Last week, I attended a chat with Mahisha Dellinger, CEO of Curls, regarding her new book, Against All Odds: From The Projects to the Penthouse hosted by the beautiful ladies of Natural Hair Does Care. I’ll have my recap of the event up next week, but I left the event with some CURLS products and it was wash day so…. a review has emerged!

Curls Creamy Curl Cleanser

As soon as I came back from the event, I jumped in the shower and used the shampoo that came in the goodie bags which was the Creamy Curl Cleanser. I was confused at first because this doesn’t lather AT ALL so I couldn’t tell if my hair was clean! I know many sulfate-free shampoos don’t lather but at least they have some sort of tingle so you know it’s working. Anyway, I did two rounds because I wasn’t sure if I got all the dirt the first time.

Curls Coconut Curlada Conditioner

The first thing I look for in a conditioner is being thick enough to coat my hair strands, and this passed the test. I covered my hair with a plastic cap for about 5-10 minutes and then proceeded to comb through. Yup, comb. I’m having a hard time figuring out how to finger detangle my haircut since the hair in the back is so short – there’s no real way for me to dry detangle and section like I’m used to, so I’ve decided to use a wide toothed comb on wash day. Building off lessons from last time, I picked up sections in the front instead of thinking I could just glide the comb right through. The Curls conditioner provided just enough slip for me to comb through, and it didn’t dry out or need reapplication like some other conditioners.

Curls Blueberry Bliss Curl Control Jelly

After I rinsed out the conditioner and stepped out of the shower, I got worried.

The instructions for the Blueberry Bliss Curl Control Jelly say to use on wet hair after shampooing and conditioning, so I spread a glob of the jelly all over my hair, and sectioned off the front middle part for flat twists, and covered the remainder with a plastic cap so it wouldn’t dry out. As I was sectioning my hair to start my twist, I realized I hadn’t used anything to moisturize my hair, and looked back at the description, ingredients, and instructions for the control jelly. It said nothing about moisturizing and all about hold, but the directions said to moisturize with another Curls product a day later. I felt that would be a recipe for disaster so I rummaged through my box of hair goodies looking for a moisturizer by Curls. I found a tiny sample of the Crème Brule, and I spread that around on top of the jelly.

Now anyone who knows how to moisturize their natural hair knows that at this point, I’ve pretty much set myself up for hair that retains absolutely no moisture. I used no leave in conditioner, a styling gel, and then topped it with a moisturizing cream. At this point I considered abandoning the whole effort and rinsing my hair to start over, but for experiments sake I figured things couldn’t be THAT bad.

I was right. 

After 15 flat twists (with the ends supplemented with more control jelly), and 15 hours, my hair looked like this.

With some separating and fluffing (and makeup), it looked like this.

Well defined, and cute, but more importantly it was dry. Not about to break dry, but like 4th day from moisturizing dry, feel me? To remedy the situation, that night, I applied some Havana Curls Leave In on my hair and twisted it into ten or so large sections, and the next morning, my hair was bomb! It had definition, moisture, and height just like I need it – and right on time for me to meet Eunique Jones, creator of the Because of Them We Can campaign!

Final Thoughts

While the way I used the CURLS products didn’t leave my hair as moisturized as I wanted it to be, the Blueberry Bliss Curl Control Jelly did exactly what it’s advertised to do – give hair definition. For kinky textured hair, I don’t think it’s feasible to apply a gel without a moisturizer, so this goes to show that you shouldn’t always listen to the instructions on a product if it deviates from your normal, tried and true, product order.

Have you tried Curls products before? Do you think they work on kinky textured hair?