“Bringing enough hair products for my curls while traveling can be quite the ordeal,” explains Jayda ahead of this weekend’s Panorama Music Festival, where the 28-year-old will be whipping through a mix of late-’70s disco, early-’90s Detroit house, and turn-of-the-millennium R&B. Putting TSA challenges aside, though, she’ll be curbing her frizz with her fine-tuned curl regimen. Her one criterion: “Condition, condition, condition!” Every other day, she co-washes her hair with Mixed Chicks’s Conditioning Cleansing Co-Wash, which is infused with nourishing and detangling jojoba and castor oils. Once cleansed, she divides her hair into four sections, then coaxes her curls with Shea Moisture Jamaican Black Castor Oil Styling Lotion and seals the ends with an aloe vera gel for added shine and hydration.
For extra definition during the steamier months, Jayda finger coils the wisps around her face—a technique that’s proved useful in her ongoing battle with headphone hair, she says. Much like the creasing and flattening effect of a headband, the phenomenon presents even more of a challenge when you’ve got a voluminous, spiraled mane you don’t necessarily want to tame. “I don’t like to wear my hair back, so I have yet to learn the ultimate trick,” she admits, “but I always tilt my headphones slightly to one side to let a strand of curls hang out.” And if Jayda herself is any indication, that’s all it takes.