I’m a victim of beauty burnout. After the daily hair straightening and mascara applications of my teenage years and the routine waxes and photoshoot preparation of my modelling years, I’ve become exhausted with the effort it takes to be beautiful. Recently, though, I’ve been dipping my toe back in with one caveat – anything new I add to my routine must have an acceptable results-to-effort ratio. Last night, I decided to see if overnight heatless curls fit the bill.
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Over the years, I’ve tried heatless hair styling with mixed results. Old-fashioned foam rollers? Tedious to use, worse to sleep on and completely inconsistent. Those wiggly wave tubes you pull strands of hair through with a crochet needle? As excruciating to remove as they are to put in. Even the satin curling rods popular among beauty influencers haven’t really worked for me.
So, six-dollar fuzzy socks from Kmart? I didn’t set my hopes super high. My pride will let me admit when I was wrong, and wow, was I wrong. This method isn’t just great for lazy girls like me. It’s perfect for all the girls heading off on a Euro summer without their Dyson Airwrap, the mums short on time and anyone else with hair who will listen to me.
How to get heatless curls using just socks
I started with my usual post-shower routine – one pump of jojoba hair oil raked through the damp ends of clean, conditioned hair. My hair tends to hold styles pretty well, so I didn’t add any more product. If your hair is always fighting to return to its natural state, a spritz of texturising spray or a dollop of lightweight gel at this stage may help you get longer-lasting results.
The general consensus is to wait until your hair is dry (or mostly dry) before grabbing your socks. I used my Dyson Hair Dryer without my usual diffuser attachment to keep it super basic. This left me with frizzy hair and a sinking feeling I’d wake up looking like a goldendoodle, but I pressed on.
After parting my hair evenly, I tore open the cheap fuzzy socks I’d purchased earlier in the afternoon. I will caution you to only use freshly washed socks for your heatless curls – the first step to styling is to bite the toe of the sock tightly between your teeth (ew).
Now, a successful sock curl requires a very specific method. Pull the leg of the sock taut toward one side of your head. Do not wrap the sock and your hair around each other like a braid. Instead, think of the sock as the anchor around which your hair should be wrapped. Additionally, do not twist your hair while wrapping it. Your hair should be pulled straight and lie flat against the sock.
Once I’d finished wrapping, I flipped the opening of the sock inside-out like a cover over my hair and tied it off with a hair tie before repeating on the rest of my hair with the other sock. Not including the time it took for my hair to dry, the process took just under five minutes.
Are overnight curls comfortable to wear?
This method was, without a doubt, the most comfortable heatless styling method I’ve ever tried. I hopped online to play some video games with friends before bed and completely forgot two hair-filled socks were dangling on either side of my face. There was no sense of heaviness, pulling or irritation – truly a technique that is one hundred per cent #gamergirlapproved.
I was slightly worried this experiment would impact my quality of sleep but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Because this method doesn’t require bits of plastic encircling your scalp, there’s significantly less sensory overload and discomfort than I’ve experienced with heatless styling in the past. The softness of the socks allows for natural compression, meaning their presence is much less noticeable than rollers or flexirods.
Removal was seamless – no pain, no tugging, no struggle. I simply removed the hair tie, peeled back the sock and watched as cute little ringlets tumbled out. My boyfriend gasped at the immediate reveal and said I looked like a haunted doll, but what does he know anyway?
Were heatless curls worth the effort?
Simply put, yes. I was so pleasantly surprised with how these turned out. Sock curls have an excellent results-to-effort ratio. After brushing through them with my fingers, I was left with an easy, breezy look that’s been serving me well in the office today. Are heatless curls giving the same polished perfection you can get from a Dyson Airwrap? No, but that’s okay! I am a resident of reality, so I wasn’t expecting them to. These curls give just enough zhuzh for a lazy girl or minimalist traveller to feel pretty and put together.
Next time, I plan to use a roller for the face-framing pieces of hair that were missed this time and ended up a bit wonky. I might also let my hair air dry before wrapping to sweeten the results-to-effort ratio a bit more. But overall, I definitely recommend trying heatless curls if you haven’t already. Your mileage may vary depending on your hair length, density and texture, but for results like this, why not give it a go?
For more on easy hairstyling techniques, head here.
This article How to get heatless curls with minimal effort appeared first on Fashion Journal.
2025-05-29 09:58:00
#heatless #curls #minimal #effort
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