For many clumping their wavy hair is a struggle.
Not unlike how curly girls feel with their wild child curls. Everyone knows how hard taking care of curly hair can be.
The idea here is to give you some tips that can fast track you to better wavy hair definition.
Because you can have amazing waves after figuring out how to clump your wavy hair
To get you there, this is what we’re looking at.
Quick Section Navigation
- How to Get Wavy Hair to Clump
- VIDEO: Help For Those Who Need to Know How To Clump 2A,2B,2C Waves
- VIDEO: How To Get Defined Waves | More Wavy Hair Clumping Tips
Now if your wavy hair is not clumping that link takes you to our article covering three possible culprits and what you can do to fix them.
How to Get Wavy Hair to Clump
Having watched a number of videos there’s a common road map most follow to bring out the best in their waves.
This quick list sums up the generic routine used to get glorious clumpage.
- 1) Shampoo
- 2) Clarify often with ACV
- 3) Deep Condition Squish To Condish
- 4) Styling Products More Scrunching
- 5) Plop or squeeze into microfiber towel
- 6) Diffuse or air dry
- 7) Scrunch Out the Crunch
Obviously if you use a clarifying shampoo rather than an apple cider vinegar rinse the first two steps can be combined.
Now to see these in action we’ve got two video clips.
Help For Those Who Need to Know How To Clump 2A, 2B, 2C Waves
In addition to her routine, Courtney shares her very best wavy hair clumping tips and tricks. If you’re feeling lost this will be like a treasure trove of ideas to help guide you in your quest for healthy-looking tresses.
Here’s the timestamps of approximately where each of the seven steps start in this video:
- 1:15 Shampoo
- 2:10 Clarify
- 3:20 Deep Condition Squish To Condish
- 5:22 Styling Products More Scrunching
- 9:04 Plop or Squeeze into microfiber towel
- 12:23 Diffuse or air dry
- 13:58 Scrunch Out the Crunch
Nestled in among those are 12 not to be missed tips you should know if clumping isn’t easy for you.
Pre-Wetting Your Hair Thoroughly
All road to glorious curls or waves leads through a thorough soaking of those tresses. Cause water is the key to success for happy curly or wavy locks.
Most want to make sure their hair is totally, completely, 100% saturated when applying their products. Failing to do that is usually a mistake. One that will sabotage your wavy hair clumping aspirations.
So don’t gloss over this point. If you have been saddled with sad and stringy curl clumps think maybe it’s because you’re not using nearly enough water with your products.
That said, you be you. And do what works for your mane, okay?
But usually you want to follow this rule:
Get Your Hair As Wet As Possible!
Next
Lather up For a Root To Ends Cleansing
The focus on saturation continues with your shampoo cycle. In this case she’s using a cleanser that also clarifies. Yet without being too stripping.
Tip# 1: Don’t ignore your scalp when clarifying. Buildup happens there too. Use your fingertips, not your nails, to scrub that scalp.
Also she pays attention to keeping that hair in the back sopping while washing her hair upside down.
On To ACV Clarifying Rinse to Get Your Luster Back
Typically clumping is easier to achieve when any and all build up is banished. Leaving zero. Zip. Nada behind. Which is why after shampooing, you’ll probably want to clarify.
A natural way to do that is with an apple cider vinegar rinse.
Yeah it’s an extra step. But one worth doing. And worth doing well. Taking care that every strand has been cleansed.
Just don’t forget to rinse the apple cider vinegar out right away.
If you need to know more we covered rinsing with ACV. Click that link to start immersing yourself in all things ACV.
Tip# 2: ACV can make your hair fairly tangled. Not a good idea to worry about that here. We’ll let you know when in a bit.
This doesn’t have to be apple cider vinegar.
If you have a preferred clarifier go with that.
Or if you’re worried about residual vinegary smell feel free to freelance with an off-the-shelf clarifying product.
Deep Condition to Rehydrate
Since apple cider vinegar can be drying, you probably want to moisturize. Using either a deep conditioner or mask of some sort.
Tip# 3: Brushing can help work in your product of choice thoroughly to make sure every one of your strands is covered. Bonus! Effortless detangling.
You’ll want to squish to condish the product into your strands. To insure you drive that hydrating good deep into your hair.
The whole idea is to get your hair to maximum hydration. Because locking in the moisture now will make the clumping to come happen so much easier.
Wet Plop For More Definition
Wet plop for 20-30 minutes using a shower cap to give the product time to work it’s magic.
Tip# 4: Wrap a thick towel over the shower cap to trap the heat. This open up the cuticles resulting in better product penetration.
Time up? Then rinse it all out. Especially important if you have fine or thin hair as you want to avoid weighing your hair down.
Break Out The Leave In Conditioner
Let the clumping begin. That starts with reaching for the leave-in your waves respond to best.
Tip# 5: Lift the saturated hair off the back your head to keep it from getting stuck in place.
Then proceed to squish to condish for all you’re worth. Sometimes turning your head from side to side so you’re working the hair from all angles.
Curling Custard Plus Lots of Water
As you know a curling custard is a hydrating styling product. It’s designed to moisture while giving your waves some hold and definition.
One that comes up over and over when discussing clumping is Kinky Curly Curling Custard. For many it’s a can’t-live-without-product. Just saying.
It may not have the hold of a gel. But it can give you soft, lush nicely defined waves none-the-less.
Tip# 6: Harder hold gels also naturally help your clumps hold together when compared to lighter hold products.
She glazes it on. Then pulses lots of water into her strands.
Tip# 7: Once you’re down to applying styling products you may find squishing and pulsing with tons of water is the move you want to make.
Sure there are a couple of different ways to try to tease the clumps out of your hair in combination with the styling products.
- Scrunching like this
- Or using a wet brush works best
- Others just rake their wet mane with their fingers
In addition there are those that swear glazing products on the top and underside of hair hanging upside down works great.
You can usually get good clump formation by squeezing the water out when scrunching.
Or when you squish to condish.
Rope On the Medium Hold Gel
Time to apply your gel. In her case it’s high-performing BioSilk Rock Hard Gel.
From reading the rave reviews this is a fav go-to of the 2A, 2B, 2C waves crowd.
Tip 8: Take care not to stretch out or disrupt your clumps when applying the gel. Either go with a gentle roping or do the praying hands method with a light touch to get complete coverage with the product.
She again meticulously scrunches and pulses the product into her hair. Doing this as long as it takes for the hair to absorb all the product.
Tip# 9: Here’s how to tell absorption is complete. Your hands shouldn’t feel sticky as they might have when you started. That’s a sign of product transfer from your hands to your hair.
Once again the key here is water. Keep wetting your hands as you’re scrunching. The number one issue for those having trouble clumping is they don’t get and keep their hair wet enough.
Again, don’t forget to give some product love to the hair in the back of your head.
Seems many end up with something wonky going on with the hair back there. Here’s another idea
Tip# 10: During styling try to rake the hair off the back of your head. While not neglecting to add more water to keep it super saturated. Remembering to turn your head from side as you’re adding products in your routine.
Plopping in the Perfection
Dry plop for 20-30 minutes. This gives your hair one more chance to absorb any product you’ve added during your routine.
Some find wet plopping works better for them. That’s because it encourages any frizz to form up with its curl friends. Might be worth a shot if frizz is an issue.
Now if you’re going to want to dry plop you really want to pick up the Perfect Haircare Towel. I just bought a microfiber turbie-towel thingee for my little niece but wish I had bought this one instead. (What you gonna do?)
Tip# 11: See if you can’t leave so breathing room at the top of whatever you use to plop. It’s a way to keep the clumps from getting crushed.
Anyway once you remove the hair from plopping you then to scrunch it into microfiber. Again taking great care not to disrupt the clumping you’ve worked so hard to establish.
Diffuse to 90% Dry
Finally diffuse until your waves are about 90% dry. Then simply let things air dry the rest of the way.
She too gently scoops up the hair into the cup of the diffuser with the dryer off. Then only with the diffuser pinned against your head do you turn on the heated air. This method is called pixie diffusing.
If you’re not aware of that way to diffuse click that link to read the article we wrote.
The Final Act: SOTC
Scrunch Out the Crunch – only with a twist.
Tip# 12: Lightly coat your hands with your favorite oil. Any will do. Then smooth it over the crunchy waves and gently scrunch.
Bonus! Oil used like this is known to help moisturize meaning less frizz too.
How To Get Defined Waves | More Wavy Hair Clumping Tips
For this video here are the timestamps of about where each of the our game plan’s seven steps starts.
- 1:05 Shampoo
- 1:10 Clarify
- 1:45 Deep Condition Squish To Condish
- 3:04 Styling Products More Scrunching
- 4:12 Plop or Micro Plop into microfiber towel
- 4:27 Diffuse or air dry
- 6:01 Scrunch Out the Crunch
Her path to wavy hair definition goes heavy on the products. Just wanted to give you fair warning. You may or may not need to use a
- hydrating mask
- defining cream
- curl volumizing jelly
- mousse
…as she does. Doing so because she says her are harder to get to clump-up.
Now the first three are used to unleash hydration power in a bottle. With wavy hair it’s often best to go for those with a lighter hold so as not to weigh down your waves.
Anywhere here’s a walk-through of the step by step process shared.
Brush out the Tangles and Pre-wet
Brush out hair before washing to get rid of tangles
The main event starts with getting your hair sopping wet. Which means you want to get you hair as wet as humanly possible.
Lather up For A Good Strands Scrubbing
If you’re not going to do an apple cider vinegar rinse then you need to use a clarifying shampoo when going for clumps.
Think of your shampoo sesh as the foundational step. One that eliminates clump inhibiting build up.
Tip 13: You may find a scalp massaging brush helps to remove any build up on your scalp.
Next it’s time to roll out the styling products
Use An Intense Hydrating Mask to Deep Condition
She starts off with a hydrating mask rather than conditioner. Focusing the product on the ends – likely mid shaft on down. Which as you know is the part of your hair that tends to be the driest.
That she wet brushes through to insure even distribution.
Tip# 14: Whether you hair is colored or not will impact how dry it tends to get. No news there, right? But it can make a difference is how well your hair soaks in the moisture. Or needs to at least.
Squish to condish to squeeze in all the product to make sure every parched strand is coated.
Rinse out completely – again you don’t want to weigh your hair down with product. Which is also why whenever possible go with something weightless. Unless your hair needs more hold, naturally.
Wet brushing again can aid clump formation.
Tip# 15: Don’t forget to lift the hair off the back of your head unless you want it plastered in place.
Styling Products on Parade
Applied the defining cream using the praying hands method. You want to take care not to rough house with your hair at this point. Not the thing to do when trying to encourage clumping.
That was then scrunched in.
Now to conclude her moisturizing product parade she roped in some volumizing jelly (gel). Using Ouidad Curl Shaper probably for thicker texture. Another worth trying? The more affordable Aussie Hair Gel.
This helps to seal in the moisture while controlling frizz. Knowing as you do that if your hair has wet frizz then for sure it will be frizzy when it dries.
At this point she stands upright so her waves are falling as they would ordinarily.
She wraps up with a mousse for volume.
This she applies by glazing it across the surface using praying hands then scrunching it in.
Again note that she tends not to apply all products with her hair upside down. With this her hair falling in the position it will be in as it dries.
Tip 16: While not always, it’s often, the case you get the best results when you use less of a product than you think you need. Better to start lite and then do more next time if you don’t get the results you were hoping for.
Again don’t forget the back of your head. Flip it from side to side and shake it loose so it doesn’t get cemented flat against your skull. More on how to do that is coming up.
Tip# 17: Another idea for the back. When brushing turn your head to one side. Then repeat on the other side. Same for scrunching. This will add some volume to the hair back there.
Micro Plop For More Definition
She squeezes the excess water into a microfiber towel or tee-shirt. Then she too pixie diffuses.
Diffusing
In essence you’re diffusing your hair in sections with limited blow dryer movement to keep from blasting your waves all over the place.
She uses the black orchid diffuser. If you want a better idea why we have an article all about it. Plus which hair dryers it works with.
The Last Act: SOTC
The routine is finished off by applying oil again using praying hands prior to scrunching out the crunch.
Feel free to ‘zhuzh’ up the roots as much or as little as you want. Recognizing that may break up your hard won clumps some.
If these 17 tips left you hungry for more high performance ideas like these you’ll love our Curls Gone Wild Pinterest board. Which is why you should follow us now. Today. So you don’t forget.
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