The seasonal shift from sweaty and humid temps means that it’s a safe time for anyone with curls to transition from the days of wash-and-gos back to blowouts, if they so choose to. If you prefer to take care of your blowout needs yourself, you know doing so isn’t easy — until of course, you get the hang of it. Once you have the right products for your hair type and your style goals in place, going sleek is smooth (get it?) sailing.
It does take a bit of patience, but with some extra work, you won’t need to fuss over your hair for at least a week. Read on to find out how I style my kinky-curly hair into a smooth, shiny, and most importantly, healthy blowout.
Cleansing and Preparation
The key to getting my blowout as close to a salon-quality finish as possible — and making it last for at least a week — is the prep. My hair is dense, but the strands themselves are fine, which means super heavy products will weight it down easily. There’s been a lot of trial and error in figuring out my straight hair cocktail, but I think I finally got it.
I start in the shower with a cleansing routine that gets rid of any product buildup on both my strands and scalp. A deep cleanse using the Aveda Pramasana Purifying Scalp Cleanser gets any gunk off my roots. I follow up with a custom-blended shampoo and conditioner from Prose to clean and smooth my hair, as well as detangle and keep my highlights from fading.
Post-wash, I wrap my hair in an Aquis Waffle Luxe Hair Turban for a few seconds. The trick here is to not to leave it on too long — a bit of moisture actually helps get a sleeker blowout. Remove just enough water so that your hair isn’t dripping wet, then you're ready to straighten.
Straightening My Strands
The smoothing and straightening happen in two parts: I blow-dry my hair, then I flatiron it. Prior to drying, I apply both a liquid and a cream heat protectant. My preferred products: the Tresemmé Repair & Protect 7 Pre-Styling Spray and Kérastase Nectar Thermique Blow Dry Primer. They're light, but manage to hydrate my hair for a silky finish.
Blow-Drying
The tools are also important, of course. Round brushes can be tricky, especially if you’re a newbie. If smoothness is the goal over volume, a paddle brush is the better option. Make sure that the bristles can withstand the heat from your dryer and that they are sturdy enough to give get a bit of tension to straighten your curly roots. The Tangle Teezer Blow-Styling Smoothing Tool was made for blowouts and works as a nice detangler before you even turn up the heat.
Once I'm ready for the dryer, I pull out my Paul Mitchell Neuro Halo Dryer, which has settings for both pros and novices. It’s lightweight and comes with a concentration nozzle to hone in on the smoothing.
Flatironing
Go smaller with your sections when ironing. One to two inches per section is ideal. And so that you don’t have to go over your entire head to get a curl or wave, use the flatiron to create a wave at the ends after smoothing the roots. It’ll also help camouflage any uneven ends.
Finishing Touches (and Making It Last)
It's quite a few steps, but after all the effort, it's worth it to switch up my look and also give my hair a break from having to style it in its curly state. A girl's gotta have options, after all.
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