Coarse or Gray Curly Hair Routine + How to Style & Hide Grays

If your hair feels brittle, stiff, and dry, this routine for coarse-textured or gray curly hair will moisturize and define your curls. If you’re someone who has finer-textured hair but is still dealing with dryness and frizz, I’ll offer you some tips and tricks as well.

Step 1: Detangle before shampoo

Whichever method you choose, be very gentle and carefully remove tangles and loose hairs with your fingers. Do not take a brush and rake through tangles. This will only cause snapping and breakage.

I like the Umberto Giannini Curl Jelly Conditioner because it has great slip and is not too heavy.

If you’re using conditioner, lightly rinse before shampooing.

Step 2: Shampoo without stripping

I’m a huge fan of using a good, lathering shampoo that actually cleanses the scalp because we don’t want buildup which can just worsen the coarse-feeling in our hair.

We also want to avoid using harsh, drying shampoos. 

I went with the Umberto Giannini Curl Jelly Shampoo because it’s gentle and cleansing enough. It creates a rich lather so you can evenly spread it, scrubbing all areas of the scalp before rinsing.

It won’t leave your hair feeling stripped, sticky, or dry.

This shampoo is a great price on Amazon:

Step 3: Condition

Next, apply a conditioner and ensure your hair is evenly coated, roots included. You can use the same conditioner from Umberto Giannini and focus it on the ends, then work the rest up to the roots.

We need to finish with conditioner to lower and smooth the cuticle back down after shampooing. This will soften the hair and protect it from dryness.

Let it sit for a few minutes, then rinse it out fully.

Optional: Scalp serum

I also like the Living Proof Scalp Care Density Serum.

I’ve been testing this serum for hair growth and it’s also supposed to help with graying hair. I need to take new progress photos soon, but from what I can tell in my initial photos I am seeing a bit of new growth. Stay tuned to see my final results and if it’s reduced my grays.

Before you apply styling products, you want to make sure your hair is evenly wet. I prefer to style damp, out of the shower so I can towel-dry my roots first and it’s not dripping.

However, you may want to style more soaking wet, especially if you have looser curls or waves. Experiment and find the best water amount for your hair.

Step 4: Prime your hair (optional)

Before styling, you may want to apply a primer or a leave-in conditioner. I often opt for a spray heat protectant, but I wanted to provide another option for those of you who want more softness.

I recommend the Olaplex No. 9 which is a serum so it has a thin, slippery consistency. This not only will soften, detangle, and improve manageability, but it has bond-repairing ingredients to strengthen the hair.

Coarse hair doesn’t need much protein at all, and many protein-rich products can make it feel more brittle. 

If you still want to strengthen your hair, especially if it’s also high-porosity, color-treated, or bleached, bond-repairing ingredients are an alternative for strengthening without a brittle feeling.

If you want more moisture, you can go with a leave-in conditioner at this step.

Step 5: Gel

The next step is to apply styling products to define and hold the curls. I like to keep it simple with as few products as possible.

The Kinky Curly Curling Custard is a lightweight gel but is also very moisturizing and has a lot of slip. I don’t find that I need a curl cream or a leave-in when using moisturizing gels, but if your coarse hair is very dry, you can use one under your gel.

I often use The Kinky Curly Custard in the fall and winter because it’s drier and less humid outside. It does not contain any humidity-blocking ingredients and gives a medium hold.

I also prefer to apply my gel before I brush style for the most even frizz coverage.

Products to avoid or limit with coarse hair:

• Thick, sticky gels
• Volumizing/texturizing sprays
• Hairspray

Step 6: Style

If you have coarse hair, then you know it does not like to lay smoothly and can be very frizzy. 

When I don’t brush style, the coarse areas dry puffy, frizzy, and undefined. My gray hairs always poke through and don’t want to stay grouped into curl clumps. 

Styling techniques will help to smooth the hair and help it lay more evenly. A brush is the best way that I have found to smooth out the hair. 

You can use a brush to simply smooth out the hair by brushing through, then scrunching to help the curls return, or you can also use your brush to create curl clumps and enhance ringlets or waves.

Try the Tangle Teezer Brush or another brush with flexible tension.

To brush style, you’ll want to section off your hair so you can more precisely style. This is especially good for those who have thick hair or if you struggle with a lot of webbed frizz or just frizz from underneath.

Pick a small section and then brush through to smooth it out.

Place your brush as the root, twist it so the hair wraps around the edge with tension then glide down.

If you can’t get coordinated with this, a simple option is to just press your other hand against the brush as you glide down to create tension.

Once you get comfortable with brush styling and want to define really stubborn curls, you can brush coil by wrapping the hair around the base of the handle and then unravel it. 

This helps tremendously with gray hairs that are shorter or those that don’t take the same curl pattern so they stick out, tucking them in.

I also use the finger coiling technique to coil baby hairs or ringlets that don’t know which direction they want to go in.

You may want to avoid scrunching if you find that it makes your curls more frizzy.

If you styled soaking wet, scrunch with a hair towel to speed up your dry time, and add a bit more gel on top.

Step 7: Diffuse

After styling, diffuse until your hair is dried, or at least part of the way. This will set your curl shape so the curls last longer and don’t fall. 

I love the Curlsmith Defrizzion which is very large so I’m able to dry my hair in about 10-15 minutes without high heat. I use the highest heat setting, but it’s designed for curls so it’s not too hot.

Optional: Oil

Oil is a step that I usually skip, but it can be useful for softening coarse hair. As we discussed, coarse hair tends to be brittle and can tangle easy. Adding an oil or hair serum at the end of your routine can provide a protective barrier and reduce friction. 

I’ve been testing this one from Olaplex, but you can use any hair oil you have since they all provide the same benefits. The Olaplex No. 7 oil is unique in that it also has bond-building ingredients and silicone. 

Silicone can help provide more softness, humidity protection, and shine.

If you want a silicone-free option with bonding ingredients, the Curlsmith Bonding Oil is very comparable. 

Oils can also help to soften the gel cast and scrunch out the crunch. But you can always just use your dry hands without oil to do this.

If you hair is still damp after scrunching out the cast, then you can diffuse it a bit more or air dry. If your hair takes a really long time to dry and is still damp, you may be over-moisturizing it with products that are too heavy and/or too much water. Make sure you’re removing enough water with your towel before diffusing.

To touch-up frizz and stubborn gray hairs that poke out after diffusing, smooth them down with a bit of gel or hairspray. This is common and normal with gray hair and they may stick out throughout the day. Stronger hold products and hairspray can help.

Results

What do you think of these results? My hair was definitely very moisturized, and slightly too moisturized because it was a bit damp after diffusing. However it stayed moisturized throughout the week. I had a bit more frizz than usual on my high-porosity ends, but that it because it’s not a strong hold gel. My day 2 results looked great too and did not need refreshing.

Still feeling stuck?

Book a curl coaching session so I can take deep dive into your routine, analyze your specific issues, and help you find solutions and products that fit your needs.

I’m now offering weekend sessions! Just email me if you can’t find a time and I will open a spot for you.

For more help on the causes of coarse hair, how to tell if you have coarse hair, and help with managing the health of it such as deep conditioning, check out this post on how to manage coarse hair.

For more help with gray hair specifically, watch the video on how to manage graying curly hair here.