July 14, 2011

By Meghan Did It

When you have naturally curly hair learning how to care for your curls with the right product and technique for your unique hair type is KEY.  It wasn’t until I was well into my 20′s that I stumbled across a curly hair salon and actually figured out how to work with my curls and make them look nice.

Ever since then I’ve been fascinated by curl enhancing tricks and tips.   I now enjoy wearing my hair out curly and usually it looks great,  but sometimes it just doesn’t feel like performing.  I’ll do my hair styling routine exactly the same each day but sometimes my curls turn out limp and undefined.  Bummer.  Having great hair sometimes feels like a gamble.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could guarantee that you’d have a perfect curl day?  How useful would such a boon be for special events when you simply must look your very best, or suffer the derision of your attractive peers.

Sadly my hair tends to look its best when I’m bumming around the house alone and its worst when I’m attending friends weddings.    If you’re in the same boat, then hold on to your seats kids.    Have I got the product for you.

My new favorite hair taming tool is called Curlformers!  Instead of setting your hair on rollers you pull small sections through a bendy sheath (see above: they’re pink and yellow)  with the aid of a large grey plastic hook.  When you let the sheath go it rolls up like a ringlet and holds your hair in a perfect curl position until it dries.

Sure, you look a bit like Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons while your hair dries,  but it’s a small price to pay for frizz tamed perfectly formed curly tresses.   Truth be told I actually find these kind of fun to walk around in.   I get a kick out of seeing my new colourful hairdo in the mirror!

I began styling my hair when it was wet and then left my hair in the Curlformers for about two hours until it felt dry.   When I took out the Curlformers I had big loopy smooth (and frizz free) curls.  Within an hour or so the curls had loosened up a bit and my style looked more wavy.

The Styling Process

Here’s how my hair looked naturally when long after I had air dried it.  These results are not always  attainable for me though:

Here are the results I achieved with the Long and Extra Wide Curlformers:

Here’s how my hair looked immediately after taking out the Long and Extra Wide Curlformers (I left a yellow one still in there):

I find that these Curlformers tend to smooth and loosen up my natural 3A curls.  When I don’t put a lot of product in my hair I can run my fingers through them and achieve a wavy beachy hair type look.   I’m growing my hair out long again and I think this will be an excellent casual day to day style.

Here I am again after brushing out the curls just a tad with my fingers ( I still need some practice with these things, but you get the idea):

What I love about Curlformers is that I don’t have any frizz afterwards!  When I let my curls do their thing naturally there is usually a halo of frizz at the top of my  head, especially if I use a diffuser in the winter to hasten along the drying process.   My curls came out frizz free and smooth with Curlformers.

Tip:  It takes a few tries to get the hang of using these things.  The first time I tried I got so mad I gave up after 10 minutes.  The second time I did better but kept getting my hair tangled up in the hook.  The third time I developed a technique and now get no hair caught at all.    Moral of the story is to keep at it!  They’re so worth the initial frustration.

Want to see how to apply Curlformers?  Check out this link.

What worked best for me is to remember to keep my hook in a vertical position (see above) when you hook your hair and pull it up through the Curlformer.  I messed up initially and did it at an angle and my hair didn’t pull through smoothly and got caught.

Factors that effect the type of curls you get with Curlformers

1.  How close you place the lip of the curl former against your scalp.  (Close = Shirley Temple curls that bounce when you walk.  About 2 or more inches away from scalp = looser more wearable curls.

For example, here is what they look like when they’re applied close to your scalp:

And here’s what they look like applied about 2 inches away from your scalp:

2.  How much curl holding product (gel) you apply when you hair is wet.  Two teaspoon of gel resulted in loose waves for me.  Curls were easy to brush out and my natural curls were tamed down into a looser curl patter.   Several palms full of curl keeper run evenly through my hair resulted in big bouncy curls that had a mind of their own.

3.  The type of Curlformers you use.  For this review I  used their Extra Wide version to smooth down my hair, loosten up my natural curl pattern and get a wavy sort of do.

4.   Your natural hair type.

5.  The way you apply your curl formers.  One color in a kit curls to the right, and the other color curls to the left.  You can apply then randomly all over your head to create more natural looking  curls, or you can put one color all over  the left side of your head and another color on the right which creates uniform, perfect, very “done” looking curls.

Curlformers randomy applied all over my head (the results can be seen in all  the pictures up above):

Applying one colour of curlformers to the left side, and another color to the right, creating a uniform curl pattern:

The resulting curls (before I brushed them out a bit):

Here’s a picture without flash:

In case it’s not obvious, I LOVE these things.  They are fun to use, are guaranteed to get some laughs from friends and family and they are an awesome tool for naturally curly haired girls who want to wrestle back control over their curls.  I give them two thumbs up!

Here’s where I bought my Curlformers from:   www.curlformers.com

 

I recommend getting a styling kit to start off with.  You get enough curlformers in a box to do your whole head, a hook and a Holdall bag/box thingie to keep them in.

Disclaimer:  I purchased all these products with my own money!

Enjoy!

My interests are admittedly frivolous but highly infectious. I’m a professionally trained Makeup artist with a B.A. in Psychology so I’m only slightly dangerous.  Walk with me and maybe we’ll find a conduit to enlightenment via the perfect shade of lipstick. View all posts by Meghan Did It

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 14th, 2011 at 5:10 pm and tagged with beauty supply, best hair curlers, curl formers, curlers, curlformer, curlformers, curly, curly hair, free heat, Hair, hair style, healthy, heat free styling, how to curl hair, large, natural hair, reviews, ringlets, rollers, styles, styling, wavy and posted in Hair. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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