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The Curly Girl Method in 2026: What Still Works and What Is Outdated

  • 12 minutes ago
  • 8 min read
Woman in a bathroom combs wet hair by a mirror, with towels, plants, and soft daylight in the background.

The curly girl method has been around long enough now that most people with waves or curls have either tried it, given up on it halfway, or felt vaguely guilty for not following it properly. If you have ever stood in your bathroom wondering whether you are allowed to use that shampoo, or why your hair went through a strange limp phase when you started, you are not alone. Coming back to it in 2026, a fair bit of the original advice still holds up, and a fair bit has quietly been revised by the people who once swore by it.

This is a practical look at what is worth keeping, what you can let go of, and how to build a curly hair routine that fits an actual life in London, with hard water, rain, gym sessions and mornings where you have nine minutes before you need to leave.


The short version


Is the curly girl method outdated in 2026?

Not entirely, but it has loosened a lot. The core ideas about gentler washing and less heat still stand. The strict rules about never using shampoo or silicones have softened, even among people who originally championed the method.

Do you really have to give up shampoo?

No. Most trichologists and dermatologists do not recommend giving up shampoo completely, especially if your scalp gets oily or flaky. Many curly people now do best alternating a gentle shampoo with co washing rather than co washing alone.

How long does it take to see results?

Usually a few weeks. There is often an adjustment period of two to four weeks where hair can feel coated or strange while your scalp and your routine settle, so try not to judge it after one wash.

Are silicones actually bad for curly hair?

Not inherently. Some build up over time if you never clarify, but plenty of modern silicones rinse out fine. The honest answer is that it depends on the silicone and how often you wash.

Will it work on wavy or looser hair?

Often yes, though wavy hair (around 2a to 2b) tends to get weighed down faster, so lighter products and a bit of shampoo usually serve it better than the heavier original routine.


What this guide covers

The thinking behind the original method

The curly girl method came from Lorraine Massey's book, and the central idea was simple enough: curly and wavy hair tends to be drier than straight hair because the natural oils from the scalp struggle to travel down a bent strand. So the method set out to protect moisture at every step. That meant avoiding harsh sulfate cleansers, skipping heat, ditching the terry towel and the brush, and encouraging people to define their natural pattern rather than fight it.



A lot of that instinct was right. Curly hair genuinely does benefit from gentler handling, and a generation of people learned that their hair was not the problem, their routine was. That shift in mindset is probably the method's biggest and most lasting contribution. Where it gets shakier is in some of the strict rules that grew up around it, particularly online, where the method became a long list of forbidden ingredients rather than a sensible approach to dry hair.

What has genuinely aged well

Curly-haired man in dark jacket stands on a quiet overcast residential street, looking off to the side with a thoughtful expression.

The gentle washing principle has held up. Research on hair cosmetics supports the idea that harsh cleansing can leave dry, textured hair feeling worse, and the American Academy of Dermatology suggests that people with dry, curly or textured hair wash only as often as they need to rather than daily. So washing less frequently, and choosing a milder cleanser, remains sound advice for most curly heads.

Cutting back on heat has aged well too. Air drying or using a diffuser on a low setting puts less stress on the hair than a daily blast with a hot dryer or repeated straightening. If your hair has felt fried in the past, easing off the heat is one of the few changes that reliably helps over time.

The styling techniques have also earned their place. Scrunching product through soaking wet hair, encouraging clumps to form, and then gently breaking the crunchy cast once it dries genuinely does produce better definition for a lot of people. None of that is marketing. It is just sensible handling of hair that holds a shape when you let it.

The rules worth loosening or dropping

Here is where I tend to disagree with the stricter version of the method, and where a lot of curly people quietly relax the rules once they have lived with their hair for a while.

The total ban on shampoo is the big one. Co washing, which means cleansing with conditioner instead of shampoo, suits some people and leaves others with an itchy, heavy, slightly congested scalp. There is no strong evidence that everyone with curls should abandon shampoo, and for oily or flake prone scalps it can cause more problems than it solves. Most people do better treating co washing as one option among several, and keeping a gentle shampoo or a clarifying wash in the routine for when build up creeps in. Even within the curly community, alternating a mild shampoo with co washing is now common advice.


The fear of silicones has also been overstated. Some silicones can build up if you never use anything strong enough to remove them, which is really an argument for occasional clarifying rather than lifelong avoidance. Many modern formulations wash out perfectly well. Treating every silicone as the enemy tends to make routines more complicated than they need to be.


The idea that there is one correct method for all curls has aged worst of all. Tight coils, loose waves and everything in between behave very differently. A routine built for thick 3c curls can flatten fine wavy hair completely. This is the part the internet version of the method often missed, and it is the part most worth letting go.

Building a modern routine that suits your hair

Woman with curly hair holds a mug by a rainy window, gazing thoughtfully beside houseplants and stacked books.

A realistic 2026 version of a curly hair routine looks less like a rulebook and more like a flexible framework. Here is a simple way to approach it.

Start by being honest about your scalp, not just your curls. If your roots get greasy or flaky, you need real cleansing, so keep a gentle shampoo and use it when your scalp asks for it. If your scalp is calm and your lengths are the dry part, you have more room to co wash or wash less often.


Choose products for your hair's weight, not just its curl. Finer waves want lighter conditioners and gels. Thicker curls and coils can take richer creams and butters. If your hair goes limp and stringy, you are probably using something too heavy, regardless of what the label promises.


Style on soaking wet hair, apply your product, encourage your natural clumps, and then leave it alone while it dries. Diffuse on low or air dry. Once it is fully dry, scrunch out the crunch with your hands.



Clarify every so often. A deeper clarifying wash every few weeks, or whenever your hair feels coated and refuses to respond to product, resets things and stops build up from making your curls look dull.

As a concrete example, picture someone with shoulder length wavy hair, roughly 2b, who commutes by bike and goes to the gym twice a week. A workable week might be a gentle shampoo and condition on a Sunday with a light gel scrunched through and a low diffuse, a quick refresh with water and a little leave in product midweek when the waves drop, a co wash or simple rinse and condition after a sweaty gym session, and a clarifying wash every third or fourth week to clear product and sweat. No forbidden ingredient lists. Just a rhythm that keeps the scalp clean and the waves defined.

How London life changes things

Smiling woman with gray curls and red scarf gestures on a park bench in warm sunlight, with trees and path behind her.

A curly routine does not exist in a vacuum, and London adds a few wrinkles worth planning around.

Most of London sits in a hard water area, which means more dissolved calcium and magnesium in your water. The honest picture from the research is mixed. Some studies have found that hard water reduces hair's tensile strength over a few months, while at least one controlled study found no significant difference in strength or elasticity. What is clearer is that mineral residue can leave hair feeling coated, dull and harder to hydrate, which curly hair notices more than most. If your curls feel rough and unresponsive no matter what you do, hard water build up is a reasonable suspect, and an occasional clarifying or chelating wash usually helps more than buying yet another conditioner.

Weather matters too. Damp, humid days and rain can swell the hair and pull curls into frizz, while dry indoor heating in winter does the opposite and leaves everything parched. Neither is a personal failing. A lighter gel with a bit of hold helps in humidity, and a richer leave in helps through the heating months. The point is to adjust with the seasons rather than expecting one routine to perform identically all year.

Getting honest curl advice near you

Mother braiding a child’s curly hair at a kitchen table beside a window, with breakfast dishes and a cozy, calm mood.

The hardest part of curly hair is often not the products at all. It is the cut. Curls behave completely differently depending on length, layering and how the weight sits, and a cut that ignores your pattern can undo a good routine entirely. This is where a proper consultation earns its keep, because someone looking at your actual hair can tell you what is realistic far better than any online method can.

At Margaux Salon, our stylists work with your natural texture rather than against it, and we will give you an honest view of what suits your hair, your time and your upkeep tolerance, even if that means a simpler routine than you expected. We use natural and sustainable products chosen because they perform, not because they tick a marketing box, and we have three neighbourhood salons in Kentish Town, Highbury and West Hampstead. If you have been fighting your curls for years, it is often worth a conversation before you buy anything else.


A method to borrow from, not obey

The most useful way to treat the curly girl method in 2026 is as a starting point rather than a set of commandments. Keep the parts that respect your hair, gentler washing, less heat, better styling habits, and quietly drop the parts that turn hair care into a guilt trip. Your scalp, your curl pattern, your water and your week all have a say. A good routine is the one you can actually keep up, the one that leaves your scalp comfortable and your curls defined, and the one that bends a little when life or the weather gets in the way.

If you take one thing from all of this, let it be that there is no single correct way to have curly hair. There is only the way that works for yours.

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