Bored of your hair? I get it. Seriously. That doesn’t mean you or I don’t love our wavy hair pattern, but sometimes it’s nice to change things up. Often times, that means *heat* for us. No judgement to you who do that often, but I try to use heat only every few months. So that left me on the hunt for a good overnight curls (heatless curls) technique. And I tried a LOT. In fact, here are ones that DID’NT work for me…..
Foam Rollers
French Braids (waves)
Twisting & Pinning
I even tried hot rollers (yep, even heat!) and still found myself with a frizzy crown.
I was frustrated and told myself I’d only try two more things. And thankfully, the next one worked! Better than I could’ve ever imagined! The good news is that it was easy, holds well, AND the most comfortable to sleep in.
So what’s the key? Twistys. A LOT of twistys. Otherwise called “Flexi-Rods” and the good news is that they’re super affordable. This 42 piece set is under $13 (*as I type this, prices can fluctuate).
I put these into about 80-90% dry hair. My hair dries VERY slowly, so I tried to do small sections. I used 15 total, but will do about 20 next time.
It’s time to point out here that once these are in place, they feel very secure. My experience with both foam rollers and hot rollers is that I can’t move at all without risk of everything falling down and apart. These rods can form close to your head which feels stable. It’s also that reason that I believe makes them more comfortable to sleep in. I also sprayed down my head with this hairspray which contains only water-solube silicones.
Once I woke up, the flexi rods were still stable. I noticed that the thicker sections at the back of my hair were still damp. This is why I mentioned that next time I’ll add five more. This is also the area my head/neck was resting on so it’d make sense that they remained damp. On a normal day home with the kiddos, I’d just leave them in to air dry. But today we actually went skiing (more on that!) so I needed to get out fast. So I diffused these. I know, I said “heatless!” but I used cool and cold air only! I used my normal diffuser (click here for how I made this combo work – but the Xtava hair dryer & diffuser combo is on my wish list!) I have also does this without any diffusing and it works great, just the hair needs to be 100% dry.
Once my hair was 100% dry, I took them out.
Next, I shook out the curls because they were CURLY. I was shocked with how springy my hair got. These gave me beautiful 3a curls! But they also looked ridiculous in their sections. So I turned upside down and lightly scrunched. Then I realized my hair needed some sort of product to keep it from frizzing.
I used this light serum/oil, it’s actually a silicone/sulfate free heat protectant! The texture of this was perfect to help lightly break apart the curls and help avoid frizz. (In fact, I should probably use this more on my normal waves!)
Lastly I finished off with a final spraydown of hairspray.
Ihave used this method all year round. In 20 degree weather, under a helmet, through the wind of going down the runs…..my hair stayed curled. In the summer, be sure to do that last round of hairspray.
I added a bit of serum to help with the frizz and this is my result AFTER skiing. Truly remarkable. I’m SO glad I found flexi-rods and highly recommend anyone to give them a try. I’m also going to use them on my 4 year old once her hair is a bit longer. Lastly, I did write most of this post before I chopped 10 inches off my hair at home. You can check out that post here.
Have YOU tried flexi rods? If you do because of this post, PLEASE share below how it turned out! I’m so amazed by this technique!
-Rachel
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