hair diaries: no heat curls (photos)

one of my dear readers requested that i do another post about my hair.  i apologize for not sharing any fancy 'dos lately- my hair has gotten really long- and when it gets too long and hasn't been cut in oh, say, 8 months (which is torture for a pre-baby religious every 6-8 weeker) it starts to get a little cray-cray.  when it gets too long, i need to start doing as my grandma used to and sleep on a silk pillowcase... but i don't have one, so i wake up with crazy matted hair every morning... therefore, it's lots of ponytails for me.  gosh, this sounds like an argument for more hair tutorials instead of less...

so, the big blog thing this summer in hair that kept catching my eye was the "no heat curl."  i have to admit, i never actually viewed any of the tutorials, or did anything more than look at the pictures of girls with their curls.  of course i kept thinking "no heat curl... isn't that what i do with my hair every day simply by letting it air dry?"  of course, i then realized that not everyone is cursed with has curly/wavy hair.  some people have to work for it...  so i went to the first place that i saw the nhc- the paper mama (view her photos & tutorial by following the link) and realized that this was probably the easiest thing in the world.  it's a style you make simply by sleeping (and i love to sleep).  ready to see how it's done?

step 1

start with hair that is mostly dry.  you can see how long my hair is getting + how it curls on its own.  

step 2

channel your inner mischa barton circa 2008 and wrap a headband on the outside of your hair (i use goody's no slip headbands).  

step 3

 starting from the front and working your way around take strands of hair and loop them around the headband until you're all the way around your head (see video tutorial on the paper mama's blog for help).

step 4.

 go to sleep!!  zzzzz  (bonus points with me if you can name the film whence this mask was originally seen)

step 5.

good morning- time to take the hair down!  (very carefully)

here at is at 1st glance- very curly.  now i'm going to shake it out a bit...

yikes... it got a little pageant-y....

then i had this one crazy piece that refused to curl that i ended up having to pin curl for a few hours

but overall... i'm impressed.  this is something you can tweak to fit your needs- pull thinner strands for more curls and thicker strands for less (i'm trying that next time).

these last 2 pictures were taken around 5:30- so for me it lasted ALL DAY!  if your hair isn't naturally curly like mine, i would suggest that you spray it pretty generously with hair spray and let that dry (i saw that in another no heat curls video).  as far as how you normally style it before you do the curls- i guess that would be up to you.  i stopped using hair products on my hair back last year when i stopped washing my hair for a while- however, i did use a pea sized drop of dave's gel and lightly ran it over the top, since it was a little fuzzy from being slept on.  i'll definitely be trying this again and experimenting with the types of curls i can get and ways i can style it.  

have you tried the no heat curls before?  do you think this is a look that will work for you?  let me know!