PHOTO: Danilo / Instagram

About a month ago, I got a haircut that, not to exaggerate, ruined my life. Most days, I love my 3a-slash-b curls. They’ve got a life of their own, but with a finely tuned regimen we’ve reached a place of understanding. Self-acceptance! I feel great about my curls most days, but a trip to a new hairstylist burned that down in twenty minutes.

A few snips, and the curls that fell with a volume I’m comfortable with were gone, replaced by layers that were just too short. I heard in my head a death knell: too short layers equals undefined, crazy fluffy, frizzy layers, and while that might be some people’s flavor, it’s not mine.

I knew it’d eventually get back to normal, but that didn’t change the way I felt or how unhappy my huge hair and fuzzy curls made me. The wrong cut doesn’t exactly change your hair texture—that grows out of your head, same as ever—but my routine of Kinky Curly’s Knot Today leave in conditioner and L.A. Looks Extreme Sport Gel were no longer enough. The only thing to do was try every single product in the Glamour offices, until I found something that worked for my dry-as-the-desert hair. Much like those heavy vests dogs wear during storms, I needed something with enough heft to weigh my curls down to their happy place.

I started with Pantene’s Smoothing Combing Creme, 100 percent because I’d just written about it and it was on my desk. According to Gwen Stefani‘s hairstylist, Danilo, he uses it as a leave-in conditioner to keep her hair healthy in between their weekly bleaching sessions (yes, weekly ?). Even just one run-in with bleach can turn people’s hair to straw, so if Stefani’s getting lifted weekly and holding onto such silky hair, all signs pointed to this combing creme. (FYI, if the term is new to you, it’s basically a leave-in, styler, and detangler in one, or as I like to put it, a “miracle in a bottle.”)

Danilo refers to leave-in conditioners as “the secret” to happy hair. He uses this one specifically on almost everyone (he’s a spokesperson for the brand, so luckily he has an ample supply). Lo and behold, it’s worked every bit on my hair as he claimed it would.

I subbed it in for the first step in my routine. After showering, I rub a generous-sized squirt in the palm of my hands and run the cream through my hair using my fingers, then I follow it with the L.A. Looks gel applied in sections. It smells a tiny bit too sweet, as most drugstore floral-scented things do, but this $5 leave-in conditioner leaves my curls hydrated, defined, and shiny (and the scent fades quickly). Things never work on the first try. But the truth is the truth: I’ve used this cream every single shower since, and now I get it, Gwen Stefani. It’s just that good.

Pantene Smoothing Combing Creme, $5, walmart.com

PHOTO: Jennifer Mulrow

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