As you may have noticed on my Twitter (follow me here if you don’t want to miss out on the hair drama!) I’ve been toying with my hair. For the first time ever in my life I’ve bleached it – but that wasn’t enough. Go big or go home they say, right? So I went big and bleached it 3 times in 3 weeks and topped it off with 3 temporary wash out dyes and 4 permanent dyes in the following week. Irresponsible and self-destructive? Perhaps. Fun & totally worth it? Damn yes!! And after having my hair cut a couple of months ago at Rush Hair & Beauty (the best hair cut I’ve ever had, with lots and lots of layers – find them here) I’ve even discovered how to achieve these insanely voluminous messy waves!
And all you need is a pair of hair straighteners!
? Prep
My hair, in its natural state, is incredibly straight. It’s straight, wire-like, thick and super heavy. A hairdresser once told me that despite being caucasian my hair has an Asian quality to it – that’s why curls don’t hold up, no matter what I do. Well let me tell you something – three rounds of bleaches and a pair of high quality hair straighteners and my hair is willing to do so much more than it ever has! The bleaching hasn’t damaged it (touch wood) one bit – mind you, I have been using a lot of super strong hair care products and masks to revive it to its original condition (there’s a blog post coming up on this in a couple of weeks). To avoid any further damage I use a heat protector before using any heat on it – ghd Advanced Split End Therapy (buy it here) has recently replaced my trusty Wen Styling Cream and I cannot fault it one bit. It has a special Thermo-Marine Bonding System which fills and binds broken hair fibres essentially glueing your split ends back together. It also contains the Super Nutrient Complex which prevents future breakage by wrapping each hair into a protective coat. I apply it just before using a hair dryer and then again before using straighteners. What I particularly enjoy about it is that just like with Wen you can’t feel it in your hair at all!
? How to achieve those big wild messy waves on shoulder length hair
Once my hair’s all prepped (you can tell that I don’t mess about – the heat protector is the only thing that goes on my hair before styling it) I section it with a large clip. I only do 2 sections – the crown gets clipped away first – and I curl the bottom layer first. The ghd platinum styler (you can get it here) is pretty powerful without scorching your hair – it has something called the tri-zone technology which essentially means that there are three sensors in each plate, ensuring the optimum temperature for styling hair is consistently maintained across the entire plate – this reduces hair breakage & increases shine (a double win!). I always go from the very top of each strand curling the hair towards my face – I find that that way it creates more of a messy finish! Once the bottom layer is done I spray it with a bit of hair spray. Then I unclip the rest of my hair, curl it exactly the same way and add another spritz of hair spray. Give it about 3 minutes for the hair spray to settle and either run your fingers through it or go all out with a hair brush. If you feel like the curls have lost their definition you can always go back in with a touch of the Advanced Split End Therapy to smooth them out, which is what I find myself doing quite often.
I find that my hair stays wavy like this whole day (8+ hours!) without losing just minimum of its volume towards the end of the day – which for my wire-like hair is a miracle! I’m sure that if your hair is thick and heavy you will know what I mean – having thick hair is a blessing but it can also be incredibly frustrating!
? ghd have sent me their platinum styler so I could give it a whirl (thank you!) but my recent affair with granny hair with lots of volume is my very own caused by way too many hours spent browsing Pinterest for granny chic beauty. Also – I do not recommend triple bleaching in 3 weeks, only absolutely insane people do that, not you.
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