Having trouble getting your curly or wavy to clump up?
Has no technique you’ve tried worked?
Tired of your hair looking like wet ramen noodles?
Maybe roping is the answer.
What Is The Roping Method For Curly Hair?
It’s kinda like it sounds.
Roping is a technique for apply product to your of soaking wet hair that avoids disturbing your clumps. You’re gently squeezing products into your curls like you were squeezing a rope. Starting at the scalp and working your way down to the ends squeezing repeatedly.
That’s pretty much all you need to know. But stick around. There’s some nice demo videos to come. Nothing like seeing someone who knows what they’re doing actually do it, now is there?
Otherwise as the videos will show the actual process is pretty easy.
Simply spread the product over your hands.
Then starting near the scalp you gently squeeze the product into your dripping wet hair.
Move your hands down. Gently squeeze again.
Continue this moving down the section and squeezing action repeatedly. Until you’ve gone the entire length of your strands.
Our look at how to get curls to clump revealed that one goal is to apply the product to your soaking wet hair in a way that doesn’t disrupt the curls or clumps.
Roping does just that.
It’s kinda like the anti-raking method. As raking is where you rake your product laden fingers through your wet hair.
BUT…doing so risks breaking up those clumps.
Plus you can inadvertently introduce frizz.
Although I would hasten to add frizz is a fact of life for those with wavy or curly hair. Having some isn’t worth losing sleep over. Just think of it as a natural way to build volume!
But What It Roping Really?
Okay.
What you’ve got here is nothing more than another product application technique. One that might be good to have at your fingertips.
Good to know since hair can be weird. Not to mention what yours responds to best can be so unpredictable.
For some it’s a simple roping routine. For others it’s one that’s more complex.
For example I saw where one YouTuber rakes in her conditioner. Ropes in the leave in. Then scrunches in the styling products.
Weird, huh? But it works. And gives her clumps that then turn into glorious curls.
For her it’s not raking vs roping hair. It raking AND roping it.
One other thing about techniques and methods. It’s this. Don’t be too quick to dismiss one as a failure.
Meaning you can’t give up on it after one go. To be fair you need time to master the approach. So it may be best to hang in there for like three tries before giving up.
Of course, if the idea of doing something new feels scary…a picture is worth 1000 words.
So how about a some video demonstrations? Ones that quickly show this method in action.
VIDEOS: Showing How To Rope Wavy Hair
In this first video her hair is on the damp side. I bring that up since most do this on dripping wet locks.
She basically sections and then runs her product laden hands down the lengths.
Again the idea is to work the product deep into your strands by repeatedly squeezing.
Some find smaller sections work better for accomplishing that with their hair.
Many, as she did, then finish with scrunching or a quick squish to condish.
This next video shows roping works on shorter hair too.
In this case she has roughly shoulder grazing length curls. Yet she is able to rope the product in just fine.
Sectioning plays a big part in the success of her approach to roping.
She divides her hair into maybe 10 sections. Since smaller sections make it easier to insure each strand gets some product love.
So she ropes the product into each one. Then gives it a good pulsing scrunch to finish it off.
All the while listening for that familiar squishing sound.
The one we all swear by.
The one we all know tells us our hair is wet enough and the product is being worked in good enough for clumping to take place.
I believe some would call this rope scrunching.
Think of this as setting your curls.
You can see what roping curly hair does for her clumps. It’s like they’re forming all fat and juicy right before your eyes.
For sure you can’t argue with the results in her case. Just look at those curls.

One more tip. Some will do this over a large bowl. That lets them catch the conditioner water or product water as it’s scrunched out.
Then they dip their hair in the watery goodness to make sure it is kept soaking, dripping wet. You may know that as the bowl method.
if you want to know more about this water saving approach just click that link to read all about it on our site.
Okay But Why Rope?
Finally, in addition to showing how it’s done this third video offers up three benefits roping gives you.
As product application techniques go roping offers several advantages.
Advantage #1: Unlike raking, this method preserves the curl pattern and clumps that are forming. So where raking tends to break up the clumps for many, this helps keep them intact.
Advantage #2: It is also felt to help better disperse the product throughout your hair.
Advantage #3: Combined with scrunching you get really great penetration of as much water as you can into your hair. Helping you achieve maximum hydration. Or something all girls with curls and waves are constantly trying to get.
That said, you still only want to GENTLY squeeze the product into your hair. Remember that this is a way to apply product not squeeze the water outta your hair. That will come later.
In fact some will continue to spray water to insure any sections ignored while others were roped remain soaked.
One point she makes is worth noting if frizz is an issue for you.
She tries to get the product as close to the roots as she can. Otherwise she finds she ends up with too much scalp frizz.
So there you have it. Roping in a nutshell.
There are many ways to skin the cat when it comes to product application that encourages clumps in curly or wavy hair. This is just another one of those. To make sure you don’t miss any of the wisdom shared on this site why not follow our Pinterest hair care boards? You know to keep the stream of ideas coming your way?

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