Ultimate Guide for Balancing Moisture & Hold in Your Curly Routine

If no matter what you do, your curls and waves feel dry, brittle, or rough—or they’re soft and silky but don’t hold their shape—your moisture balance might be off.

In this week’s video, I help you understand what moisture balance is, learn how to assess your own hair’s needs, spot the signs of imbalance and fix it using tweaks to your technique, water use, and product combinations.

What is Moisture Balance & Why Does It Matter

When we talk about moisture in the hair world, we’re often actually referring to conditioning—which is what gives hair softness, flexibility, and manageability.

Technically, moisture is just water. But water alone doesn’t stay in the hair. That’s where conditioning agents—like fatty alcohols, emollients, and oils—come in. These ingredients help your hair retain water and improve how it feels and behaves after washing.

So for the purpose of this post, when I say moisture, I really mean how conditioned your hair is.

Moisture balance = having just enough conditioning to keep hair soft and manageable, without weighing it down or reducing its hold, causing frizz.

✅ Balanced hair has:

• Enough conditioning to feel soft, flexible, and healthy
• Enough strength and structure to hold curl definition, resist frizz, and maintain shape throughout the day (and into day 2 if you’re using strong enough styling products!)

This balance looks different depending on your texture and porosity, which we’ll talk more about later.

How to Assess How Much Moisture Your Hair Needs

1. Determine your texture: fine, medium, coarse.

• Fine hair needs less moisture
• Medium hair needs some moisture
• Coarse hair needs more moisture

2. Determine your porosity: low, medium, high

• Low and medium porosity hair tends to be silky, soft, and get weighed down easily so needs less moisture
• High porosity hair tends to be very dry and doesn’t hold onto moisture, so it needs and needs more moisture
• It ultimately depends on texture

4. Take the Curl Type Quiz to help you figure out porosity and texture.

5. Still not sure? Quick method: Determine if your hair is generally more soft or brittle naturally

• Soft hair does not need much conditioning
• Brittle hair needs conditioning

Signs You Might Need More Moisture

If your hair is lacking conditioning, you might notice:

• Dry, rough, or brittle texture, especially on the ends
  • Especially after wash day
• Tangles easily or feels hard to detangle, even with conditioner
• Breaks or snaps easily when stretching a strand
• Frizzes quickly, even after applying products
• Appears dull and lacks shine

Basically, your hair is dry. It needs more slip, softness, and support to form its natural pattern and hold shape.

Signs of Too Much Moisture

On the other hand, if your hair is over-conditioned, you may notice:

• Hair feels soft but limp—like it’s too squishy or overly pliable
• Loss of curl or wave definition—the pattern looks stretched and won’t bounce up to its usual shape
• Frizz that is fluffy and soft feeling
• Flat roots or your style doesn’t hold, even when you use styling products and techniques to enhance root lift
• Hair takes forever to dry, feels and looks damp all day
• Hair may also feel “mushy” or overly stretchy when wet.
  • This can sometimes progress into hygral fatigue, which occurs when the hair has been overexposed to water and lacks the protein structure to bounce back.
• In extreme cases, it almost feels like your hair has no structure

This often happens when every product in your routine is super rich, creamy, or “moisturizing”—which might sound good, but can overwhelm hair that doesn’t need it.

What Balanced Hair Feels Like:

Balanced hair usually feels:

• Soft but not mushy
• Defined but not brittle
• It holds its curl pattern without excessive product

And most importantly—it looks and feels consistent from wash day through day 2 or 3 (aside from normal wear after wash day).

If you’re not sure, try doing a little test. After your next wash day, take note of how your hair looks and feels when it’s wet and dry.

Then, assess it on day 2 or 3. Has your hair retained its shape overall, with the exception of some normal frizz or normal loosening of wave pattern?  That’s usually a good sign your moisture balance is on track.

How to Balance Moisture

Step 1: Clarify with a Chelating Shampoo

Start with a clean slate—especially to rule out hard water buildup (which mimics dryness or moisture overload). Use a chelating shampoo to reset before troubleshooting products.

Step 2: Fix Moisture Balance by Adjusting Water

The easiest way to adjust moisture on wash day is to experiment with water content. Frizz, stringiness, or poor clumping can often be a water issue—not just product choice. Too much water can cause limp, over-moisturized hair, while too little can lead to frizz. Keep a spray bottle and microfiber towel handy to fine-tune as you style. Sometimes, tweaking the water-to-product ratio is all you need for balanced, defined curls.

Step 3: Identify Moisturizing/Conditioning Ingredients

If adjusting the amount of water you use on wash day and clarifying doesn’t seem to give the right moisture balance, the next step is to look at the products you’re using. And the only way to know how moisturizing/conditioning a product will be is by looking at the ingredients list.

Moisturizing Ingredient Categories:

Humectants
✅ Suitable for all

Proteins
✅ Suitable for most
⚠️ Low porosity + coarse should be mindful of how much

Fatty alcohols
✅ Suitable for most
⚠️ Fine + low porosity hair should be mindful of how much

Emollients & occlusives (oils & butters)
✅ Suitable for most, especially coarse + high porosity
⚠️ Fine + low porosity hair should be mindful of how much or avoid

Polymers
✅ Suitable for most, as long as you’re using a lathering shampoo

Step 4: Create a Moisture-Balanced Routine

After identifying key ingredients, the next step is assessing the total moisture content in your routine—how many products contain conditioning ingredients and where they appear on the ingredient lists.

Shampoo

✅ Medium to strong cleansing shampoos regardless of hair type 

❌ Co-washes and mild shampoos are very moisturizing

Conditioner

• Lightweight or medium-weight conditioners for soft/fine hair 
• Heavier options can be used for coarse hair
• Rinse very thoroughly regardless of hair type
• Skip masks for fine and low porosity hair

Stylers

• Avoid layering too many products. If you want to just use one gel, make sure it has the moisture level you need. If you want to layer products, consider the total amount of moisture in both. 
• Creamy products like leave-ins, curl creams, etc often have moisture which will soften the hair
• Gels can also contain moisture (moisture level in gels can vary greatly, so be sure to check the ingredients)
• Foams are usually moisturizing but lightweight
• Mousses – some contain moisture
• Aerosol products, hairsprays, texture sprays, etc., often are not moisturizing and provide the opposite effect, reducing softness

Finishing Oils & Serums

• These soften the hair and can be used at the end of your routine if needed
• Fine or “soft” hair types should skip oils

Step 5: Product Combinations Based on Moisture Needs

Here are some examples of styling product combinations based on how much moisture/conditioning your hair needs:

Light Conditioning

• Lightweight leave-in + low moisture gel

The following creams are in order of low to medium moisture level.

The following gels are in order of medium to high moisture level.

If you’re still confused or this is all a little too science-y for you, you should check out my new free chart: How Much Moisture Do You Need? It breaks down some key points and look-fors when it comes to knowing how much moisture your hair needs based on your hair’s unique combination of texture and porosity. 

How Much Moisture Do Your Curls Need Chart

But, remember, everyone’s hair is different! The most important thing is to pay attention to the signs and symptoms of YOUR hair. 

Need help curating the perfect moisture-balanced routine for YOUR specific hair type?

Helping my clients learn to “listen” to their hair is something I do all the time in my Group Coaching Program. So, if you’re still struggling or overwhelmed, join the waitlist for the next session, which will be starting June 1! If you’re ready to officially sign up now, email me for a special discount 😉