Hair Parlor // Curlers 101

Hello my dears!
Todays tutorial is probably going to be one of the easiest and most satisfactory of the curling techniques I will be putting up on the blog. Ah… Doesn’t that sound wonderful? I now know that a lot of you have longer hair than my sisters and I, and so I have been putting a little more thought into this and trying to figure a way to make things a little more intermediate between our various hair lengths. Thankfully, anyone can put sponge curlers in their hair and have a perfectly curly set of locks by morning.


First we start out with your typical drugstore set of sponge curlers. Boring. But the colors are pretty! Oh and did I mention you will get a better night’s sleep with these rather than the hard plastic kind? Yep, it’s true! I know because I have tried both and love these the best!

You can also take a trip to the sink or bathtub faucet to wet down your hair at this point. For me I like things to be evenly drenched.

Just like we did for the pin curls, we are going to start at the back of our heads, taking up a small section, and combing it smooth.

Note: Since I have shorter hair than most of you, I only use the second largest curlers. Those of you with long hair will want to start with the largest size in your set. You don’t even have to wrap them lightly if you want the same tightness of curl. Go ahead, squish the sponge! 😉

Carefully wrap the ends of your section of hair around the curler until you feel the rest of the section wrapping over the ends. Then proceed to wrap all the way down. I want your ends to be secure rather than awkwardly sticking out. This will insure a really good curl.


Now take the little plastic securer, and snap it into place.

The curler ought to be sitting tightly, yet comfortably up against your head.

Now continue with the same color all the way across the top layer of your hair except for the front(!), and if you have some curlers of the same size left over, go ahead and use them on the layer below. That way you won’t run out, and your hair will be evenly curled



Now if you have short hair, I recommend you begin to use the next size down for the third and forth layer. This will get those really short bottom layers to be nice and uniform with the rest of your hair. If you have long hair, I would recommend that you stick with one size. The bigger the curler the more loose and wavy your hair will be. So if you are going for a more tightly curled vintage look, then use the medium size to the smaller sizes. You can go to your local beauty stores to find sets of the same size curlers. Mom just went to Target to buy me this set, and they came in four different sizes.

Note: I curled the lesser side of my part with the smallest curlers, only needing two.

While here on the greater side of my part I used the second to smallest curlers. Before you lay your head down on your pillow, be sure and tie your hair in a silky scarf, or else a crackle-less slippery shower cap will do the job. My sister happened to have a pattern a while ago for an 1800’s night cap and I made one out of a silky material. It works very well to keep everything in place.

Now I know I didn’t post any pictures of what it looks like afterward, but those will be coming in the very next post where I will still have my curlers in and I will explain more on how to work with the curly voluminous mass on top of your head, that is… for short haired people. The longer your hair will be the more you will look like Goldie Locks when you take them out! 😉

Also, you don’t have to place the curlers horizontally. By all means it is perfectly fine to put them in vertically. And you might consider doing this if you have long hair, that way you won’t get funny crimping when the curlers come out. Just play around with it and tell me what you think.

CREDITS // Author: Jessica Boyer; Photography & Graphic Design: Charlotte Boyer; Photos edited with VSCO Film Presets