NASA astronaut Jessica Meir shares zero-G curly hair tips from the ISS (video)

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir just shared some tips for controlling curls in the tough environment of microgravity — and it was a big deal for curly-haired people like me.

Meir's hair-care advice came Wednesday (Sept.

9) in a 5.5-minute video she posted to X from the International Space Station (ISS), where everything floats and "where curls are even more free to be what they want to be," the Expedition 75 astronaut wrote.

And if you think all this talk about hair care sounds frivolous, take it from a fellow curly: the representation matters.

More on that in a moment, but first, let's see how Meir takes care of her curly hair in microgravity .

In a video she posted to X on Sept.

9, 2026, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir provided tips for caring for curly hair in space. (Image credit: Jessica Meir/NASA) According to Meir, washing in orbit requires no-rinse shampoo, especially focusing on the scalp, where sweat and salt build up.

She has less access to hair products than we do here on Earth, as you would imagine, so she keeps it simple: a careful squeeze of her pouch of water, then working the expelled water along her hair roots, and also rubbing it on the scalp.

Meir then uses a "dedicated T-shirt" to dry her hair, which she described as thick as well as curly.

In between treatments, Meir avoids brushes (for pretty obvious reasons of frizz) and uses her hands and fingers instead to "work" her hair.

Luckily, humidity is not much of an issue on the ISS, but she does use leave-in conditioner: "My Earthly 3a curls become more like 3c," she said.

Meir has been on the ISS since February, and she said she's looking forward to having an actual shower when she gets back home to Earth .

OK, so about that representation.

My editor asked me to talk not only about Meir's video but also my own connections to her words, which brings up some teenage angst.