite a lot but it felt like my hair is just soaking it up, so I kept going.
I decided to try damp hair styling today, so I just squeezed the excess water from my hair so that it's not dripping and I started with my leave-in. I have the new Shea Moisture one, but I decided to go for the Giovanni now, so I don't try too many new things all at once. Then I applied my hair mousse. I squished both in, the waves started forming. And now came the exciting part, I got to try the curl souffle from Shea Moisture. I really like the smell of it, it felt less thick than Cantu, a little more whipped. It probably makes sense, since it's called souffle. I started squishing it in until my hair had enough. It's hard to tell, but it felt like overflowing with products on the touch. I did a little gulp, pretty much like when you just dip in your fingers and then a little more in the back.
I look like a spaghetti monster again. But the crust is different today. The first time I used the Cantu custard, it didn't look defined at all, it was just sticky mess. It looked like someone sticked my hair together with a lollipop (you know the look). This looks way more defined, the curls are more wide and contain more hair. Before, I feel like every hair was trying to start its own wave, now they seem to be cooperating better. But it also seems like they are going to take a lot more time to dry. Of course, because they're soaking with water and products.
Something went a little wrong. It took me an hour to dry majority of my hair. Then I noticed that my roots feel awful and I cannot really move the hair and style it. It was also still very sticky. I tried scrunching it with a towel a couple times, that worked a little bit. I have pretty defined curls, but on the top it just looks bad. My parting is sooooo flat, there's no volume at the roots.
The next day, it was a little better. But still my roots were so flat and not working. The curls were bomb though. The hair overall felt a little more crusty and dry than usual, but it's styled. So I probably don't expect it to really feel silky and smooth. I don't know, I'll have to experiment more with that souffle thingy. I have a very love-hate relationship with this wash day.
Thoughts
So far, I'm happy that I managed to convince myself to try this. I think I'm on a way to healthier hair and that's honestly all that matters. If I can make it look decent and wavy and presenatble without actually using heat on it, I'll be a happy camper. So far, I really enjoy the resutls even though I just wear them to Zoom calls. But I think I'll be able to keep this up and figure out more and more with each washday. I like a good science project and I never ventured into the world of hair care, so I'm glad to be here exploring something new.
Also note that you don't have to go and buy plenty of stuff. I'm just a bit of an addict and I like to have options all the time, so I purchased a couple bits here and there. I would say that if you just want to give this a shot, look at ingredients of your shampoo, get a conditioner and a gel and you're ready to at least give it a shot. If you like the results at least partially, you can venture further into buying products and trying out different techniques.
If you have anything to share about your journey or you have some suggestions for me, please let me know what they are in the comments and thanks for reading!