Anyone who’s ever had curly hair will be familiar with the constant struggle to keep it looking healthy, in order to create healthy habits that keep it healthy even longer.

The thing is, when curly hair begins to lose its bounce and shine, it’s easy to fall into old styling habits to hide your natural curl, which in turn only worsens hair health. So, to make it a little easier to stay in a good hair care cycle and protect your curls long term, we’ve rounded up our favourite easy to follow tips.

1. Get regular trims

Curly hair, more often than not, equals dry hair. Unfortunately, dry hair is more susceptible to breakage, split ends and general frizziness so keeping those last few cms trimmed and healthy will make a big difference to the overall appearance of your curls.

2. Use a mask once a week

Ideally, you’d only be washing your curly hair once a week but between work, the gym and life in general, I know how hard of a commitment that would be. So, if you can at least swap out conditioner for a hydrating mask once a week, you’ll be able to maintain hydration, shine and healthy ends.

3. Avoid heat styling

Whenever you can let your natural curls run wild and free, do it! Heat styling wreaks havoc on anyone’s hair but is detrimental to curls in particular. Not only do you get the dryness and breakage that comes along with heat, you’ll be doing slow but often irreversible damage to your curl pattern. Over time, you’ll struggle to get your curls back to their bouncy selves.

Instead, you can refresh your curls each day by spritzing them with water and gently scrunching them back up into place.

4. Don’t rub your hair with your towel

It can be reflexive to instantly start wringing out your hair with your towel after a wash but this friction is actually damaging your cuticle and creating frizz! You’ll also want to avoid twisting your hair into a coil to wring it dry. Instead, you should gently squeeze excess water out by starting near the top and pressing the ends together between your hands. When towel drying, use the same method of squeezing on the spot before moving to a new section to squeeze.