Copycat "Style" - Inspired by CurlyGirlyB

I am super excited to be participating in this month's Hair Carnival!! This time around it's all about recreating each others' styles. I was paired up with Shelly, the author of Curly Girly B. Shelly is a mama who, like me, is trying to figure out how to best care for her daughter's curly hair. My all-time favourite post from her blog is this one, on hair care basics for curly hair. She covers a ton of important need-to-know info in one spot.

Side note: Shelly's taking a little break from adding new content to her blog, but do go check out Curly Girly B for some great info and to see more pics of B and her gorgeous curly hair!!

For the Hair Carnival, I recreated something that some might not consider a "style" per se; maybe more of a technique. But I was really inspired by a post where Shelly totally achieves beautiful, defined curls on little B. Here are her cute curls (copied with permission - thanks Shelley!)

Here's B: she is too cute!!!

I am always looking for ways to get curl definition - for both JJ's 4B(ish) hair and my own 3AB(ish) hair. 

When I saw that adorable photo of B, I was inspired to try her technique - she defines B's curls with a Denman brush.

One of the first tools I purchased on my hair journey was a Denman brush, since it seemed like the word Denman was mentioned in every other blog I read. But I never really got into using it. I found that I was finger detangling more than I was using a comb or brush. Because I am "curl-defintion challenged", my own hair spends a lot of time in a ponytail, and JJ's is usually in twists or braids, so neither one of use spends much time with loose hair.  

  

The A-Ha moment came when I read Shelly's next post, which has a link to a video demonstrating how to use a Denman brush to achieve curl definition. In all my blog-reading, I had never caught onto the fact that the angle of the brush would help to define curls. I'd just been using the Denman like I would any old brush.

I tried the Denman technique first on my own hair. Here is what happened:

My kinda frizzy, not very defined curls after a long day at work.

Freshly co-washed with Mixed Chicks Leave-In

Better definition with good Denman technique

As an experiment, I decided to only brush one side of my hair with the Denman brush. I left the other side to dry without brushing it (my hair had been thoroughly finger detangled in the shower). I took pictures of each side to compare as my hair was drying:

Dry hair:

No Denman

Yes Denman

Can YOU see the difference? It may be hard to see in photos, but I think the Denman side really was more defined. The curls clumped together more, and were generally less frizzy. Here is my Denman side the next day:

The next day - still quite defined!!

So what about JJ's 4B(ish) hair??

Well, I think there's potential, but the missing factor seems to be the clumping bit. Her tiny coils separate easily, and never seem to clump together well, even using the Denman brush. She has very "cotton candy" hair. When brushed, even with the Denman, even using the special technique, even using a variety of well-recommended products, I found it really hard to get her hair to clump together:

see the little defined curl?

Maybe I haven't yet found the right product.

Or MAYBE her hair - with its tiny coils and extreme shrinkage, can not do what I am trying to make it do? Which is okay, because I love what her hair CAN do - the versatility of her hair is my favourite thing about it.

yup, those are small coils!

just a reminder of the extreme shrinkage factor

Feel free to offer your thoughts on "curl definition" for JJ....... I'd love to hear from you!!