The curl chronicals - the last word in curling hair!

Our school terms are all different down here - we have 4 10 week terms with 2 weeks in between each and a longer break over Christmas/summer. Each time it comes up to one of these 2 week breaks, I think vaguely to myself, I must get myself organized and yet every time I fail spectacularly and I end up trying to juggle spending time with my kids with sewing and all the other "stuff" I usually jam into a day. I often think my life is a see saw or teeter totter - everytime there is a little change or something new comes into my life a whole bunch of other stuff (like blogging) slides off the end and it takes me a while to pick everything up and get back into balance again.
However, day 6 and I am just about there!
So my little plan for these holidays and the blog is da da da duummmmmm

Obviously Hettie has naturally curly hair - almost 5 years on and I still can't believe my luck and better still, Loughie does too though his ringlets have dropped out alot now but it is still curly. Myself, I had curly hair up until about the age of 4 and then in dropped out. As a result I spent a good deal of the 80's and a small portion of the 90's trying to recreate that curl and yes I did have the blonde spiral perm thank-you! My other efforts were for temporary curl and so I thought I'd did out my old equipment and do some litte experiments. I plan to try a bunch of different methods of one piece of Hettie's hair so we can examine the results and maybe give you guys some ideas and techniques. It is a bit different from curling super straight hair as her hair will hold the curl well but I have used all of these techniques on my own hair over the years so I know they work. So here you go, the last word in how to curl hair, curling hair, how to make curls, how to get curly hair!!!!

So the first day of my campaign is......

Rag Curls

For Rag curls you need as the name suggests, a bunch of rags - though I have no confirmation of this, this may well be the oldest method of curling hair.
So start with a bunch of strips of material - around 1" to 1 1/2" wide - it really doesnt' matter, but if you are cutting them, go for around that size. Make them a bit over twice the length the hair will be when curled up. Mine was extra long and that really doesn't matter at all.
The secret to all good curl is damp hair, left to dry overnight in the curled position - this will give you the longest lasting, tightest curl.

Take one section of hair - you can experiement with how big this section is. Place the rag against the scalp with half the rag above the hair and half the rag below. Then tightly wind the hair around the rag.

Now take the part of the rag you have above the hair and wrap it around your curl - when you get to the bottom tie the two ends of the rags in a bow - and there you have it...functional and pretty.

Now lets check it out the next morning - yep still in place.

Unwrap the outer layer and you have one curl, completely protected from all that tossing and turning in the night - this is a big advantage of the rag curl - built in protection.

Once the rag is removed from the hair - wowzers - just look at that curl!

And if you separate it - geepers!


The wrap up.

In Favour of the rag curl -
cheap - all you need is rags!
curl - excellent quality curl - very similar to Hettie's natural curl, held all day, during an energetic day.
sleeping - comfortable to sleep in and the hair is protected so you don't get it all mushed up.

Against - I find getting the rag out a bit difficult and the rags fray over time and the hair and the fraying get all knotty. To avoid this you could actually sew rags together so that there were no raw edges - or use maybe a stretch knit or even a fleece which wouldn't have the same fraying issues.

And the style - to complete the style I divided the hair at the front into two and did two thick worms - achieved by doing twists and then keeping on twisting until the hair twists in on itself and pinning into place with bobby pins and some swarovski clippies I made.