I have a curl confession to make. When I go to Brisbane each month I try NOT to wash my hair for the week or so I am down there.
I often wondered why my hair was "different" when I was in Brisbane as opposed to being at home in Townsville. Mind you, I don't have completely perfect hair at home, but it generally looks & feels softer. Oh & I have more clump in my curls. In Brisbane, my hair takes on a whole new life, that I call the evil curl monster.

It starts on Day 1 so I don't even get a day or 2 of decent hair. Nine times out of ten I will sleep with my hair pineappled because it has become habit to not have hair in my face while I sleep. And I NEVER sleep without my faithful piece of satin to wrap around my pillow. My satin is the equivalent of a lovely old blanky that travels everywhere with me.
It goes like this: wake up, have 2 coffees with breakfast, read emails, FaceBook & InstaGram, get dressed, put makeup on & take hair down. This is where the evil curl monster appears & my smile turns upside down :(

Instead of  my lazy curls falling loosely from the pineapple, a den of snakes just like Medusa appear. They are all separated & seriously resemble a head full of hideous serpents. Ugh!
At first I wasn't too concerned & thought if I used a little oil on my hands (just like when scrunching out the crunch) it would be fine. Nope. Then I try a little leave-in conditioner & use my hands & to take that through my hair carefully. Check out Carleen Sanchez's video here for refreshing your curls on second, third day etc. More often than not, "refreshing" my hair does work, other times not so much. I mean, just imagine how shrivelled up & limp we would look if we didn't have a drink for several days! Curls NEED a drink too! Some days I have no option other than to put my hair in a ponytail, braid it or yes, put that pineapple back up & wear it like that for the day. But that's OK. Curls are not perfect, they are perfectly imperfect, or "wabi sabi" as my friend, Curly Hair Artisrty founder, Scott Musgrave says.
I do apologise if I look like a bag lady some days who is trying to teach others how to look after their curls. The struggle is real. I get it. But don't stress yourselves out ( and I know plenty of you do) on those days when your curls want to act like belligerent little toads. That's why they make hair ties, clips & head bands to try new styles with. And remember there is always tomorrow to make a fresh start.

I know there are tons of people of different curl patterns who have the same issues so it made me wonder why. It took a fair while for me to work out what the problem was & the only factor that was different in my curl care was the water in the two cities. I find the taste of water in Brisbane is a little "mineral-ish" so I knew there was some sort of difference to that at home. So I googled "hard water" & read all about it to see if there could be any correlation to how my hair was looking. I found that SE Qld has the second hardest water in the country so things were starting to fit together. One google search led to another & another......
What I tried was using soda water (at room temp, brrr, not out of the fridge) for my final rinse. I use tap water to rinse out the shampoo & soda water in a jug to trickle rinse out my conditioner. I don't do this all the time but have found when I do, my curls are that bit softer.  Oh, and when you make up your refreshing spray, I always advise to use demineralised or distilled water.

Happy Curl Days, Amanda