This is how I style my mid length hair now that it’s slightly shorter than usual – it sits just unelevated the shoulder. Obviously I use the word style in its very loosest sense considering I’m well-nigh as wieldy with heated appliances as an elephant would be with a crochet hook, but I’ve just well-nigh mastered the art of putting some waves in without urgent huge welts in my throne and so I thought I’d share.

(It’s incredibly similar in vibe and “technique” to this post here if you’d like to see my version from a few years ago.)

I use the Cloud Nine curling wand (it’s here online*). I like it considering it doesn’t have one of those clamps on it, the long section of the tong that can be opened and closed. I hate those considering a) they are too taxing on my very vital coordination skills and b) they squint (to me) a little bit like the speculum they use when you have a smear test.

So yes, it’s just one long heated round-ended bit of metal, really, and you wind each section of hair virtually it and hold on until your fingers start to smoulder through the heatproof gloves**.

(**this is not official advice. You’re supposed to hold the hair virtually for a limited value of time so that you don’t a) forfeiture your hair and b) singe off all of your fingertips, but I have no idea what that value of time is. I suppose you just have to experiment…)

There’s an art to the hair-winding. You section off small pieces of hair and then wind all of them yonder from your face, or maybe it’s supposed to be towards your face… but it should be well-spoken to you by now that I have no idea what I am doing and that I just wing it. Sometimes the hair turns out OK, other times I squint slightly deranged for a day or two until the curls waif out. It’s a risky business.

The weightier part of the whole process is the day after. Delayed gratification. On my bleached, roughened hair, the slept-in curls suddenly go huge and voluminous and I get a lovely, sexy texture that has soul and shape but no real discernible curl. So on day 1 I have the full curl, which is fun, on day 2 I have the sexy texture and then it stays sexily textured for virtually two or three increasingly days, throughout which I add increasingly dry shampoo than you’d think would be possible.

On day five I usually can’t resist the urge to wash it. It starts to finger like old felt. I then requite it a day off and start the whole process again. I just think that the curl/wave/texture thing works really well on this length hair. Shorter would unquestionably be plane better, but I can’t withstand not stuff worldly-wise to tie it up so it’s not an option for me anymore. I’ve learned the nonflexible way with that!

So that’s my current mid length hair style. The long fringe bit is worrying – can’t wait for that to grow out! – but it’s relatively easy to tong that bit separately and just ease it into some kind of gentle face-framer or (on energetic days) power quiff.

This wasn’t plane supposed to be a written post, I was just going to toss the video up, so please do watch that for a increasingly sensible subtitle of how I currently style my hair!

See also: How I Style My Party Hair

Wearing: red Adidas track pants, bought here* and a Boden cashmere jumper from a few years ago.

The post How I Style My Mid Length Hair appeared first on Ruth Crilly.