In the 1970’s women did anything they could to straighten their hair. Before the creation of hair straightening heat stylers, women would crouch over ironing boards and iron their hair between pieces of fabric to get the desired effect. Today, super straight hair is making a comeback, but women don’t have to resort to ironing their locks to get the perfect look. In fact, using an iron to straighten hair is decidedly not recommended. Instead, follow these tips and tricks to get the image you really want.
Whether you have only 15 minutes or an hour to spend straightening your hair, there’s a technique available that will work for everyone. All you need is a wide-toothed comb, a brush, a flat-iron, blow-dryer, and straightening balm. If your hair is really curly or wavy, you’ll also need a misting bottle to thoroughly straighten stubborn locks.
Always start with dry hair if you want to get your hair straighter. If you must use moisture, the misting bottle is at your service and will work nicely. Work with small sections of your hair at a time and use clippies to keep the various sections separate from each other to avoid redoing hair that has already been straightened, especially if you’re pressed for time.
Apply a straightening balm to each section of hair and then use the blow-dryer on that section of hair, pulling the hair taut as you brush through it. It’s important not that your hair is initially dry because brushing wet hair can lead to massive split ends over time. Use the mister, if needed and as you pull the hair straight with a brush, follow along behind with the blow dryer. This part of the process won’t take long, but you may need to finish off the process with a flat iron on bigger sections of hair to work out the remaining kinks. Start at the roots and work your way to the ends of your hair. If you’ve got only a little bit of time to straighten, start working on the outer sections of your hair first. That way, If you run out of time, you’ll have the most salient part of your hair straightened.
If you have at least half an hour of time to work on straightening your hair, there’s no reason why you can’t get those locks into super-straight mode. As you dry your hair, use a comb to pull the hair taut before you begin the rest of the process. Use heat protection spray to keep your hair from being ravaged by the process of straightening it and consider doing a deep conditioning regime to help ward off frizzies as well. Always work from the root to the end of the hair for best results while straightening.
If your hair isn’t naturally straight, and you struggle with getting it that way, your stylist can help.