If you have naturally curly hair, you know the struggle of finding a haircut that actually works. You might have walked out of a salon in the past feeling like your hair was cut beautifully while wet, only to watch it dry into a triangle or shrink up way higher than you expected.

If you are trying to figure out if a dry, naturally curly haircut like a DevaCut is right for your hair, the choice comes down to how you live your day-to-day life and how you want your texture to shine.

The Big Rule: The Way You Wear Your Hair Matters

The very first thing to consider is how you style your hair on a normal basis. This is the absolute best cut for you if you wear your hair curly most of the time.

If you like to switch back and forth from your natural curls to a smooth, straight blowout, this is not the haircut for you. When we cut curly hair dry, we are not creating a geometrically precise, even haircut for straight hair. Because different areas of your head have different curl patterns, a dry curly cut will likely have pieces that look uneven if you blow it out straight.

However, when left curly, those varied lengths at the ends are exactly what add beautiful weight, fullness, and shape to the overall style.

Curls Are Like Snowflakes: Why Wet Cutting Fails

Curls are like snowflakes because no two are exactly the same. You cannot treat them with a standard, one-size-fits-all approach.

When curly hair is cut wet, the stylist usually applies a typical rounded layer. While that looks beautiful on straight hair or a round-brush blowout, it places the layers in the wrong spots for a natural curl fall. When it dries, you often end up with a top section that looks like a single heavy layer and a bottom section that looks completely straight.

Think of cutting curly hair like shaping a bush. We have to look at the way the texture falls naturally with gravity. Hair lays differently on top of the head because of gravity on planet Earth, and it lays much differently down at the nape of the neck. Some spots get weighed down, while other spots fluff out.

Cutting the hair dry allows us to adjust to your specific texture, curl tightness, and desired length. To get a fuller, rounded look that complements the natural fall, the top of the head is layered at a very steep angle. This creates a gorgeous surface layer sitting on top of a solid length, blended together with graduation and a customized face frame based on your head shape and hairline.

Say Goodbye to the “Oh No, It’s Too Short” Panic

The biggest fear most curly clients have is leaving the salon looking like a poodle or losing all their length.

Cutting the hair dry completely eliminates the guessing game of shrinkage. Because the hair is already dry and in its natural state, we can see exactly where every single curl lands. The problem of accidentally cutting off too much hair is reduced tremendously, giving you total control over the final length.

Let’s be honest: hot tools are incredibly rough on the hair, and the time it takes to blow out and straighten your hair every week is exhausting. So many people would much rather wear their hair natural. They just need the right cut and the right products to help them achieve the look.

How to Prepare for Your First Dry Curly Cut

If you decide to book a dry naturally curly cut, your preparation makes a huge difference.

• Wear your hair down and natural: Do not pull your hair back smooth into a ponytail, braid, or clip before coming in. We need to see the hair exactly how it falls naturally.
• Style it like you normally do: Set your hair the way you do on a regular day. This allows us to see the exact shape you get at home.
• Don’t worry if you are new to your curls: Most curly girls have a routine that works for them, and we want to cut a shape that works with that routine. But if you are a newbie and don’t know what you’re doing yet, we will happily go over exactly how to set your hair and help you find the right routine.

One client once told me that if she could tell her younger self one thing, it would be that her curls were beautiful and she should embrace them. Your curls are beautiful, and learning to work with them instead of against them changes everything.