SO, I thought I'd start trying different ways of no heat curls. I feel my hair is starting to suffer from so much straightening- I'll admit it needs a good chop too- but I thought I'd try and be a bit nicer to it. I now have gotten into the routine where I wash my hair every second day- I want to try and get it down to only every third day, but its only now gotten to a stage that I'm happy with day 2 hair. I've also changed my routine over Christmas to showering at night, just to give me a little extra time in the morning and to save it from the hair dryer. 

Each of the four ways I'm showing here have been done with wet hair and I've left it over night to dry in the style, which is the best way for my hair- if I try it with dry hair it never works as well. But experiment- it might work on your hair!

Technique One: Plaits

I've done this one since I was a kid- its a standard and guaranteed way to get natural looking waves in my hair. The number of plaits you put in your hair will increase the amount of curls. I usually go for two french plaits, which are quick and easy and give a light wave. 

Technique Two: Rollers

This is something that I've wanted to try for aaages, and santa picked up on my hints and got my just a cheapo set of hair rollers from SuperDrug. You get 5 in a set, so I was given two sets. I didn't want to buy expensive rollers in case I didn't like it or it didn't work. Now I know that they do, I may splurge later on, but these seem to do the job. 

For this I separated my hair into two sections down the middle, and then created two layers - an upper and a lower. On the lower section of my hair I popped in 3 rollers, making sure each bit of hair was the same thickness and I rolled in towards my head so that the curls don't stick out. I did the same on the other side of my head and put in two rollers in the top section of my hair. 

I loved the curls that the rollers made- they stayed in the whole day and made my hair look very voluminous. They created ringlets, which I brushed through with my fingers to separate them out a bit more. 

Technique Three: The Headband

This one creates very loose waves, that look very natural. 

Its a bit tricky to do by yourself, but with practice becomes easier, when your fingers know what to do. 

You pop a thick hair band over your hair and pick up equal sections of hair, tucking it around the hair band- over and under. Each time add another bit of hair to the section. Once you've done half of your head, start at the other side working your way back again. The back is where it gets tricky, and its a case of continuing to wrap the last of the strand of hair over the other hair. 

The tighter you wrap your hair will give you tighter curls, I tease some of the wraps out a bit so that they are comfortable and slack. This gives me the gentle waves.

Technique Four: 'Princess Leia'

This one is a nice and easy, I was just experimenting one night and discovered that this actually gives really nice curls- some are more waves and some are ringlets, which I think looks quite natural. Since I don't know what its actually called, I nick named it the Princess Leia, and I think you get why.

Again I part my hair into two, and start by twist two sections around each other. As you can see, and I make sure this is really really tight.