20 Steps to Manage Curly Hair for Boys

The 20 Steps

1. Fix a Wash Day and Keep It

Two or three washes a week, always on the same days. Curl responds to routine, and an unpredictable schedule leaves you guessing which state the hair is in each morning.

A calendar marked with a boy's wash days

2. Rinse Thoroughly Before Any Product

A full minute of warm water before shampoo. Warm water swells the strand and lifts the day's build-up, which means less shampoo is needed to do the same job.

Warm water rinsing through a boy's curls

3. Shampoo the Scalp Only

Scrub his scalp with the pads of your fingers and let the lengths hang where they are, because piling the hair up and rubbing it together is what knots the ends. The ends are the oldest and driest part of the hair and they get cleaned enough by the suds running past them.

Fingertips shampooing a boy's scalp

4. Condition the Lengths, Not the Roots

Conditioner from the ears down. Roots produce their own oil and the ends do not, so putting conditioner where the oil already is simply weighs the curl down.

Conditioner being applied to the lengths of a boy's curls

5. Detangle With the Conditioner Still In

Fingers or a wide-tooth comb, in the shower, before rinsing. Slip is what allows a curl to release rather than tear, and this is the single step that decides whether detangling is a fight.

A boy's curls being detangled with conditioner in the shower

6. Section Anything Past the Ears

Four sections, clipped, worked one at a time. Sectioning turns one long unmanageable job into four short ones and is the change that makes the biggest difference on longer curly hair.

A boy's long curls clipped into four sections

7. Always Work From the Ends Upward

Each pass starts at the last few centimetres. Starting at the root drags the entire length through the knot, and that is the pain that ends his cooperation for the next month.

Fingers detangling a boy's curls from the ends up

8. Finish With a Cooler Rinse

The last few seconds of the rinse turned down. Cooler water helps the outer layer of the strand lie flat, which is what makes curls reflect light instead of scattering it.

A boy rinsing his curls with cool water

9. Squeeze, Do Not Rub

Water pressed out with a cotton t-shirt. Towel loops catch individual strands and pull them out of their clumps, and every strand pulled out is a strand that dries as frizz.

A cotton t-shirt squeezing water from a boy's curls

10. Apply Leave-In While It Is Dripping

Not damp, dripping. Water is the carrier that takes product evenly down the strand, and on merely damp hair the same product sits on the surface and dries into a shell.

Leave-in conditioner applied to a boy's soaking wet curls

11. Add Cream Only If Water Is Not Enough

One pea for a whole head, and only if the hair frizzes by midday without it. Children's hair is fine, and the amount that defines an adult curl flattens a child's.

A pea of curl cream being rubbed between palms

12. Distribute With One Slow Pass

Palms flat, smoothing down the hair once. Repeated passes break the clumps apart, and clumping is the entire mechanism behind curl definition.

Flat palms smoothing product down a boy's curls

13. Then Do Not Touch It

Hands off while it dries. Every touch during drying separates clumps that are still setting, which is why hair looks worse the more it is fiddled with.

A boy's curls air-drying undisturbed

14. Air-Dry, or Diffuse on Low

Low airflow only, cupping the hair rather than blowing at it. High airflow blows the clumps apart and produces exactly the frizz the routine was avoiding.

A diffuser cupping a boy's curls on a low setting

15. Break the Cast, If There Is One

If gel was used, squeeze the dried hair gently once to break the crunch. On a child this is usually unnecessary, because the routine rarely includes gel in the first place.

Dried curls being gently squeezed to soften them

16. Protect It Before Bed

Long hair loosely gathered at the crown, short hair left alone. Keeping the length off the pillow protects the clumps and keeps pressure off the nape, where mats begin.

A boy with curls gathered loosely at the crown for bed

17. Sleep on Satin

The one purchase worth making before any product. Cotton grips curl and creates the friction that flattens one side and knits the back together overnight.

A satin pillowcase on a child's bed

18. Morning, Water on the Flat Side Only

Spray whichever side he slept on, not the whole head. It halves the drying time and gets the shape back in about ten seconds.

One side of a boy's curls being sprayed in the morning

19. Rake, Never Brush

Fingers spread wide, drawn through once, then out. A brush through dry curl separates every clump on the head, and nothing short of rewetting brings them back.

Spread fingers raking through a boy's dry curls

20. Trim Every Six to Eight Weeks

Perimeter and nape, whether or not the shape needs it. Split ends travel upward, and a small regular trim costs less length than the repair does.

Scissors trimming the perimeter of a boy's curly hair

Styling and Upkeep

Refresh mid-week rather than re-washing. Water and fingers restore the shape without stripping oils the hair has spent days distributing.

Keep the spray bottle where the routine happens. Wherever he stands in the morning, not wherever the products live.

Watch the nape more than the top. It mats first, from collars, pillows and car seats, and it is the section that ends grow-outs.

Trim before the ends look bad. By the time splits are visible they have already travelled up the strand.

Adjust the routine as the pattern changes. Curl commonly shifts between two and four years old, and what worked last year may not now — the curl type scale is a useful way to describe the change to a barber.

A parent refreshing a boy's curls with a water spray

Mistakes to Avoid

Washing every day. Curl already struggles to carry oil down the strand, and daily shampoo removes what little arrives.

Detangling dry. With no slip the comb tears rather than passes, and one painful session costs you ten future ones.

Applying product to towel-dried hair. Without water as a carrier it never reaches inside the curl.

Rubbing with a towel. The loops lift strands out of their clumps and every lifted strand dries as frizz.

Skipping the pillowcase. It is the cheapest step here and it undoes more damage than any product reverses.

Frizzy dry curls on a boy after towel drying

FAQ

How often should it be washed? Two or three times a week, with plain water refreshes in between.

What order do products go on? Leave-in on dripping wet hair first, cream second and only if needed.

Is a night routine necessary? One satin pillowcase, and everything else about the night is optional.

A boy with well-defined curls after a wash day

Final Thoughts

Get wash day and the pillowcase right and the mornings stop being a problem worth solving. Everything else on this list is a refinement of those two decisions, and none of it works without them.

For individual techniques rather than the full sequence see ways to style a boy's curly hair, and for cuts that reduce the work read curly haircuts for boys. More in Men's Haircuts.