Finding the right hairdresser is a difficult enough quest as it is. But when you’ve got curly hair? Doubly so.

Folks with luscious locks often spend years barber-hopping and salon-sampling, or enduring innumerable smile-through-the-tears moments as new hairdressers ask if they like their fresh ’do. Simply put, the curl is complicated, there’s a lot of room for error and going to a new salon is a risky experiment.

But that’s not the case at Neel Loves Curls. Bookings here are hotly contested (reservations open on a month-by-month basis), with many clients travelling interstate (or occasionally internationally) for the experience. One look at the before-and-after shots on the salon’s Instagram page and it’s easy to see why. Clients – or curlfriends, as owner Neel Morley likes to call them – could come in resembling the Dulux dog and still glide out looking like a Renaissance painting.

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A new guest at Morley’s salon will be greeted with an induction to get them up to speed about their curl type, how they should treat them and the ingredients (and products) they should avoid. It kicks off with a dry cut to trim and sculpt the curls in their natural state. Morley emphasises the importance of cutting curls while dry because once they’re wet, there’s no way of telling how they’ll look day-to-day. It’s the first of the many lessons that makes total sense when you hear it spoken, even if it contradicts many of the “curl hacks” you often find online.

“Imagine if every time you got your haircut, the hairdresser shaved half your eyebrow off, too,” Morley says. “You’d be a bit upset. That’s how it feels for curly-haired people to go to a salon and have their locks butchered.”

After the cut, it’s over to the basins for a treatment and deep conditioning. Morley’s number one tip for home is to not wash out all the conditioner after showering. While your hair is wet and well-conditioned, simply dry it with an old cotton T-shirt so no pesky microfibres pull your curls out of shape. Then, let your locks marinate in the moisture. After the basin treatment, guests will move back to the chairs, where the staff provide some curl-themed reading materials while their hair is dried in a hooded dryer.

Morley is quick to admit his own hair lacks in kinks, coils and swirls. But the Brighton, United Kingdom-born hairdresser moved to Melbourne via Sydney, where an encounter at a house party cemented his fascination with curly hair. As he chatted with another guest about his love of textured hair, she said something that stuck: “Lots of people love it. But not many people can do it.” That conversation led to Morley launching a curl-centric blog that gathered a 5000-strong following.

That in turn led to a salon of his own – a colourful spot neatly tucked behind a Brunswick Street shopfront. Wall-to-wall windows fill the space with sunlight that helps you take in its giddy murals. The burgundy-and-white artwork which serves as a backdrop to the mirror stations was painted by local artist Sebastian Berto, and life-sized cut-outs of Lionel Richie and Prince lurk towards the back of the store.

And the most important post-appointment instruction? “Make sure you have plans to go out,” Morley says.

Neel Loves Curls bookings open at 8pm on the first day of each month. The work phone is text only. Check the Instagram page for last-minute availabilities.

Neel Loves Curls
399 B Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
0451 001 433 (text only)

@neellovescurls