At the beginning of April, after being alive for 30 years, I discovered I have naturally wavy hair.

I know this sounds idiotic, but hear me out. XD

A Little Backstory…

Growing up, my hair was always the bane of my existence.

It didn’t matter if I air dried it or blow dried it, if I didn’t straighten it right after drying it, goodness gracious, it was best described as Poof City.

In hindsight, it did wave up when I didn’t immediately straighten it, which I should’ve taken as a hint, but it was never pretty waves. Honestly, it looked like I had bed head when I hadn’t even slept on my hair.

And let me tell y’all a little secret:

I’m not a hair expert by any means, nor very interested in learning how to do different hairstyles.

I’ve tried. Multiple times. Hair is not my forte, by a long shot.

Because of this, before April, I styled my hair the same way since my junior year of high school, which was almost half my life ago. So there’s that. XD

Then there’s the fact that, whenever I would try to curl my hair or do waves with a heat tool, the pretty curls or waves would soon fall out and resort back to Poof City within thirty minutes to an hour (unless excessive hair spray was used, and I hate hair spray). Maybe one or two waves would stay in, out of my whole head, and that, my friends, broke my heart.

Can You Believe Social Media Saved the Day? XD

One thing I’ve come to love about social media is that it helps us learn we’re not alone when facing certain problems.

I never suspected Reels would reroute the trajectory of my hair’s life.

Recently, I’ve seen several Reels on both Instagram and Facebook where women testified they didn’t know they had wavy hair, and then ended up having a head full of beautiful waves when they began to dry their hair differently.

At first, I was skeptical. Like I mentioned before, I’ve tried and failed at learning the art of basic haircare before, and I didn’t want to get my hopes up again. I also wondered, how on earth can you not know you have wavy hair? Wouldn’t it be obvious?!

(Ha… this post is humbling. XD)

Then I kept noticing a trend in these videos. Many would say, “if your hair has waves right after you wash it, you have wavy hair”.

Like my initial skeptical thoughts, you may react like, “duh, you idiot. What else would that mean?!”

Believe it or not, this was the pitch that convinced me to give a wavy hair care method a try, because my hair looked like theirs whenever I washed it, and for my entire life prior to these Reels, I was 100% convinced the only reason it did that was because it was unruly and unmanageable, not wavy.

(Oh, the untrue things we believe about ourselves.)

So, on a whim, on April 5th, I decided to take a chance and try a wavy hair method. And it worked.

My Wavy Hair Method

Here’s what my hair looks like now that I know how to take better care of my waves:

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A post shared by Allyson Kennedy | YA Author 🧡 (@authorallysonkennedy)

I’m not even a month into the Wavy Hair Life, but after trying a few different methods, these steps work best for my hair:

1. Brush hair before showering.
2. Shampoo and condition like normal.
3. Comb hair with a wide-tooth comb while the conditioner is still in.
4. Rinse conditioner out.
5. Apply leave-in conditioner to hair while it’s soaking wet using the praying hands technique.
6. Remove excess water by scrunching hair with a cotton T-Shirt. (The most important thing I learned is that using a T-shirt rather than a towel is vital in the wavy hair realm. Towel-drying makes wavy and curly hair super frizzy!)
7. Plop hair in the T-shirt for twenty minutes or so (basically like wrapping hair up in a towel on top of your head, but with a T-shirt instead).
8. Take the plopping T-shirt off hair, and then apply mousse using the praying hands technique. Scrunch hair with the T-shirt.
9. Apply heat protecting spray using the praying hands technique, and then re-scrunch hair with the T-shirt.
10. Head hanging down, dry hair using the hair dryer’s diffuser attachment, putting small sections into the bowl of the diffuser and then pressing it up to the roots for around 20 seconds, first on medium heat, then on cool to combat frizz.

And that’s pretty much it!

Aside from a couple days in the past month, I’ve styled my hair like this every day. I normally wash my hair every other day, and Day 2 wavy hair has been awesome! All I have to do is wet the hair a little, scrunch it again with a T-shirt, and it’s good to go.

All this has taught me that even when we can’t see our own potential, God knows it. Even though He created me to have wavy hair, I never knew it until I acted on faith and tried styling it that way. This little lesson can be applied to so many more areas of life. ❤

Talk to Me, Arrowheads!

If you have wavy hair, what tips do you have? Are you thinking you may also have wavy hair after seeing this post?

Aim high, stay strong, and always hit your mark.

-Allyson 😀