I have tried just about every method there is for curling my hair: plastic curlers, foam curlers, curlers with velcro, curling irons, round brush+hairdryer, pincurls, rag curls, braiding, perming… When I was in high scool, I actually slept with my head full of my grandmothers hard plastic curlers every other night– crazy uncormfortable, but I was determined! These days, now that I’ve achieved my goal of having really long hair, I am more concerned about hair health and less displeased with my naturally straight hair. I always sleep with in in a braid, so it’s perpetually wavy anyway. But for special occasions, for example when I want to do a vintage or victorian hairdo, I still like to get real corkscrew curls. My favourite method has been rag curls, but that tends to leave the ends of my hair a bit bent. So I decided to invent my own curlers, combining the soft roundness of foam curlers with the material that is most kind to your hair: silk!

Silk and cut-up foam curlers.

Here’s how you do it:

• take a packet of foam curlers (the long kind with wire inside)
• cut them open and remove the wire
• cut them up into smaller pieces about 5 cm long
• sew casings for them using strips of silk fabric wide enough to contain them and long enough to tie into a double knot (or a bow if you’re feeling fancy and have silk to spare).
• sew seams at the ends of the foam bits so they won’t slide around in the casings.

One little silk curler went up on my head…

All the little silk curlers live in a pretty tin box.

To style:

• dampen your hair and roll it up in your new curlers
• sleep on it
• take out when your hair is completely (!) dry
• leave the curls as they are, do them up in a pretty hairdo or brush them out for more natural-looking waves

Curls well done!