With winter right around the corner, a lot of people have been looking for an easy, and less damaging way to curl their hair. Luckily the internet has come up with a clever way to get beautiful summery waves in the middle of the cold. Enter, heatless curls! The intersection between DIY and hair care has got the internet buzzing and people wondering “could it really be that easy...?”

What are Heatless Curls

Heatless curls are exactly what the name suggests, curls that are achieved through a process that does not involve heat. The appeal of this method over a traditional curling iron or blowdryer is less damage to the hair, they take less effort to do and require less technical skill making them more approachable to newcomers.

How did this trend start?

The curls are often achieved by using some absurd, attention-grabbing object or method to try and get views. Socks, ripped-up t-shirts, a million scrunchies, and even drinking straws are just some of the eyecatching ways people online use to garner clicks in hopes of going viral. Tik-Tok and Instagram are especially conducive to a trend like this going viral due to their use of thumbnails. The videos seem so wacky and absurd at first, like drinking straws? For hair care?! But once you click, the video is much more normal, albeit a bit more meandering, just swapping regular rollers for straws.

How to achieve them

Despite there being a million unique videos on how to achieve heatless curls, mostvideos have a significant amount of overlap on the process of creation. Start with freshly washed and conditioned hair. Some kind of styling or curl cream is usually added to the hair. This step isn’t 100% necessary and the curls can still be achieved without said product, however, it’s highly recommended for the best result possible.

Section off your hair and start twisting or braiding your hair into the fabric. For looser, beachier waves use bigger sections of fabric, perhaps an old t-shirt or clean dishrag. For tighter more bouncy curls use little sections of hair and use small cut-up strips of fabric or ribbon. Using fabric instead of hard plastic rollers allows the wearer to sleep in said curls and have a more comfortable experience doing so.

Secure the fabric by either tying them or banding them with a hair tie. Enjoy a well-deserved night’s rest while your curls dry, and when you take them out in the morning, you should have easy beautiful curly hair!

-Arden