Curly Like Me: How to Grow Your Hair Healthy, Long, and Strong

by Teri LaFlesh

Overview

The simple secrets to growing your curls healthy and long.

Tightly curly hair isn't like any other type of hair, and it needs totally different care to make it happy.

Do you spend countless hours—and untold dollars—on weaves, perms, salon visits, and products that promise to change, heal, or make your hair more manageable, only to end up even more frustrated? Do you wrestle daily with hair you can't get a brush through? Do you struggle to keep from hurting your child when you comb through her tight curls? Would you like to grow your tightly curly hair long and healthy?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, this book was written for you. It gives you the information and techniques you need to celebrate—not fight against—your very curly hair. You will learn how not only to care for your curls, but to cherish them, all the while saving time, effort, and money.

Curly Like Me is the off-the-grid, do-it-yourself owner's manual for tightly curly hair:

• Learn how to wear your own curls in their natural curl patterns
• Over 250 photographs and illustrations
• Includes the best products, tools, ingredients, curl-enhancing hairstyle ideas, tips for growing out your perm, and more
• Shows you pain-free techniques on how to comb and style your curls or your child's curls
• Over thirty easy, curl-enhancing hairstyle ideas, tips for growing out your perm, and more
• Helps you save money by avoiding costly treatments, products, marketing misinformation, and frequent salon visits so you can enjoy your own curls without pain, chemicals, or the use of weaves or extensions
• The story (with lots of photos) of Teri's journey from hair broken by relaxers, texturizers, improper care, trying to force it to conform, and fighting her weave addiction to finally understanding her own curls. Now her natural hair reaches to her hips.

End your struggles with misunderstood, damaged hair and begin your journey to thriving natural curls. Applying the ideas and information in this book will show you how to love your hair the way it really is. Curly Like Me empowers you to take back the care of your hair so you can let your own beautiful curls shine.

Teri LaFlesh spent nearly thirty years working to find a way to make her curls happy. Not wanting anyone else to go through with their hair what she did with hers inspired Teri to create the popular Web site TightlyCurly.com and to write Curly Like Me.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780470536421
Publisher:	Turner Publishing Company
Publication date:	05/01/2010
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Teri LaFlesh spent much of her life fighting with her short, crunchy hair, once even accidentally dissolving it with a relaxer. Through nearly thirty years of trial, error, and research, she figured out what her hair needed all along. Finally understood, her natural curls now reach well past her waist. Not wanting anyone else to go through what she did with her hair, she created the popular Web site TightlyCurly.com.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments.

1 My Hair History: How I Learned What Not to Do.

2 Get to Know Your Curls: Their Structure and Vulnerabilities.

3 Shampooing: Washing without the Matting.

4 Conditioning: How to Get Unflappable Curls.

5 Combing: For Those of Us Who Have Ever Gotten a Brush Stuck in Our Hair.

6 Setting Perfect Curls: Born to Clump.

7 Everything Else: Daily Care and Beyond.

8 Baby Curls: Tips for Little Ones.

9 Highlights: Do-It-Yourself Tips.

10 After the Chemicals and Severe Damage: Sometimes You Have to Walk through the Fire.

11 Your Toolbox: The Best Products and Tools for Your Hair.

12 Chemically Altering Your Hair: The Truth behind Coloring, Perming, and Relaxing.

13 How to Do Your 'Do: The Style Gallery.

14 The Philosophy of Curls.

Recommended Reading.

References.

Photo Credits.

Index.

Editorial Reviews

LaFlesh, who maintains the popular web site tightlycurly.com, has resplendent, long curls on the cover of this informative and inspiring book for people whose hair texture is tightly curled or coiled. But as her photographic hair journey depicts, this was not always the case. She discusses the damaging hair-styling practices that she used in her quest for manageable hair, sprinkling her book with humorous anecdotes. Through research and trial and error, LaFlesh discovered a hair-care regime that works with her natural curliness, and the result is beautiful, healthy hair. She offers readers practical advice on proper tools, products, and styling techniques, avoiding caustic chemicals and heat. LaFlesh's tips on styling biracial children's hair will be a godsend to their parents. There is also a technical section on hair structure. VERDICT The styling methods may not work for everyone, given the variance of textured hair, but this good introduction to holistic hair care will be embraced by the novice as well as the hair obsessed. Pair it with Paula Begoun's Don't Go Shopping for Hair-Care Products Without Me for a well-rounded beauty and grooming collection.—Ajoke Kokodoko, Oakland P.L.

Library Journal

* LaFlesh, who maintains the popular web site tightlycurly.com, has resplendent, long curls on the cover of this informative and inspiring book for people whose hair texture is tightly curled or coiled. But as her photographic hair journey depicts, this was not always the case. She discusses the damaging hair-styling practices that she used in her quest for manageable hair, sprinkling her book with humorous anecdotes. Through research and trial and error, LaFlesh discovered a hair-care regime that works with her natural curliness, and the result is beautiful, healthy hair. She offers readers practical advice on proper tools, products, and styling techniques, avoiding caustic chemicals and heat. LaFlesh's tips on styling biracial children's hair will be a godsend to their parents. There is also a technical section on hair structure. VERDICT The styling methods may not work for everyone, given the variance of textured hair, but this good introduction to holistic hair care will be embraced by the novice as well as the hair obsessed. Pair it with Paula Begoun's Don't Go Shopping for Hair-Care Products Without Me for a well-rounded beauty and grooming collection.—Ajoke Kokodoko, Oakland P.L. (Library Journal, May 1, 2010)

From the Publisher