Heatless Hairstyles: How to Air-Dry Your Curls

“At first, I was really skeptical. Heatless hair hacks never ever work on my hair, I usually wake up in the morning and my hair could be mistaken for a bird's nest. But this hack looked a little different to others I tried so I thought I'd give it a go!”

Mastering the perfect curl is a difficult task in itself, but creating the perfect wave using just the belt from your dressing gown/robe is impossible, right? WRONG. We put Rhian, our Junior Creative, to the test to try out this new hair craze...

How did she do it?

Step 1

I wanted to give my hair the best prep before wrapping it up for the night so I put in a hair mask at 9am in the morning and left it in all day so that my strands really soaked up all the moisture. I used the Gisou Honey Infused Hair Mask. My hair is going through a growth spurt at the moment and I have a lot of baby hairs coming through which can be a total pain as they just want to do their own thing and frizz out of control!

It's really important at this stage that I take extra care of my new hair and build on its strength! So masks once a week are vital! With all this extra time on our hands, you could even give a DIY hair mask a go.

Step 2

I washed my hair in the afternoon around 5pm and then wrapped my hair up in an old cotton t-shirt for an hour or two. The t-shirt absorbs water from my hair really efficiently and isn't rough on my strands. When your hair is wet, it's at its most vulnerable state, so a cotton t-shirt is perfect for drying your hair as it's so much more gentle than a towel. It also lessens frizz!

Leave your hair to get about 70% dry so that it's still susceptible to pattern change and it's totally comfortable to wear to bed. If you try this when your hair is too wet, the material you're using to wrap your hair around will also become too wet and your hair probably won't dry overnight. Also, it would be really uncomfortable, might cause irritation and may also cause breakage, so it's really important to make sure your hair is about 70% dry! 

Step 3

All you need is a brush or comb to detangle your hair, a clip and the belt from your dressing gown/robe, but anything that resembles this will do, you could use socks or tights, even leggings!

Once you've combed your hair through you can then place the belt in place and secure it with a clip on the side you aren't working on. All you're going to do is, wrap your hair around the belt all going away from your face, starting at the top and keep adding hair as you work down the belt. Once all the hair is wrapped around the material you can secure it in place with an elastic and if you have material left over flip this upward so that the ends are sealed. Now repeat on the other side.

Step 4

Sleep. Once you're happy that everything feels secure and nothing is pulling or taught and that the material and curls are close to your head.

I slept on a silk pillowcase in order to prevent frizz and damage to my locks. Cotton pillowcases can ruff up your hair during the night and cause breakage and frizz, which is something you really don't want, especially when you've put in so much effort in keeping your hair healthy. 

The Results

Wow! I was so shocked when I saw the results as I unwound my hair from the material! This honestly is a game-changer!

Perfect curls, and that's all I had to do was wrap my hair around material and then sleep! There is a little frizz at the top of my head which is totally expected but I just tamed these down with some GEO Oil and hairspray.

I also ran the GEO Oil through my strands to give them a little glow up. I combed through the curls with my fingertips and a little with a brush and Voilà! Perfect curls! 

You can either wear them really uniform or more beachy and because they dried naturally my hair feels so so thick and healthy! Love it!

Be sure to check out our other hairstyles & hacks, and, of course, our easy to follow hair tutorials on YouTube.