Squish to Condish: My New Favorite Way to Condition My Hair

So if there's one thing that I love about having time off for the holiday season, it's the extra days to experiment with my hair knowing that if an experiment utterly fails, it's ok because I don't have to go to class!
I read about the Squish to Condish method on a hair forum, and I was skeptical.  I don't follow the true Curly Girl method anymore (I use a sulfate free shampoo rather than conditioner washing), so I didn't think that the method would be super beneficial for me.  I thought my hair was pretty well hydrated overall and I was quite happy with it!

But, as you can probably guess, that all changed after I gave this method a whirl.

Here's the before and after, and then I will explain what this method is all about and how you can do it with the products that you're already using.

Hair before using Squish to Condish method

After using Squish to Condish

As you can see, the squish to condish made a huge difference (I also got rid of my stringy ends with a haircut, but the overall curl pattern in the before photo is still representative of what my normal hair looks like without using this method).

So how does this work?

1) Wash your hair however you normally would, whether that's conditioner washing or shampoo washing. Rinse out your preferred washing agent like normal.

2) Move your hair off of your head with your fingers so that it's not all stuck to your scalp.

3) Grab a big pile of conditioner and start working it through your hair until it feels slippery like seaweed.  You can finger comb it through for this step. The focus of this step is getting the hair evenly coated and working out tangles, so if you need to use a wide toothed comb to help out, go for it.

4) Now, instead of just running water over to rinse, take your hands and cup some water in them.  Squish the water upward into your conditioned hair, forming curls.  Think of it like this: you're trying to swell up the cuticle in the center of each hair strand, so you're trying to replace the conditioner with water.

5) Add more conditioner using a squishing motion.

6) Squish water into your hair.

7) How much? How many times? You should keep doing this until your hair is very wet, but it stops dripping water out.  I know that sounds really odd. This is why I was skeptical.  The first time I did this, it took like 6 tries to get the water to stop dripping.  But it did happen.  If your hair is extremely dehydrated, you might have to stop for fear of wasting water/product before the dripping really stops.

8) Style your hair like you usually would.  I have found I can easily skip the leave in conditioner with this and move right to a mousse (I still adore my Suave Captivating Curls mousse) or a gel (my current favorite gel product is the Curl Enhancing Jelly from Spiral Solutions).  I apply my mousse or jelly in the shower, because it's quick and easy.  I then squeeze out my hair with a flour sack towel, which I find are much gentler for squeezing water out of hair than a normal bath towel.

If you give this method a try, let me know how it goes! Happy holidays, curlies!