Laid Back Waves: Overnight Hair

 I am pretty much all about not having to fix my hair.  I don't own a curling iron or a straightener, and when I do use those tools my hair is back to doing whatever it wants in no time. Curls from a curling iron fall flat, straighteners just flatten my hair in general, and so on.  And that is regardless of the kind of product I use.  What can I say, it's a picky mane.

But what I am very good at doing is multitasking.  My hair version of this is letting it fix while I SLEEP.  Now that, is my kind of styling tool.  Sleep.

So for this I section out the top 1/3 of my hair, bring the remaining hair to the sides of my head to keep it out of my way, and brush the section I will be working with backwards.

After that, it is simply a matter of separating a small front section into thirds, putting a few braid crosses in it, and then continuing that pattern while pulling hair from the section.


After I get back to where my head starts to curve down in the back, I start pulling in hair from all the sides to finish it out into a full french braid.  You could wear it out if you do it really neat.

Here are some tips:

In my experience, the best results come from hair being partially damp so it dries in the braid.  I like to get out of the shower, leave a towel on my hair for maybe 5-10 minutes, brush out all the tangles, and then start.  Sometimes, I even give it a little longer to air dry.  A super wet braid will not dry by morning if your hair is like mine.

You may also be wondering why in the world I sectioned off the top third only to do the top of the braid.  I did this so that everything near the top of my head, all the way to my roots essentially is wavy and not flat.  If I was going somewhere serious, I would probably braid all three sections separately to get the most body out of it.

You can spray a little hairspray on the braid when you are done if you want to.  I usually do, very little so it doesn't get crunchy or difficult to take out.

Separating your hair in half and doing two french braids is also fine, but you will want to put a zigzag or curvy part in your hair.  If you do a straightline part your hair will most likely hang with most of the part still visible.  The zigzag pattern makes the hair fall back over itself when you take it out.

I usually only use hair spray on it next morning, just my normal herbal essence does the trick.  Occasionally I will use mousse as well, but I find I don't often need it.

My hair does not scrunch like this if I wash it, blow dry it, and directly try to scrunch it by putting a ton of chemical on it like what works for other people.  I can achieve this look by sleeping in braids or sleeping in a high messy bun (also starting with slightly damp hair), with slightly different results as to what the wave looks like.

I also very rarely will sleep in sponge rollers to get a head of massive curl and body.  That is really hard to detangle later, so I leave that for very special occasions.

Happy hair fixing!




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