Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Remington Styling Wand

***Originally posted on cregarstyle on December 11, 2014***

As a child with stick straight hair my mom would curl my hair for special occasions.  She used a variety of tactics all which worked pretty well for a young girl.  It didn't seem to matter which one she used, although I think foam overnight rollers were her favorite, I always looked like Shirley Temple.  When you're young, Shirley Temple-like hair is adorable.  However, as I entered high school and college I wanted to stray from that look for obvious reasons.

I have always had moderately thick hair so thicker foam rollers didn't solve the problem, because my hair was just too heavy to maintain the curl.  I then branched out into the world of curling irons.  My first curling iron was actually one I swiped from my mom before I left for college.  I probably should have thought about what I was taking before stealing it.  It is a 1/2 inch barreled curling iron from my mom's college days.  MAJOR FAIL!  Not only would the small barrel continue the Shirley look, but something that old would probably not be my best bet.  Stupid me, but hey, I was 18 and wanted to avoid buying a curling iron with my own money.  I should have known that if my mom wasn't missing it, I could have done better.  Oh well.  That old curling iron is still in my bathroom nearly 7 years later and it's still got some life left.  I don't frequently use it because it is small, but I have used it maybe every other month, so that isn't too bad.  

Over the last 2-3 years I have been noticing something incredibly aggravating about my hair.  It seems that no matter how much hair spray, gel, product, or hours curling it ALWAYS falls to practically straight hair within 90 minutes of curling!  One year I spent two hours curling my hair for Easter church service just to have it be perfectly straight before I even left the house...cue rage.  

This last spring I was in Maryland for my bridal shower and having given up on curled hair had planned to attend with my regular, boring, straight hair.  However, one of my girlfriends that was getting reading with me, was curling her hair with a strange looking curling iron.  Once she finished her hair she asked me if I wanted her to do mine.  I warned her that it would be a lot of effort for nothing.  She said that her hair was the same way and told me she would try it, and worse case scenario she would encase my hair in a mound of hairspray.

About 20 minutes later I looked in the mirror to see wonderfully curly hair...sans hairspray!  I had intended to spray my hair to hold the curl maybe long enough to get to the shower, but in the hustle and bustle of 8 girls getting ready it slipped my mind.  I drove off to the shower where my mom complimented my hair and it hit me that I had forgotten to spray it.  At this point it was too late and I would just have to deal with curls that would fall throughout the party.  Here I am with my friend Hannah, who curled my hair, after the shower and the curls are still obviously in tact even through several hours of hugs, I might add.




That was in March.  So fast forward to just a couple of weeks ago when a classmate from high school and fellow blogger, Anna Egger, had a post on her hair routine and favorite products.  You can see her post here.  It is a part of a larger post that another childhood friend and Sunset High alumni, Audrey Roloff, had on her blog.  See the AujPoj post here.  In Anna's post she talked about how her hair does not curl with a traditional curling iron and that she has used a Remington curling wand for the last 4 years!  If you know Anna, or have seen her blog, you know that she is one of the most naturally beautiful people.  I figured that she always looks great so if she likes the Remington Styling Wand then I ought to try it.  It couldn't be any worse than my 1/2 inch curling iron circa 1979.

The other day Aaron asked me what I wanted for Christmas.  I told him I wanted a Remington 1-1 1/2" curling wand and he certainly delivered.  He even let me have it early because its only a part of my present and he got his gift early (Xbox One). So today I decided to play with it and see if it is truly as good as I remember Hannah's curling wand being.


I have a lot of hair so I have to do things in sections.  The under layers I curled, but I don't worry about them being perfect because they are going to be covered by lots of other curls.  My main concern with the bottom layer of hair is that I don't have any straight pieces sticking out under my pretty curls on the top layer.


After some trial and error with the under layer I learned that to get the type of curls I wanted, I needed to wrap my hair around the barrel like a ribbon instead of letting it twist as I wrapped it.  It is also going to take me some time to get used to wrapping my hair from the top down to the ends on the wand.  On a typical curling iron it starts with the ends and rolls up to the root.  I felt very backwards, but I will get there.



I like to pin back the top portion of my hair where my side bangs were/are.  I felt like my hair needed more volume and was afraid if I teased it, the curls would fall out.  




Sorry for the awkward side pictures. :)  I spritzed the tiniest bit of hairspray on my hair, mostly out of habit.  It will take some time to get used to my hair holding a curl.  Plus, I live in Texas, so no outfit is complete without at least a little hairspray!  Until then...



No comments:

Post a Comment