PSA: The Max Hydration Method Will Give You the Healthiest Curls of Your Life

If you have curly hair and have spent legit any time researching wash-and-go treatments and deep-conditioning tricks on YouTube or Reddit, I’m willing to bet you’ve heard of the maximum hydration method, or MHM. The max hydration method has been around for literal years now, but it remains a popular technique for infusing moisture into super-tight curl patterns (see: 4c hair). The only caveat? The process is kinda (very) lengthy—and whether or not MHM is actually good for your hair is frequently debated.

So to break down everything you need to know about the regimen and its efficacy, I chatted with four hair experts: certified trichologist Kari Williams, founder of Bread Beauty Maeva Heim, curl educator Aishia Strickland, and celebrity hairstylist Monae Everett. Ahead, I break down everything you need to know about the maximum hydration method, starting with what it is, how to do it, and more.

What is the maximum hydration method?

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The maximum hydration method is a five-step wash-and-go routine created in 2014 by anonymous user Pinke Cube and posted on the forums of now-defunct Black Hair Media. As the name implies, the max hydration method was made to “infuse maximum moisture into your hair strands,” says trichologist Kari Williams. It’s particularly popular with 4c hair that’s also low-porosity (i.e., hair with tightly packed cuticles that don’t allow moisture to absorb very easily into the strand, leaving it perpetually dry).

How to do the maximum hydration method

Before jumping into MHM, you should know that it isn’t a quick, one-step process. The whole routine will likely take you a few hours, so you’ll need to set aside time in your schedule, especially the first time you do it. That being said, it does get a bit faster when you get the hang of it, and you may find yourself altering the routine in the future to better suit your hair’s needs.

Now keep reading to find out how to do the max hydration method, step-by-step, with helpful tips and insights from the experts.

Step 1: The Cherry Lola Treatment

The first step in the maximum hydration method is known as the Cherry Lola Treatment, named after its founder, YouTuber Cherry Lola, who developed it in 2009 as a DIY mask to “reduce frizz” and increase moisture. The Cherry Lola Treatment is a non-negotiable first step in MHM, because it helps “open” the hair cuticle—i.e., raise it—allowing it to better absorb moisture, says Heim.

The original Cherry Lola recipe consists of three ingredients: baking soda, plain organic yogurt, and liquid amino acids. Through the years, people have created new renditions of the recipe with bananas, honey, and avocados, but for the sake of simplicity, an approximation of the O.G. recipe is best:

Cherry Lola recipe:

• 2 cups organic plain yogurt (to moisturize)
• 2 tbsp liquid amino acids (to strengthen)
• 2 tbsp baking soda (to raise the cuticle)

Mix the three ingredients in a bowl until the baking soda is dissolved, then prep your hair. Separate your (dry, detangled) hair into three sections, so it’s easier to fully saturate, then work the mixture through your hair, starting at the roots. Leave it on for 20 to 40 minutes, then rinse it out thoroughly.

Grab these for your Cherry Lola Treatment

Organic plain yogurt

Stonyfield Organic Whole Milk Probiotic Yogurt Plain

Amino acids

Baking soda

Arm & Hammer Pure Baking Soda

Detangling comb

Briogeo Wide Tooth Detangling Comb

Step 2: Clarifying wash

Your next step of the max hydration method will be an apple cider vinegar-based clarifying rinse to strip away excess oils and product buildup from your strands. According to the rules of MHM, this step is also crucial for creating a clean, residue-free foundation in your hair, while also offsetting some of the harsh effects of the Cherry Lola’s baking soda, says Heim.

For context: “Baking soda has a high pH of 9, while apple cider vinegar has a much, much lower pH of 2 or 3,” says Heim. So cleansing your hair with apple cider vinegar will help “bring your hair down to its regular pH level,” she says. You can either DIY the clarifier at home, or buy a clarifying shampoo formulated with apple cider vinegar.

Apple cider vinegar clarifying rinse:

1. Mix equal parts apple cider vinegar and water in a spray bottle (think: half a cup of each).
2. Shake up the bottle and spray it throughout your hair until every strand is saturated.
3. Let it sit for 30 minutes, then rinse.

Clarifying rinses with apple cider vinegar

DpHue Apple Cider Vinegar Hair Rinse

Head & Shoulders Apple Cider Vinegar Rinse

Girl+Hair Apple Cider Vinegar Hair Rinse

Rizos Curls Apple Cider Vinegar Scalp & Hair Rinse

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Step 3: Co-wash

Next up, you’ll massage your hair with a co-wash, aka a cleansing conditioner—which, if you’re working with type-4 hair, you’re probably already using on the regular. But if not, here’s a quick reminder: Traditional shampoos are often loaded with harsh, drying detergents that’ll strip the moisture from your hair. But co-washes are basically 90 percent conditioners, 10 percent gentle cleansers, meaning they’ll leave your hair feeling softer, healthier, and more hydrated.

But unlike how you use your co-wash in the shower, the max hydration method calls on co-wash as a leave-on treatment. Section your hair, work dollops of co-wash or cleansing conditioner through your hair (from roots to tips), slide on a shower cap, and let it sit for 20 minutes. As an optional—yet very beneficial—step, you can also steam your hair throughout those 20 minutes to help the moisturizers better penetrate your strands.

Or, if you can’t be bothered to add yet another step to MHM, you can also try popping on a steam cap or an electric heat cap, which you can wear while you watch Netflix and take a quick break before rinsing yet again.

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Step 4: Clay rinse

This step gets a bit messy, so just in case, make sure you’re not wearing your ~finest silks~ for it. You’re now going to be rinsing your hair with clay. Pink Cube recommends anything from bentonite clay to rhassoul clay to zeolite clay, but most people tend to stick with bentonite clay that also happens to be loaded with magnesium. This ingredient is ~extra~ special because it helps “rebuild the coil in your hair,” says Heim, helping to restore your curl pattern to its best and bounciest.

Pink Cube’s clay-rinse recipe:

Mix your ingredients together and carefully work the liquid through your hair, section by section, until it’s fully covered. You’ll need to apply in thin layers and separate your curls as you work to make sure it’s evenly distributed (very important for this step!). Then, let it sit on your hair for 15 minutes under a shower cap before rinsing it out until it’s completely free of residue.

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Step 5: Leave-in and gel

While your hair is still wet from rinsing out the clay, you’ll apply your leave-in conditioner and your gel (these are sometimes referred to as steps five and six, but who needs to make this process seem even longer?). Finger-rake and squish your leave-in through your hair—this is best done in the shower, if possible—until it’s saturated from root to tip.

Then, squeeze out a palmful of gel (more than feels normal) and work it through your damp hair, section by section, until it feels slippery like seaweed. You’re creating something called a “gel cast” which is basically a lightweight “shell” around each coil that keeps it defined until it dries. You can then air-dry your hair or diffuse it on low, and then celebrate—because you just completed the maximum hydration method.

Overwhelmed? Start with these gels and leave-ins:

Leave-in Conditioner (2 pack)

Kinky Curly Knot Today Conditioner

Leave-in Conditioner

Mielle Organics Pomegranate & Honey Leave-In Conditioner

Now 20% Off

Gel

Jessicurl Fragrance-Free Spiralicious Gel

Gel

Alikay Naturals Aloe Berry Style Gel

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How long does the max hydration method last?

How long you’ll see results from the maximum hydration method depends on so many different factors, the biggest one being whether or not you followed the steps correctly. Bread Beauty founder Maeva Heim says you should be able to notice that your hair feels really moisturized for a few days. Trichologist Kari Williams, on the other hand, says that results will vary from person to person based on your hair’s porosity, the type of products you used, how much you applied, and how healthy your hair was to begin with.

Is the max hydration method good for high-porosity hair?

The maximum hydration method is specially formulated for low-porosity hair, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try it on high-porosity hair—it just may do more harm than good (because it uses harsh baking soda). Instead of relying on MHM for moisture, Williams recommends looking for strengthening protein treatments to help repair your strands and prevent damage, which is super common in high-porosity hair.

How often should I do max hydration method?

How often you should do the max hydration method is widely debated. Some devotees swear you should do it once a week, while others recommend you do it just once a month. Williams, however, approves of doing MHM twice a month—if you ditch the clay mask the second time around. She cautions that the bentonite clay (and baking soda!) can have the opposite effect of the maximum hydration method if you use it too frequently, leading to breakage and brittleness.

The bottom line:

If you’re looking for a solution for your hella-dry curls, it may be worth giving the max hydration method (MHM) a try, pending you have a good amount of extra time on your Google Cal. Just keep in mind that it wasn’t created by a hairstylist, and that makes it kind of “controversial” among experts, says celebrity hairstylist Monae Everett. Experts, including Everett, warn against doing MHM too frequently because it can dry out your hair, so keep that in mind as you figure out what application techniques and products you want to experiment with to bring out your best coil pattern.

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Meet the experts:

• Kari Williams is a certified trichologist, a licensed barber, and a natural haircare specialist. Williams is also the inventor of Goddess Locs, the official system and technique for creating goddess locs.
• Maeva Heim is the founder and CEO of Bread Beauty Supply, a haircare brand with a line of products focused specifically on all curl types.
• Monae Everett is a celebrity hairstylist and the artistic director at Blushington, an online and New York City-based beauty salon. Everett is also the founder of the Texture Style Awards, a hairstyling competition for all hair textures.
• Aishia Strickland is a curl educator, professional curl artist, and co-founder of Black Curl Magic. She helped inform background information used in this article.

Why trust Cosmopolitan?

Marisa Petrarca is a contributing beauty writer for Cosmopolitan.com with over five years of experience researching and writing about makeup, skin, and hair, ranging from how to clean your makeup brushes to face fillers. She discussed the maximum hydration method with the four experts featured in this story and dove into reviews and research to recommend the best products to supplement the regimen.



Marisa Petrarca is a contributing beauty writer for Cosmopolitan.com. In the rare case that she’s not working on a story, you can find her testing new makeup, skin, or hair launches, binge-watching bad reality TV, or diligently working (but failing) to get her inbox to zero. Her work has appeared on The Zoe Report, POPSUGAR, and GRAZIA USA, among others. Follow her on Instagram for corgi photos and shameless self-promotion.