The products absolutely not worth spending your money on if you have curly hair

Courtesy of Penny Whittingham

And where to prioritise your spending instead, because: cost of living crisis

Penny Whittingham

16 April 2023

From shampoos and deep conditioners to curl creams and edge controls, it’s difficult to know which products are a necessary investment and which are just trending for the time being.

It’s easy to assume that you just need EVERYTHING because that’s what your favourite curly influencer is telling you – am I even a little guilty? Perhaps.

In reality, though, you do not need to have an extensive product collection in order to have healthy hair, especially when we are all trying to tighten our belts in the trenches of a cost of living crisis.

One of the best ways to save money on your curly hair products is to get rid of the unnecessary added extras. What are these extras? Keep reading.

Edge controls

There is this misconception in the natural hair community that having laid edges with perfect swoops is the only way for someone’s natural hair to look acceptable. It suggests that edges that aren’t slicked down make natural hair look unkempt, which simply is not the case.

This perpetuates yet another ‘rule’ about how Black women in particular should wear their hair, and it is damaging.

I personally very rarely reach for edge controls, to the point where it is not worth owning one as it would just expire. Instead of spending extra money on a separate edge control to your styling gel, I would recommend switching it out for a gel that can do both jobs effectively, such as these:

While we’re here, there is also no need for an edge brush – a toothbrush is just fine!

Conditioners and masks

You won’t always need both a conditioner and a mask. I always say: “Less is more, until you need more.”

Applying a conditioner followed by a mask is often an unnecessary step and can be doing more harm than good in terms of over conditioning and overworking your hair.

To simplify things, I recommend buying a half-way product that will fulfill both roles of being slippery enough to ease detangling, but nourishing enough to retain the moisture and structure of your curls. Some great alternatives are:

Refresher sprays

Honestly, refresher sprays continue to disappoint me. I haven’t used a single spray that was specifically made for refreshing curls that has wowed me. There are a couple of leave-in conditioner sprays that have impressed me, but refresher sprays? Zero.

In my opinion, refresher sprays rarely actually do their job properly. I expect one to help redefine my mid-week curls but most of the time, they just dampen my hair and leave it frizzy, and it’s often better to just use a dry shampoo.

Yes, you read that correctly. Dry shampoo just adds that bit of hold and body that my hair starts to lack as the week goes on and generally wakes my hair up. Try one of my recommendations and see what you think:

Moisturising shampoos

I understand there are certain times when moisturising shampoos come to the rescue but as I have grown to learn more about my hair, the less I use them and the more I reach for my hydrating shampoos instead.

Hydrating shampoos are the middle ground between clarifying and moisturising shampoos, providing the benefits of both by not stripping hair of its natural oils but still cleansing the hair of any product build-up and dirt from the previous week of styling.

As with a lot of things, these product recommendations and substitutions will depend on how you typically like to style your hair. But I would put money on there being products on your shelf that you have only used once because they didn’t live up to your expectations, or you have just never needed to use them.

Make a mental note of these products and nip the unnecessary spends in the bud!

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