How to Diffuse Curly Hair for Perfectly Defined Coils
And although your diffuser will provide less intense heat on your strands, you still want to use a heat protectant to make sure your hair stays healthy and free of damage from any hot tools.
If you want to reduce frizz, the key is water, says Bennett. “Usually, when your hair is frizzy, it’s searching for water in the environment, because for some reason or another, the moisture has not penetrated the shaft of the hair,” she says. “Because the cortex of the hair is looking for moisture, it’s sending a signal to the outer shaft of the hair to go out into the environment and find moisture.” And when the hair does that, it causes the frizzy look. The solution is simple: “You need more water or water-retention products,” says Bennett. Think leave-in conditioners, hydrating curl creams, and more. Pro tip: “A quick way to blast frizz is to add water to your styling product and diffuse right away,” says Bennett.
She also recommends extra-hold gel to define kinky curly hair and cream- and gel-based products, as “you can pretty much use them from start to finish, either to dry your curls or to style your curls wet or dry,” she says.
How to diffuse curly hair, according to a hairstylist
Good news: Diffusing hair at home is super straightforward. First, section your hair in six to eight pieces with clips, says Bennett.
“You start primarily in the back of the hair, and you use your product and water to achieve your desired wet curly style,” she says. “And once you have your style set and your curls to your liking, you then go in with your diffuser and blast that section of hair with diffused air until it fully dries before moving on to the next.” Simply repeat that process with each section of hair until your whole head is dry.
You can hold the diffuser on the top of your head, going from the roots to the tips (the same positioning as if you were using a concentrator), or you can come at your hair from the tips, bringing the diffuser under the hair and collecting it in the bowl until it’s dry. Or, try a mixture of both!
To increase volume while you’re diffusing your curls, “flipping the hair upside down is the best trick,” says Bennett.
Though curly hair tends to be fairly voluminous on its own, “some curly hair has a bit more density, especially as the water travels down toward the end of the hair to drip off,” says Bennett. “You may experience a flatter top and more density on the very bottom.” If this sounds like you, “flipping that hair over to go against gravity and diffusing there for a couple of seconds at your front and top pieces will add volume to the root of the hair,” says Bennett.
Catharine Malzahn is the contributing associate beauty editor at Glamour.
