Here I am with another post about how to take care of your curly hair.

Today I will share with you my hair growth experiences, my actual favorites and also some fails.

As you know, I started my curly hair journey in the beginning of March 2019. I have naturally curly hair but had been straightening (and therefore, damaging) it for 10 years.

I have medium porosity hair (it was high porosity when I started my journey but thanks to the right hair care the porosity changed!) and my curls are mostly type 3B and 3C. Moreover, hormones also play a significant role in the appearance of my hair: at the beginning of my cycle, especially when I’m very close to ovulation, my hair is beautiful, shiny and my curls are super defined; while in the PMS and menstrual stages, my curls are pale, dry, and frizzy and looser. This is also a normal phenomenon.

So in June 2020, after more than a year of CGM, it was time for a haircut. It could have come sooner, but I really don’t like short hair and I was so scared not only of a big chop, but even of a smaller cut. I knew my hair was damaged and that a lot should have been cut and that I would end up crying in the salon. However in June I had to admit that it was high time for a cut. In a Facebook group for ladies in Milan, girls with coils talked a lot about a hairdresser called Rella: apparently she is the best at cutting curly hair in the city. I believed them and I didn’t regret it!

Rella’s Eden is a very nice little salon and Rella is a real professional: she knows the difference between Afro and European curly hair, she knows what products these hair types need, she has CGM products, she really knows how to cut curly hair. And she is also a sensitive soul: she saw how scared I was of ending up with short hair, so although she showed me how much of the damaged ends should go, she added that she felt that this would shock me now, because as my hair curls, I would see it very short. So let’s stick to cutting only the most damaged part now and do the rest in a few months time. 🙂 The hair cut she did gave me more volume which I absolutely loved. I’m very grateful because I still cried about how short my hair got, but I don’t even dare to think what it would have been like if she really cut off the whole damaged part. I liked the bigger volume, here is a lame but still well-illustrating selfie:

Immediately after the first shock, I immersed myself in the mysteries of hair growth! As part of my collaboration with the ByMalia webshop, I chose an exciting hair growth serum and started to use it as soon as it arrived.

In addition to the serum, I chose two supersoft silk scrunchies to prevent breakage when I wear my hair in a ponytail. As we know, silk is one of the best friends of curly hair!

So, this Cocoa Nibs & Honey Hair Growth stimulating serum by Camille Rose is a miracle! ❤️ Rella also recommended me Ayurvedic oils and this serum is based on such oils, but it also contains coconut, olive, jojoba and sesame oils, as well as biotin, honey, herbs and even love can be found in ingredients list!

This is how I use it: every two days I use my fingertips to apply it on my scalp and massage it with this silicone scalp massager in order to stimulate blood circulation and hair growth. On wash days, I apply it generously, wrap my hair in a microfiber towel, and I let it sit in for 2-3 hours. I apply another product to the lenght of my hair, I will show it later.

It smells very pleasant and is really effective!

Here is the length of my hair 3 months later:

Looking back, I can say that my hair was already much longer at the end of August, after only 2 months. I just came across this picture:

You can check this serum out in the byMalia webshop and I would recommend it for hair growth regardless of your hair type.

My hair is basically very dry, just like my skin, so I really like oily hair masks. In the past I used only a simple, 100% extra virgin coconut oil for it, which I loved, but now I’ve found this oil blend called Olio di Macassar in a natural products shop here in Milan, and I’m already using the second bottle of it.

I apply the Camille Rose serum to my scalp, and then I apply a rich amount of this oil to the rest of my hair, with special attention to the ends. It has a divine Christmas scent because it also contains cloves and sweet oranges! I love smelling like Christmas, haha. 🙂

This product is from L’erbolario, it is worth checking if it’s avaliable in your country if you also suffer from very dry hair, because it is exceptional!

Speaking of Italian products, I unfortunately had also a big disappointment. 🙁 In the very same natural products shop where I also bought the Macassar oil, I noticed a new brand called Gyada brand on the shelf. Their ingredients are beautiful, the products are CGM friendly, so I purchased a balm, a hair gel and an anti-frizz spray.

They looked so good, I wanted to love them so much, they were given three chances, but unfortunately my relationship with them didn’t turn into a love story. My hair was very dry and just looked like cotton candy on my head.

So I have my first real disappointment. This is the very first one because although I didn’t like the Shea Moisture Curl and Shine shampoo when I used it for the first time, I started to use it again after 6 months and suddenly it started working on my hair. Maybe I should give these Gyada products another try in 6 months time…

And then I finally show you some favorites quickly! The first is Bouncecurl’s legendary hair gel, the Light Creme Gel. It is no coincidence that it is legendary! This product is simply fantastic, it doesn’t make the strands harder, it brings out the nice little curls, it doesn’t dry them out and I love the exotic scent.

The second is again from an Italian brand, Irsan. In the summer I discovered it in Bormio, in the local herbarium. I did not know this brand before, it turned out that they are from Bormio and they use the local thermal water in their products. This Monoi di Tiarè balm has some really divine summer scent and made my hair so shiny! It just smelled like vacation, really. I will buy again next year, when we go back to Bormio.

The other product I used and loved was a hair mousse from Shea Moisture, the Frizz Free Curl Mousse. I used it a lot in the summer, it gives a nice definition, I use it also to refresh my hair. For me, it is the best hair mousse for curly hair.

I ordered a Ziaja Goat’s Milk Hair Mask enriched with complex keratin from Notino and it worked very well on my hair when it needed more protein. I loved the result, it really restored softness and flexibility to my hair. It absolutely did not weight hair down.

In addition to hair care products, I am also taking DM’s Mivolis hair vitamins, they are very good, rich in vitamins and they don’t upset my stomach as an epic fail product did.

Which was this epic fail product? The famous Hairburst Unicorn Vegan vitamins!

I purchased them online with a pay 1 get 2 promotion and I had big hopes. However, they made me soooo sick, I was bloated, had stomach ache and diarrhea. I stopped taking them after 4 days of suffering and now I’m taking my good old, cheap and effective Mivolis vitamins again.

And if you arrived to the end of this gigantic post, I want you to know that I am very grateful for your attention! I hope I was able to give you some helpful tips and I would like to encourage every girl and boy with curly hair to love their natural hair and give the Curly Girl Method a try.

Let me know your experiences in a comment if you want to and I’m also waiting for you on Instagram!