Jonathan Van Ness launching a YouTube channel was one of the big beauty wins of 2021. Since June, the Queer Eye presenter and founder of JVN Hair has mused on everything from beauty basics to hair health, life advice, and styling tutorials, bypassing any patronising preaching or mean-girl straight talk. 

This week, alongside Tiffany Hunter, founder of Austin’s Damn, Glam! Studio, JVN is teaching us how to properly style and maintain 2a to 4c curly hair. Hallelujah. Specifically, the noise to listen out for before you even think about touching a heated tool. 

Working with model Jamika Martin, Hunter and Van Ness started with a shampoo treatment and mask, emphasising the need for hydration when working with and styling curly textures. 

Then, after sectioning Jamika’s hair, they applied a serum designed to balance the porosity, which helps curls appear more uniform.

“It’s so important to keep the hair super moisturised before you diffuse because you’re going to be putting hot air on cold wet hair,” says Hunter.

Next up is the JVN Hair Air Dry Cream – which is distributed thoroughly throughout each section from root to tip – followed by patting mousse onto the hair and scrunching the curls from the tip to the root.

Now, this might seem like a glut of products, especially if you have fine hair. But, without it, Van Ness says you’re in for undefined curls and fluff.

“You literally want to hear a little bit of squelch in the hair,” he says. “If you don’t hear that squelch in your curls it’s going to be frizzy, I can already tell you. You have to have that amount of product in there for it to not get frizzy on you.”

So, curly hair havers, if your hair is not squelching with moisture when you scrunch, apply a little more product. Whether you choose a gel, cream, styling mousse – or all three – we want happy, springy, healthy curls coming out of that diffuser. Capice?

Main image: Getty