A deep-conditioning mask for curly hair with sea buckthorn and protein, from Natura Siberica.
Mask or conditioner — the actual difference
Not marketing. A rinse-out conditioner is designed for a minute of contact: it deposits a light coating, smooths the cuticle and helps you detangle. A mask is more concentrated, richer in emollients, and designed to sit for five to twenty minutes so that more of it can be absorbed rather than merely coating.
Using a mask like a conditioner — on and straight off — wastes most of what you paid for. It needs the time.
Why curly hair needs one
Sebum, the hair's own conditioner, travels easily down a straight shaft and reaches the ends. On curly hair it cannot: every bend and twist stops it, so it collects near the scalp and the lengths get nothing. Curly hair is therefore chronically under-conditioned at the ends by design, and a weekly mask is not an indulgence but a correction.
Protein and moisture — the balance to watch
Protein strengthens hair and helps a curl hold its pattern. But curly hair needs protein and moisture in balance, and too much protein makes hair stiff, straw-like and prone to snapping — protein overload.
The signs are worth knowing: hair that feels crunchy or brittle, curls that will not spring back, and breakage when you handle it. If that starts happening, alternate this with a purely moisturising mask. Hair that feels limp, mushy and over-soft is the opposite problem, and needs more protein rather than less.
Using it well
On clean, soaking wet hair — not towel-dried. Water helps the mask distribute and is part of what you are trying to seal in. Mid-lengths to ends only, never the scalp. Five to twenty minutes; a shower cap and a little warmth help.
Then squish it in: cup handfuls of wet hair and squeeze upward towards the scalp. You should hear it. This is how curls form clumps rather than separate strands, and it makes more difference to the result than the product does.
Rinse with cool water. Dry with a microfibre towel or a cotton T-shirt, never terry.