The Curly Hair Rules I Don't Follow as a Hair Loss Expert | Dr. Idriss

For most of my life, I didn't think I had curly hair. I thought my hair was simply frizzy and that I had to blow dry it. Now I know, I know, it's crazy to think that I thought this was frizz, but I'm 42 years old, I'm Arab, and growing up the ideal beauty standard, at least for my community, was sleek, smooth, polished hair, right? That was the ideal. And my mom also has curly hair, but knowing what I know now, she was simply blow drying her hair every single week, and that's what she taught us do because she wasn't— she didn't know any better either. Now going back in time, the '80s and the '90s, there was no YouTube. So things like curl type, porosity, how to actually work with your natural hair texture, all of that was genuinely completely foreign to me. I knew none of this. And then by accident this past summer, I discovered a product in my cabinet, an old one, it was kind of expired, and I started playing with my natural hair type and talking about my natural hair online. And I realized that so many women out there are feeling the exact same experience that I am where we haven't been taught any of this. But there's also another layer to this hair journey with me at least is I have also dealt with real hair loss. So as I've started learning all of these curly hair rules, I keep coming back to a single question. Is this rule truly for the benefit of my hair health or is this rule just helping me achieve the perfect beautiful curl? Because those 2 things are 2 very different things and they're not trying to achieve the same thing. So today I'm going to go through the curly hair rules that I personally follow, the ones that I completely ignore as a hair loss expert, and last, I'm going to share with you guys what I'm actually doing with my own hair. And yes, I will finally share with all of you here and show you guys my own curly hair routine. But before we get into all of this, if you are not subscribed to this channel, it is time that you finally do it and hit the subscribe button, because if you want expert tips on on how to age beautifully, gracefully, and intelligently, then this is your place and this is your community. So without further ado, let's jump in. Rule number 1, do not wash your curly hair too often. Now, this is probably the first rule I started questioning when I embarked on this journey, and I think somewhere along the way we got a little bit confused taking care of our curls and taking care of our scalp because our curls and our scalp require different things. Curly hair can absolutely be drier. Your natural oils don't travel down the curly hair shaft as easily, so yes, you may need to be gentler with the lengths and the tips of your hair, but your scalp is still producing oil, sweat, dead skin cells, and it's accumulating all of that product buildup that you're using to maintain your beautiful curls and what you're putting on your hair. So for me personally, I wash my hair about twice a week now, but that's based on my scalp health and not because I'm doing this twice a week because it's some magical number for curly hair. My scalp, I think in the past year or 2, has become much less oily, partly because I take a small dose of weekly Accutane in order to keep my oil production at bay, and that's a story for another day. Your scalp may be a completely different story. So get to know your scalp and get to see how your scalp reacts. And the rule that I personally follow is your curl is going to tell you how gentle you need to be when you wash your hair, and your scalp is going to tell you how often you need to wash your hair. If it is oily, itchy, flaky, sweaty, or if there's a lot of buildup, wash it. And if you have a condition like seborrheic dermatitis, also known as dandruff, I care much more about you calming that inflammation and controlling that inflammation than I do care about you preserving your curl pattern. Rule number 2, sulfates are bad. I think we have turned sulfates into a villain of epic proportion, and I do not personally automatically avoid all of them. Sulfates are effective cleansers. Yes, they are. Can they be drying? Yeah, absolutely they can be drying. But whether a shampoo is right for you depends on the entire formula as a whole, and what your hair and your scalp actually needs. And if, for example, I have used a lot of styling products and my hair feels dull, it feels heavy, it feels coated, or after I wash it, it still feels like it has stuff in it, I personally will go for a much stronger cleansing agent and it's probably going to be a shampoo with, you guessed it, sulfates. So I want you to stop looking at a single ingredient and deciding whether that product is good or bad and really look at your hair and your scalp health as a whole. Because at the end of the day, your hair is not reading those marketing labels. Rule number 3, never brush curly hair. Again, this rule is way too absolute. When I myself am wearing my hair curly, I generally do not brush my curls when they're dry because I don't want to break my curl pattern and end up with a lot of frizz. Unless of course I'm going for a big frizzy poofy look, which sometimes I'm into. But frizz and hair damage are not the same thing, so If I need to detangle my curls, I will condition my curls and slightly dampen them, and then I will work from the ends up, slowly working upwards to detangle the curls and not from the top down because I don't want to push all my hair into a giant knot at the bottom. And this one is very important because curly hair is much more vulnerable and prone to mechanical breakage. Mechanical breakage is something that I think a lot of people get confused about. And I do want to clear the air on that with rule number 4. Breakage is not hair loss. So if you wash your curly hair, let's say every 4 to 5 days, and all of a sudden when you're washing your hair, you notice a small little furball animal in your shower drain, that does not necessarily mean that you're losing all of your hair all at once today because curly hair is great at really one thing, trapping all of the hair that you're shedding throughout the course of the week. So on wash day, you may simply be seeing several days of normal hair shedding all at once. But what gets my attention as a dermatologist is a change from your normal. Are you noticing that your hair part is getting wider, right? Number 2, is your ponytail getting thinner? Number 3, are you noticing more scalp, especially once you're sitting underneath an overhead light? Number 4, are you getting patches? Are you suddenly shedding way more dramatically? than you usually do? If the answer to these are yes, that's when I want you to go and say, stop, I'm not going to go buy another hair serum and I'm going to go see the dermatologist to figure out what is going on. Because hair breakage, right, and hair loss are 2 very different things that require 2 very different treatment solutions. Rule number 5, never use heat. I diffuse my hair and I even use a curling iron to help me define them. There, I said it. Air drying is not automatically the morally superior, better choice to diffusing. And my hair is way more wavy curly than curly curly. I'm maybe more in the 2A, 2C curl world. And if I air dry my hair here in New York City, it will fall flat, it will lose stringy, and it will just look bad. So you put me near a beach, however, and my hair will air dry like this, and it is much more beautiful. So environment absolutely matters. And in New York City, I use a diffuser because I like what it does to my hair. And I definitely use a shit ton of heat protectant. I make sure that I keep the temperature reasonable and not too high, and I keep that hair dryer moving and I try to minimize any unnecessary heat. But I look at my hair over the course of the week because that's really my philosophy when it comes to things, right? Consistency over intensity. I don't need to eliminate every potentially damaging thing from my life. I just make sure that I don't abuse my hair every single time I wash it. So do I use the curling iron on top of the diffuser every single time? Absolutely not. Do I use it every day? Absolutely not. But do I use it every once in a while? Yes. Rule number 6, you need a million curl products. Now I have to laugh at this one because 6 months ago all I ever used was a shampoo and a conditioner, and maybe, maybe, maybe I would use something to help with my hair growth. That was it. But now let's just say I've become a hair curly hair extremist, and I can use anywhere from 3 to 5 different products when I want to wear my hair curly because I have gone down that rabbit hole. But I need to be clear because those products that I'm using on my hair, I'm mostly using to help me get the curls that I want, the curls that I'm looking to achieve. I'm not using these products in order to have healthy hair, and that's the difference. Because shampoo and conditioner are the basic maintenance that you need. Heat protection absolutely matters if you are using heat. But whether or not you're using gel, mousse, curl cream, leave-in oil, whatever it is, all of those things are largely there to help you achieve the look that you're trying to achieve, and they're not really necessary if you're trying to have healthy curly hair. You do not need those products. You may need 5 products if you want to get curls to do certain things for you, but you don't need them if you're trying to just have healthy hair. And very, very transparently, sometimes I just use a product because it smells really good and I love a good scent. And not everything that we do in the bathroom needs to have a medical indication. And this is coming from a medical doctor. Rule number 7, curly hair needs oil. So I personally hate putting oil on my scalp. First, it takes forever to wash out, but second, if I'm not getting a clear benefit from something, I am not going to give in to peer pressure just because the internet is telling me that it belongs in a curly hair routine. For me, that is completely asinine and crazy. But oil on the hair itself is a very different story because oil can help to reduce friction, it can help with shine, it can help the hair feel softer, and and it can potentially reduce breakage. But oil does not hydrate your body and oil does not hydrate your hair. And putting oil on your scalp does not automatically make your hair grow better. And that distinction really, really matters because something can make the hair you already have look healthier without doing jack shit to the hair follicle to make your hair grow more efficiently. I said it. And this leaves me with, what am I actually doing now in my hair care routine? So right now I wash my hair about twice a week, and I shampoo based on my scalp's needs rather than trying to stretch out wash days as long as humanly possible. Although I will tell you, I am guilty of that too. Kérastase Premier Repairing Shampoo and Conditioner is what I am using right now to help get rid of any sort of calcium or mineral buildup from hard water. Which it tends to be in Connecticut, and we go to Connecticut every week, and so mineral deposits can accumulate and they can start to weigh your hair down. But I am eyeing the Kérastase Curl Manifesto line, their shampoo and conditioner, for my next purchase because I think that I don't always need to use this Premier line. If I am choosing to wear my natural texture, now we go down the rabbit hole of products. This is where I'm like sometimes, who is this person? Because I do not recognize myself from 2 months ago. I have found that thicker curl creams, at least in the summer and fall, that are heavier will weigh down my curls and stretch them out and make my hair feel greasier than what it needs to be. So I tend to kind of stay away from those products. I don't know if this is going to switch in this winter when it gets drier, but for now I like things that are very lightweight. I like sprays, I like mousses, I like gels. So first I go in with the Ouai, their Wavy Wave spray, I think it is, to enhance my natural texture and to give my hair a little bit more body and bounce. And then I go to town with the OGX Heat Protectant because I love how it sprays all over. I feel like I'm watering a plant. It gets so evenly distributed. I love the smell of it. It makes my damp hair even more damp before I start layering on the other styling products. And then I go for bombshell volume with Color Wow Extra Large Bombshell Volumizer, and I put these around the roots for extra lift and volume because I've always, ever since I was a kid, wanted to do this with my hair so that now that I discovered that I can do this, I'm in heaven. And I use either Raw's Milk Hair Mousse or the Crown Affair Air Dry Mousse depending on what I have available and I do the classic scrunch, scrunch, scrunch, scrunch, scrunch and if I really need my curls to hold because I have events over the next few days, I'll use a curl gel like Garnier's Curl Gel. but through the mids of my hair to really hold on to the curls, and then I'll have to break the cast once it's fully done. I will use a diffuser. I have noticed that that definitely helps to keep things intact, and when it dries faster, it's better. But if I need to use a curling wand, I will tend to use it on the top of my hair to get the curl patterns clearer and more defined and more individualized. But I do not use a curling wand every single time I wash my hair because I don't want to introduce that much heat. But this is what it looks like when I use the curling wand on top of diffusing my hair. Now I'm still absolutely learning. This is what makes this whole process fun for me. I am a dermatologist, I am a hair loss expert, but I am a complete student when it comes to learning about my own natural texture at 42, and I am completely okay with that. And the biggest thing I think I've learned in the past few months is that there really are 2 separate conversations happening at the same time. Number one is, how do I make my curls look the way I want them to look? And number two is, how do we keep the hair and scalp underneath all those curls healthy? And sometimes the answer is the same, but sometimes the answer is very different. So I do not want you to follow curly hair rules just because they're rules. We are a group of women who break the rules. So take care of your scalp. I want you to minimize any unnecessary damage. If you're actually losing hair, please let's go figure out why you're losing your hair. And then I want you to style your curls however it makes you happy. You do not have to perform curly hair perfectly in the same way every single time. I know for sure that I certainly don't. So all the curly hair ladies who are watching this video, I would love to know in the comments what products you absolutely love and swear by for your best curls. And please share any tips that you have gained along the way. Have a beautiful Saturday.