DIY Hair: Pin Curls

I admire your work on this. I’ve tried so many different ways of doing the pin curls, you know… Big twisty chunk of hair vs slightly smaller twisty chunks of hair. It never effing dried! I’ve left them in for 12hrs, but unpinned them, and still damp and then straight. God hates me.

I can’t quite tell if this article is legit…or a joke. If it’s legit, you didn’t do enough research if you expected to actually get results? I enjoy the idea but there’s some problems:
A) you didn’t roll your hair correctly for pin curls; it is way too loose. A head of proper pin curls will give you *ringlets*, but then those need to be brushed out. You also need to be parting your hair on many move levels and doing more rows…My head makes 4 rows of pin curls, minimum.
B) The hair in that photo is partly pincurled, but also finger waved at the front…which is more difficult to do.
C) Curls will never hold unless properly set. The only way 2 hrs would be enough time if it all was spent under a bonnet hair dryer. Overnight is best.

I know I’m pretty late to the party on this one but I just wanted to add my two cents- I’ve actually had a fair amount of success with using pin curls to create loose waves and texture in my baby fine, straight as a ruler hair. It’s one of the few styling techniques I feel confident with which doesn’t entail too much heat damage. It does, however, take time (lots of that) and practice. This is how I do:

1. Don’t use a styling cream. My experience is that it just sits on the hair, slows down the drying process further, and ultimately gives you a greasy look. A very, very light touch of smoothing cream can be used to finish the look when the hair is dry if it looks a bit frizzy.
2. Small strands are easier to roll and pin and give a tighter curl. Big chunky strands give a looser, beachier look but can be a pain to start off with.
3. Start from the top of the head and work down. I usually do two or three big strands on top, then smaller, tighter curls underneath. Don’t even attempt the back of your head if you’re working solo.
4. Dry any remaining loose hair and gently blast the curls with a hair-dryer held at arm’s length. I don’t think this really does much but it does make me feel like I’m starting the drying process off.
5. Wait. It takes me at least 4-5 hours to get the waves set, and my hair is a shoulder-length bob. This is really the kind of thing you do first thing in the morning to be ready by the afternoon. I personally can’t sleep with the curls in, and find they work themselves out overnight anyway, but that may be the option for people with longer, thicker hair. You could probably speed the process up considerably with a hood dryer- you can get ones that attach on to your regular hair dryer.
6. When everything seems dry, gently unpin the curls and let them untwist by themselves. If they’re still damp, don’t touch and let them finish drying loose. When everything is dry, finger comb out to your liking. If it’s unruly, don’t comb or bush- use the pins to arrange it more pleasingly.

As I said, this doesn’t give those shiny, smooth rolls like those pictured- I doubt those can be achieved without heat styling and professional expertise. But if you don’t want to use a curling iron or hot rollers (or can’t afford them, sigh) then this is a quick and relatively simple way of changing up your look.

Yep you didn’t do it right! Your sections should be tiny, like one inch. Then you wrap up a tiny curl from tip to root without twisting. It’s super hard to do but using a pin curl stick/mascara wand or something works wonders. You roll it up in that like a curler, slip it off, and pin either 2 bobby pins in an X or a pin curl clip through the middle. Use setting lotion instead of styling cream and let it completely dry before taking it out. Then you’ll look like Shirley Temple. Then brush and you’ll look like a crazy person. Then KEEP brushing until it calms down, brush against your hand and mold into place. It takes a ton of practice but if you love old hollywood hair it’s totally worth it.