What Does Your Wavy Hair Need? Moisture, Protein Or Clarifying?

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If you’ve had a basic wavy hair routine down for a while and then suddenly you’re struggling to get a decent hair day…you’re probably asking yourself what your hair needs now.

Usually if your hair suddenly starts acting different, it needs one of three main things. It either needs more moisture, or more protein, or it’s time for a clarifying shampoo or chelating shampoo. It can be a bit challenging to figure out which of those to try first though. Let’s go over the signs of all three.

Signs That Your Hair Needs Moisture

It lacks softness and feels rigid.
Your hair feels rough to the touch.
When you take a loose hair and try to stretch it, it doesn’t stretch much at all and just breaks instead.
Your hair looks more dull than usual
Your hair is extra frizzy
If it’s tangling more or harder to detangle.

Signs That Your Hair Needs Protein

It’s super soft
It doesn’t hold its shape as long as it used to (or maybe doesn’t hold it at all).
You aren’t getting a gel cast with products that you used to get a cast from.
When you take a loose hair and try to stretch it, it doesn’t stretches a lot and doesn’t return to its original shape.
Your curls are flat or stretched out, lacking their usual tightness.
You have less volume than usual.

Signs That You Need To Use A Clarifying Or Chelating Shampoo

Your hair is getting oily/greasy faster than usual, maybe even right after you’ve washed.
Your hair feels slightly tacky, sticky or waxy (may be all over or in certain areas).
All or almost all of the products you try using seem to sit on top of your hair rather than absorbing into your hair.
You have more frizz than usual, especially on top of your head (aka halo frizz).
Your hair is limper or stretched out than usual.
Your hair looks duller than usual.
Your hair feels or looks heavy and weighed down when using products that didn’t used to weigh you down.
Your hair or scalp just aren’t feeling as clean as usual after washing.

To learn more about clarifying and chelating check out my blog post all about clarifying wavy hair.

What if It’s Not Clear?

When looking at these signs, you’ll see that some overlap, which can cause confusion. Many of the signs require that you know what your norm is. For example, to know if your hair looks duller than usual, you need to know how dull vs shiny it usually is. For many when they are new to the curly girl method or new to really getting invested in caring for their hair naturally, they just don’t know.

I know that when I was new, I felt like my hair always looked, felt and acted about the same. I was confused by how people said things like they could feel if their hair was lacking strength and needing a protein treatment, or if their hair felt heavy. I felt like my hair was pretty much always the same. Then I started really paying close attention, and started to realize that it actually does change, I just hadn’t been paying close enough attention to notice it previously.

Anyway, if it’s not clear to you yet, I’d just advise that you do your best to start really paying very close attention to the look and feel of your hair, as well as how bouncy or limp it is. It may take a while, but you’ll likely learn to start noticing differences over time which can be really helpful in the long-run.

Until you learn to once the small differences in your hair, you may have to do a bit of guessing (an educated guess, hopefully!) to determine if your hair needs moisture, protein, or clarifying. When attempting any of these three options without knowing for sure if it’s what your hair needs, there is some risk.

Risks Of Protein

If you try using a true protein treatment (not just a product that contains protein) while your hair doesn’t need protein, you could get protein overload. If this happens, you can clarify and then use a protein-free deep conditioner to correct it. While it’s fixable, your hair can be prone to breakage while it’s experiencing protein overload so it’s still best to avoid it entirely if you can.

If you think your hair may need protein but you aren’t sure, you could try a protein-containing deep conditioner rather than a true protein treatment. If your hair lacks protein but isn’t over-moisturized, sometimes a protein-containing deep conditioner will be enough to help. I love the Shea Moisture Manuka Honey Yogurt Treatment for this. The bottle says it is an intense protein treatment, but it really isn’t.

Risks Of Moisture

If you try adding more moisture and your hair doesn’t really need it, you may push yourself into moisture overload, or get weighed down results. If this happens, it can be fixed by doing a protein treatment. While it may be frustrating, it’s not likely to damage your hair so I see it as relatively minimal risk.

To reduce the risks associated with moisture, try using lightweight moisturizing products rather than heavy ones if you aren’t certain your hair needs moisture. You can try using ‘squish to condish’ or the bowl method to add more water to your hair without relying on heavier/more moisturizing products.

Risks Of Clarifying

Clarifying or chelating shampoos are stronger than ‘regular’ shampoos and low poos, so they can be drying. If your hair doesn’t need to be clarified but you clarify, it might dry your hair out some. If you have really dry scalp or really dry hair, you might consider this a risk. Personally, I don’t worry much at all about clarifying if I don’t need to, as I know using a stronger shampoo once won’t have any negative impact on my hair overall.

If You’re Leaning Towards Moisture Or Protein

Check the products you’ve been using to see if they contain any protein. This may help you make a more educated guess about whether you’re likely to be experiencing the problem you think you are. For example, if you think your hair needs more moisture but you check your hair products and find that nothing in your routine contains protein at all…then it’s less likely that your hair needs moisture right now than it would be if your products all had protein.

Also, if you aren’t sure of your hair type or how much protein to use based on your hair type, check out this blog post titled what products to use based on your hair type. It can help you get some idea of how much protein you should be using.

If You Really Just Don’t Know….

I see clarifying as the least risky of the three options, so based on that, I’d usually recommend that you try clarifying your hair first. If that doesn’t seem to correct the problems you’re dealing with, I’d try moisture or protein next.