Curly Hair Tutorial

Hello Ladies! It was very exciting to see all of your outfits yesterday. Thank you to all of you who entered. I got several emailed entries, so I don't think I'll be able to post them all. However, I do thank all of you who sent me pictures. :-)

Samantha is really the one in charge of the tutorial dept.... however, I begged her to let me do a few hair tutorials and she said I could. ;-) hehe! So, I'm going to show you my favorite way to get my hair super curly for fun updos. Samantha has a lovely tutorial post today that you'll want to go check out! Go HERE to see it! And you just might want to make one for the hair style that I'll show you tomorrow. :-)

I don't like curling my hair with a hot iron, only because it seems to damage easily. So, I've found some no heat ways to create some great waves! Ok, I won't trying rhyming any more. I use rags, foam rollers, and, my absolute favorite, Solar Rollers. I have no idea why they are called that, but they are just the best. Unfortunately, you can't buy them at a store. They're 'old fashioned', I suppose. I imagine that any kind of no heat roller will be out of date in not too long. *sigh*. However, before I lose heart, I shall tell you what I'm going to show you how to do today....

My tutorial is on how to make your own Solar Rollers. SR's are just basically foam rollers in a piece of fabric with a twisty-tie through the middle so you can secure the roller in your hair. They are much comfier to sleep in than rags (which have big knots that push all over your head), and they're much cleaner and easier to get out. When I say 'cleaner' I really mean that they leave less tangles, if any, to be dealt with when removing them from your hair.

Alright, so to make your own SRs, you'll need some basic foam rollers (You can pick these up at Walmart, Alco, and probably any specialty hair place), thin fabric (just thin enough that it can 'breath' easily.), a needle and thread, and some thicker beading wire, or a long twisty-tie.

Cut the foam roller so that it's only about a 1 1/4 inches long.

Now cut a long piece of wire, bend it to a circle, joining the ends by twisting them tightly together. Squish it flat, with the twisted part in the middle. It should look like this: *note, if you are using a long twisty-tie, then there is no need for this step.

Once that is done, insert your wire through the middle hole of the foam roller. 

Next, take your fabric (in my case I'm using those funky towel thingy-ma-bob with the stripes and tiny holes- I think they're called Handi Wipes) and cut it like so. I cut mine on a fold so I didn't have to sew up one side.

After you have your fabric cut, put your foam roller, with the wire inside, and lay it down on one side of the fabric. Fold the other side over and sew up the seams. If you were going to be making several of these (which you need!) then you'll probably want to use a sewing machine (if one is available to you.). Because these are just hair rags, the seam can be on the outside. No need to be perfect here. ;-)

Once you've stitched everything, tie off your thread, and voila! You've just got yourself a Solar Roller!

My roller next to the original one.

Now, you'll want to do this part especially if you want to follow my hair tutorial for tomorrow (normally I'll be posting hair tutorials on the off days for the clothing, but I'll have to do the second half in my post for tomorrow. :-)

Instructions on Using Your New Solar Rollers:

(Please excuse the slightly blurry photos and self portrait look! no one was available for taking pictures for me at the time... =P)

Make sure your hair is damp. If you've already washed and dried it, simply spritz it with a water bottle. I usually take a shower before I do my rollers. However, because my hair is so thick, I'll let it air dry just a teensy bit before I start rolling. Otherwise my hair is still wet in the morning.

Divide your hair into sections. I part my hair down the middle, then I do the top and bottom half. Basically I just take my finger and hold it at a horizontal angle at the top of my ear. I then use it to divide the 'top' section of hair (the stuff that grows close to your part). Pin that up out of the way and what is remaining is the 'bottom' half. Then, I find out how many rollers I have (I've lost a few here and there, so I always have to re-count). I divide them equally for my two sides. Then, I divide those equally for my top and bottom halves. Once all that awful math is done, the easy part follows. ;-)

Damp hair, divided in half.

Once I've figured out how I want to divide my hair, say 4 rollers in the bottom half on my left side, I'll divide that section into half, then half again. (I'll now have 3 sections-two smaller, one big on the bottom half).

Take the front small section and grab it in your hand. Put your roller up about an inch and a half from the ends of your hair. Take the ends and wrap it around your roller.

Then, continue rolling the roller up towards your scalp, making sure to catch the ends of hair that have already been rolled.

Now you take your wire ends, pull them up towards the front, and twist them together to secure.

Continue this with all sections. Now all you have to do is go to bed, and let the rollers do their work. :-)  As you can see in the photo below, my hair was already starting to form curls, and I'd only had the rag in long enough to take pictures. :-)

I'll show the hairstyle tomorrow and how to do it. :-) Oh yes, and now you see why I was polling y'all about how long your hair was. Now I'll have a better idea of hat kind of styles to do. :-)  Also, this curling method really works on shorter to medium length hair. Longer haired ladies might have a hard time to get this to work. One video tutorial that I found looks like it works very well, so you might check it out. It's HERE. :-) .