soft curls – an everyday look.

This is my very first hair tutorial! No, I didn’t do a video…mainly because I don’t have a tripod yet and can’t video myself while fixing my hair!

*Picture fried hair and burnt fingers*

I may try to follow this photo tutorial up with an actual video, so stay tuned. Until then, here is a quick and easy look to try!

Keep in mind that I have a longer, graduated swing. Also, my hair is pretty thick. If you need to section your hair differently, please do!

This hair style is meant to be quick! We aren’t going to spend an hour curling our hair, here. In fact, doing this style takes less time than straightening my hair. It is super easy and you don’t need to be a pro to do it.

Step ONE.

I like to start off with either day two post-wash hair (with a little dry shampoo) OR, if you need to wash your hair everyday, use some texturizing spray or a little dry shampoo on your clean hair. Whatever you choose, we are aiming for a little texture or ‘grit’ in the hair. It helps the curl to stay in.

Step TWO.

You’ll want to section your hair so that curling is quick and easy. Take your fingers and pull back the top layer of hair from your temples, back. You should have something that looks like this:

Be sure to comb through your bottom layer of hair. This makes grabbing small sections easier and the curl will be more even.

Step THREE.

Now you want to grab a small section of hair to curl. We don’t want to grab too little (avoiding spiral or corkscrew curls) or too much (avoiding curling iron creases and uneven curls). The perfect measuring tool is your ear. From your hair line to the back of your ear is the first section you want to grab. This will be about the amount you always want to have in your iron.

Grab your curling iron and go! I use a 1″ barrel on my hair. My go-to curling irons are by Hot Tools or Babyliss; however, the one I’m using in this tutorial is actually a Conair. Long story…for another post.

Always always always curl AWAY from your face. Once you have curled your first piece, you will want to immediately comb through it to loosen it up. We don’t want real tight curls – we want a relaxed look. I just use a teasing comb to run through my curls. (PS: you will use it again later in the tutorial)

Once you finish your first layer of hair, it should look a bit like this:

Not too curly, but just enough.

Step FOUR.

On to the next layer! If you have to section your hair differently, please feel free. I have to section my hair one more time due to its thick nature.

Again, make sure you comb through your hair before starting to curl.

Step FIVE.

Curl and comb the next layer of hair. So on and so forth until you’ve curled all layers EXCEPT for your bangs. These need to be sectioned off and taken care of a little differently (see step SIX).

Tip: Once I have my top layer curled, I don’t comb through with horizontal strokes, I actually like to use vertical strokes to separate my curls a little more.

Step SIX – Bangs.

If you have bangs – or even if you don’t – this is an easy way to keep them off of your forehead and incorporate them with the rest of your hair.

You should have one last straight-ish section of hair left. Split that into two sections:

You are going to tease each section to give your bangs a little lift. I use my teasing comb here. You can use a teasing brush, but sometimes that doesn’t get the tease fine enough. I recommend a comb instead.

Tease BOTH sections of your bangs. It will look a little crazy…

You will want to lightly comb the very top layer of hair to conceal the tease (you don’t want to see it). I comb the tease back, here, so that my bangs are not on my forehead or in my face, period.

Next, you will want to curl the bangs and comb (like you did on the rest of your hair).

Step SEVEN.

Almost done!

To add a little ‘umph’ to your hair style, take a section of hair at the crown of your head and tease (you will want about 2-3 inches of tease here). Continue down towards your neck with about two more sections. DON’T COMB OUT YOUR TEASE!