Can you keep your curls and lose the frizz?

Short answer: yes. That’s one of the most common briefs I get. Calm the frizz, keep the curl, and stop at the point where it still looks like your hair.

Walk down Portobello Road on a Saturday and you’ll see a lot of great curly hair, and a lot of it fighting the weather. Most of those people don’t want straight hair. They want their curls on a good day, every day.

Why curls frizz

Curly hair is shaped so that its surface lifts more easily than straight hair. Damp air gets in unevenly; some strands swell and bend, others don’t. That’s the halo of fuzz over a curl that’s otherwise fine.

Keep it, calm it, or lose some

• Keep the curl, lose the frizz: Straightment Semi. It takes the frizz down for 2+ months and leaves the curl pattern alone.
• Calm it a bit: Straightment Demi, done lightly, loosens tight curl and takes out bulk. About 60% of the curl out at full strength, 6+ months. On curl I often go lighter.
• Lose it: Straightment Permanent, 80%+ of the curl out, for good on treated hair. Only if that’s really what you want.

Tell me which one you mean. “Less frizzy” and “less curly” are two different treatments.

What not to let anyone do

• Put a full-strength straightener on hair you only wanted calmer.
• Iron curly hair flat as the “finish” and send you home thinking that’s the result.
• Treat over a relaxer↓DOWN without asking. If your hair has been relaxed, say so. It changes the plan.

Getting here

The Central line runs from Notting Hill Gate to Oxford Circus without a change, and Maddox Street is a minute from there. From Holland Park, it’s the same line, one stop further out.

Start from home

Online consultation: a questionnaire and six photos, and I reply within 72 hours, usually the same day. Send the curls as they are on a normal day, not after a blow-dry.

Straightment Semi↓DOWN → · Straightment Demi↓DOWN → · Online consultation →

For men

Sides that stick out, frizz, flat or thinning hair, grey gone wiry: most of it can be sorted, and nobody will know you’ve had it done. The men’s pages → · Coming in from nearby →