How Erikajoy Helped Stella Style Through the Awkward Middle of a Grow-Out
The hardest part of growing out natural hair is the middle, when the length is real but the shape isn’t, and cutting it starts to feel like the reasonable choice. Stella had been natural for two years and had done exactly that, more than once. “Each time it gets to a point, I end up cutting it to shape it,” she said. She booked a session with Erikajoy Gardner for the part nobody makes tutorials about: how to look good on the way there.
She’d sent photos ahead — her current state and, as she put it, “what I want to look like when I grow up.” One, taken at a restaurant with turquoise earrings, was her everyday: combed out and worked over with a texture brush for definition. Another, straight off a six-hour flight with no time to do anything, was the one she couldn’t stand. “I feel like the hair is so flat,” she said. “It’s like nothing.” That gap — twenty minutes of effort versus none — was the brief.
Skipping the Curl-Type Conversation Entirely
Stella opened by describing her hair as 4C and “not very inspiring.” Erikajoy didn’t take the bait. “I don’t do the whole four, three, C, whatever,” she said — and the reason is the useful part: “You’ll look at someone and say, oh, they have hair like mine, but what works for them doesn’t necessarily work for you.” Curl typing, in her view, sends people shopping for other people’s results. “I’ll leave that to the YouTube people.”
What she wanted instead was a diagnosis, and she couldn’t make one, because Stella had never really tested her hair. For years the routine had been one product — Influance’s It’s Natural Moisture Lock — plus a brush and a sponge. Not for lack of trying: fifteen or so abandoned bottles sat in her closet, none of them noted down. “I don’t keep track of the things that don’t work,” she said. “I know what it’s like to have a product graveyard,” Erikajoy answered. But when she raised curl cream, Stella’s reply was the funniest moment of the session: “What is curl cream? All I know is Moisture Lock.”
The One Product That Changes the Diagnosis
Erikajoy’s recommendation was narrow on purpose: a curl stretching cream — Design Essentials’ Almond & Avocado version, which is what her salon carries — with their Curl Defining Crème Gel as the alternative. Stretching cream elongates the curl instead of compacting it, the opposite of what Stella’s routine had been doing, and the direct answer to the flatness she hated.
“You won’t know until you actually shampoo and condition your hair, put a leave-in, and actually put some curl cream in your hair and see what your hair does,” Erikajoy said. “You might have curls in there, you just don’t know.” She said it again at the end of the call, in case it hadn’t landed: “I know in your mind it does one thing, but I have a feeling that it can do something other than what you think it can do.”
Application came with one rule she doesn’t bend on: nothing goes on dry. “I would never just put product in my hair, never. I would always do whatever I’m doing when the hair is wet.” Mist daily, leave-in first, then product. Same rule for the texture brush — on dry hair it snags. She added trims every six weeks, and Olaplex to rebuild the bonds daily styling wears down.
Dressing the In-Between
Then the actual question — what to do for the next year. Erikajoy didn’t pretend there’s a styling trick that manufactures length; shrinkage is the whole problem. “The longer it gets, the bigger it gets instead of the longer it gets.” So go wide on purpose: stretch it, brush the sides for texture, finger-comb it bigger, and let the rest of the look carry it — “big earrings, lipstick, making sure that your makeup is done nicely, and just allowing it to grow out.” Braided extensions if she wanted variety without a weave or a wig. And no more shaping cuts.
Stella took it. “I’m just going to have to power through it.”
None of this needed a salon chair. Stella turned her head to the camera so Erikajoy could see the pattern her brush was making; Erikajoy held the bottles up, then texted photos of both so she could order that night — half an hour, neither of them leaving the house. Erikajoy has grown her own out from a bob to armpit length, and wasn’t sentimental about how long that takes. “Hair is one of those things where it gives you what you give it,” she said. “Don’t give up. And don’t lose hope. It’s there. It’s coming.”
Meet your stylist: Erikajoy Gardner— hair and makeup, Florida. Book with Erikajoy →
This story reflects a real, paid StyldLife client session. To protect our client’s privacy, the accompanying photograph is a stock image and does not depict the actual client, and identifying details have been generalized.
