My Honest Take on the Gina Curl Treatment 2 Years Later

What is the Gina Curl

From an early age my hair has consistently refused to grow past shoulder length. I had no idea how to manage my hair leaving it constantly damaged and tangled. Beyond that, wash days were always a full day event, mixed with lathering, detangling, more lathering, deep conditioning, rinsing and more! I was in desperate need of something that would reduce the load my hair required every week. Through my research I heard about the Gina curl. The Gina Curl is a hair treatment designed to loosen tightly coiled/ curly hair. It creates more defined, elongated curl patterns while maintaining the hair’s natural texture.

It’s not like traditional chemical relaxers which permanently straighten the hair. The Gina Curl markets itself as a texture-modifying system versus a texture eliminating system.

How It Works

The treatment itself is proprietary but the primary active ingredient in the Gina Curl is thioglycolate (most commonly ammonium thioglycolate). It’s the same class of chemical used in traditional texture relaxers. It works by breaking disulfide bonds in the hair (the bonds responsible for curl pattern and structure).

Once those bonds are broken, the hair can be reshaped into a new curl pattern! The result is a permanent change to the treated portion of the hair, which means the treated hair will not revert back to its previous curl pattern. However, the new growth will retain the original texture.

Though it makes sense that the hair that grows from your scalp continues to be your original texture, this is the reason I struggle with the gina curl the most.

Pros

There’s a silver lining in getting to maintain your original hair texture. As someone who gets bored with their hair and feels the need to change it every three days, it’s comforting knowing if I wanted to return to my hair texture, I could. I’d just have to chop my hair off!

Cons

At the Virgo Salon in Los Angeles, the Gina curl was a whopping $1000! Now, I paid for this treatment three times in a span of one and a half years. Like I’ve mentioned in my previous blog, the Gina curl made a HUGE difference when it came to hair maintenance. I felt like I could touch my roots more easily, products absorbed better, wash days were no longer a burden for me. My curls were looser but I still felt like I retained my texture which I loved. It was a stark contrast from relaxers where the texture felt like barn hay. However, once the natural hair starts growing in, the two different textures make it impossible to style and manage. The original issue of products not fully absorbing returns and the area of demarcation between the gina curl and the natural hair becomes prone to breakage. It puts into perspective that this will be an ongoing, annoying struggle. And even though they recommend every 6 months, by 3 months it’s already visible, 6 months is nearly unbearable.

Would I do it again?

It’s been a year since my last Gina curl. The Gina Curl itself is great and life changing. I can barely remember how I had time to manage my tight coils. I think I will, in the future, continue to use texture relaxers because I’m able to grow my hair longer with the looser texture. When loosened, my hair requires less maintenance and products absorb much better. However, paying $1000 is not practical. And while I understand the price point (the amount of time in the chair and the attention to detail) it’s just not feasible. I’d rather touch up my roots myself with store bought tex-lax and unfortunately lose my defined curls.

Besides the money, there is maintenance that comes with the Gina curl. Overtime, the once defined curls lose their definition. You also can’t straighten your hair at all with the Gina curl or you forever forfeit your ability to retain the curl with the perm. So, short answer to whether or not I would do the Gina Curl again is… you never know. I don’t plan to because of price and the lengthy process but it definitely opened me up to loosening my texture for maintenance.