If you’re anything like us, curling your hair gives you anxiety.
We know that people with curly hair sometimes envy people with straight hair, but the reverse is true as well.
Straightened hair tends to stay straight for at least a few hours once you’ve worked on it.
You can spend hours trying to curl your hair, and then as soon as you walk out of the front door and your hair comes into contact with moisture, it all falls flat.
If you’re reading this right now and nodding along as we explain the problem, we feel you.
There’s plenty of competing advice on the internet about how to curl your hair in a way that stays curled down the duration of a night out (or even a full day), but separating the good advice from the bad advice isn’t easy.
That isn’t ideal when you have a big night out planned, and you need your hair to behave itself. You can’t afford to take chances.
Your night at the casino could be ruined if you’re having to deal with your hair as if it were an online slots game, choosing a tip at random and hoping that it works!You might even get better odds from some online slots websites than you would from following the first piece of advice you see on the internet - all Online Slots UK at least pay off occasionally. Bad advice never does.
We have some good news for you - things don’t have to be this way!
There are reliable and dependable ways to curl your hair and have the style stay in place, and here are five golden rules when it comes to getting the look right.
1. Allow Your Hair To Cool Before Styling
There are some ways to curl your hair without applying heat, but let's be honest, most of us have no chance without getting the curling irons out.
That means our hair is going to get hot - and so we have to allow it to cool down if we want the new shape to hold.
Believe it or not, most of the mistakes made with curling hair are down to rushing the process. Once you've curled your hair, you need to clip it and pin it, and don't take those clips or pins out until your hair is cool to the touch.
This is something that our grandparents knew how to do, but the knowledge seems to have been lost over the passage of time.
2. Clean Hair Doesn't Curl
We’re going to shock a few people with this piece of advice, so make sure you’re sitting comfortably.
Your hair is unlikely to curl properly if you try to curl it the same day you’ve washed it.
This will come as a surprise to the people who wash their hair every day. Believe it or not, washing your hair every day can actually damage your hair and make it less receptive to styling.
You have a better chance of getting your curls to take on the second day, or maybe even the third if you can stand going that long without washing it.
The reason this works is that by the second or third day, your hair will contain more of its natural oils. That gives you hair more natural texture and hold, and therefore encourages the style to stay in place.3. Temperatures Matter
There’s a reason that your curling irons come with adjustable temperature settings.
If you’ve been using the same setting the whole time you’ve been curling your hair, it’s possible that you’ve been missing the point.
There’s a basic rule about curling iron temperature, and it goes like this; the thinner your hair is, the lower the temperature should be.
If you have fine hair, never set the temperature above two hundred degrees Fahrenheit. For thicker or coarse hair, you’re unlikely to get the result you want unless you go above two hundred degrees Fahrenheit.
The only exception to this rule is for hair that’s been tinted or colored, in which case you should stay below two hundred degrees in all circumstances. You’d be amazed at how much difference following this tip makes.
4. The Shorter The Hair, The Shorter The Barrel
Curling irons come in a variety of shapes and sizes.
Just as with the adjustable temperature settings, there's a reason for that.
If your hair is short - by which we mean that you wear it shorter than shoulder length - you'll find that you struggle to wrap it around a longer barrel.
You'll need a smaller set of curling irons with a smaller barrel if you want to curl your hair. This will be more time consuming, but that's the price you pay for having a shorter style! The reverse is also obviously true.
A small-barreled set of curling irons will struggle to curl long hair because they don't have a large enough surface area to do the job.
5. Mousse Is Your Friend
One should never grab the curling irons and attack your hair without preparing it first.
Your hair needs to be properly prepared for what you're about to do to it!
There are plenty of products you might consider putting on your hair before picking up the curling irons, but if you want our advice (which we presume you do, because you've read this far), you can't beat a good mousse.
Seek out a well-reviewed pre-curl mousse, and work a good handful of it into your hair from the root to the tip.
This prevents your hair from being damaged unnecessarily during the heating and curling process.
The added bonus here is that the alcohol content of the mousse will strip some of the moisture out of your hair, making it less likely that your curls will slip out of place once they're set.
Go Get That Curl
So now we’ve covered essential products, best washing practices, temperature settings, and choosing the right type of curling irons.
Taken all together, this should be all the information that you need to get the curl effect that you’ve always dreamed of, and not worry about your look vanishing as soon as you step outside.
Thanks for stopping by, and we hope that our advice has been useful to you!
