AND WE’RE BACK!

As you may have noticed, sometimes I fail at updating my blog in a timely manner. It’s been over 2 weeks, in fact. I’ve been so caught up with my new job, studying for finals, and my booming social life (One of these is a lie. Can you guess which?!) that I have been putting this blog on the back burner. But no more, I promise! In fact, I’ve decided to sort of shift the focus of the blog so that, rather than just being outfit posts, it will be a little bit of everything. Crafts, recipes, tutorials, whatever I feel like. This will hopefully mean that I can update a bit more. It will especially be helpful in about a month when temperatures reach 115 degrees and the last thing I want to do is dress up and go outside to take pictures.

So to kick things off, I thought I would do a tutorial! Okay, it was more of an experiment than a tutorial. My sister and I went splitsies on one of those curling wands (sort of like a curling iron, but without the clamp) because we wanted to give it a shot. I’ve never used one before—in fact, I usually curl my hair with a flat iron (hey, maybe there will be a tutorial for that next!)—so I figured I would document it!

 
I started out with straight(ish) hair. This is what my hair does if I just comb it out and let it air dry. The only thing I put in it was a bit of Moroccan Oil.

 

 
I always start by sectioning my hair. I try to do it in thirds, because I have a whole lot of hair and it’s impossible to do it all at once. So i clipped the top two-thirds of my hair up.

 
Make sure your tool is heated up. I used a Conair YouCurl, which was only $30 at Target. Bonus, my sister and I split it so it was only 15 bucks each!

It came with this strange little three-finger heat protective glove. Most curling wands come with a full glove, which would be ideal, because it’s super easy to burn your last two fingers if you’re not careful. I tried using the glove, though, and ended up taking it off because it was a little too bulky and cumbersome.

 
Holding the wand upside down (so the widest part is at the top) I wrapped my hair around the stick. I held it there for about 7 seconds before releasing the curl. If you hold if for more time, you will get a tighter curl; less time will give you a loose curl. PS—this is my ‘super focused’ serious face.

 

As you can see, some curls are tight and some are loose. This is because I was experimenting with how long to hold the curl on the barrel of the iron. If this happens to you, don’t worry—you can go back and fix it when you’re finished!

 
After I finished curling my hair all over, I spritzed it with Blow Texturizing Mist and used my fingers to tousle my hair a bit so it was less curly and more beachy.

 
And here’s the result! In total it probably took me about a half hour, but I’m sure once I get used to using the wand I’ll be able to cut my styling time down.

So in review, I’m still iffy on whether I prefer this over flat iron curls. It gives a different look for sure, but I am still much more comfortable with using my flat iron to curl my hair. I always know it will turn out how I want it, and I feel like I have a little more control that way. Still, this method is fun and pretty simple!