How Erikajoy Gardner Taught Kate to Stop Fighting Her Hair

Most people don’t have a hair problem. They have a two-move problem — a couple of styles they can pull off, and a vague guilt about all the products they own and never use. That’s exactly where Kate started. “I really only have two moves,” she admitted in her first session with StyldLife hairstylist Erikajoy Gardner. “Sleep in a French braid for waves, or fully straighten it. It’d be nice to have more moves.”

Kate spends a lot of time on camera, so her hair has to read well on screen — enough dimension to look intentional, enough staying power that she isn’t fussing with it mid-shot. She’d been collecting tools (good curling irons, even one of those auto-curling “hair vacuum” gadgets) and a shelf of serums she wasn’t sure how to use. What she didn’t have was a system.

Erikajoy’s first lesson wasn’t a technique. It was a philosophy: stop fighting your hair. “However it’s going to fall, that’s the way it’s going to fall,” she told Kate. “Your best thing is to never fight with it.” When the side-part-versus-middle-part debate came up — Kate had heard side parts were “out” — Erikajoy waved the trend away. Face shape decides the part, not TikTok. “Everybody can’t be Alanis Morissette and wear it down the middle,” she laughed. “And that’s okay.” The goal was never to force Kate’s hair into someone else’s look. It was to find out what her hair actually wanted to do.

So they ran an experiment. Kate’s hair had grown in with an unexpected wave through one section, straighter everywhere else, and Erikajoy wanted to see what it could become with the right products and zero heat. The method was refreshingly specific. Leave-in conditioner first — always first — because that’s what protects the hair from the snagging and split ends a brush causes before anything else touches it. Then a light serum to coat the strand with moisture (she likes an argan-oil treatment formulated for all hair textures — “not too heavy, not too light, just right”). Then a wave spray, scrunched in by hand, and — this was the part Kate didn’t expect — no diffuser. Just air dry. “The whole purpose is to see what your hair can do,” Erikajoy said. “If it does nothing, you move on to the next style. But if it looks nice, you keep going. That’s the best thing for your hair.”

Her product picks were equally grounded. Miss Jessie’s, easy to grab at Target, for waves. The Cibu line for clients who want to coax out texture — their Spraycation wave spray and the Not So Naughty leave-in, Erikajoy’s personal favorite. And for the straight-and-smooth days, a keratin frizz-control spray worked through wet hair before blow-drying, so the flat iron has almost nothing left to do.

Which brought them to heat — and a small revelation. Kate, like most people, had been cranking her flat iron to its highest setting. “So, like, 450?” Erikajoy asked. Then, gently: cut it down. She runs her own balayage at 390 to protect the color, and tells clients to start around 350 and only climb if they need to. “Most of the time you don’t need as much heat as you think you do.” The fastest way to age expensive color and fry good hair is to blast it on principle.

The rest was maintenance most people get wrong. Wash no more than twice a week (but at least once). Sleep on silk or satin, or in a bonnet, so cotton sheets aren’t quietly undoing your style and drying your hair out overnight. None of it complicated. All of it the kind of thing you only learn from someone who does this for a living and actually explains the why.

Kate left with homework and a follow-up already on the calendar — eager, for once, to play. “I’m going to try to jazz it up,” she said. “I’ll report back.” That second session is its own story.

All of it over a single video call: Erikajoy in Florida, Kate at her own mirror, no salon chair required — just a stylist who made “more moves” feel less like a chore and more like getting to know your own hair.

Meet your stylist: Erikajoy Gardner — hair & makeup artist for film, TV, and weddings, based in Florida. Book with Erikajoy: https://styldlifebookings.as.me/Erikajoy

This story reflects a real, paid StyldLife client session. To protect our client’s privacy, the client is not pictured.