hair

FAKE A PRO BLOWOUT WITH A CURLING IRON

photos/post/graphic design: Kristin Ess

Let’s be honest, there’s a new hair icon in town. This tutorial is purely inspired by the lovely locks on Amal Alamuddin during her wedding week in Italy. Her hair in the photo below is so simple and so chic, and every long haired beauty should know how to achieve this classic look. I can’t believe we haven’t done this tutorial before! FYI, this isn’t a tutorial on how to do a professional blowout at home (we already did that right HERE!) This is more about how to fake a pro blowdry and get the same results. IT’S HARD to blowout your own hair and you can never quite get the same angles that a pro can get. This is much easiers on the arms and often less “puffy” thanks to the tools being used. Okay, let’s skip blowdrying and get into faux drying!

For this tutorial we started with dry hair. It was air-dried in photo number 1 and we added THIS MOUSSE when the hair was wet to build a good foundation for styling. Kim’s hair is superfine and layered so we need to build hold from the start. You’re welcome to blowdry it first if you’re in a rush or want more volume. As you can see, Kim has some layers around her hair which can sometimes make it harder to do certain styles but we’ll address that in the steps.

TOOLS:

• THIS exact curling iron from Hot Tools
• Detangling Brush
• 10-12 Setting Clips
• SuperFine Hairspray

1. Detangle hair using your favorite brush. We’re really feeling THIS BRUSH right now!
2. As far as sections go, we started at the bottom, but you’re welcome to start at the front hairline if that’ more comfortable for you.
3. Lightly mist SUPERFINE HAIRSPRAY on your section. Hold the can several inches away so you don’t get dense spots of hairspray. Between the MOUSSE we used to prep the hair and the hairspray added before we curl, layers didn’t seem to be an issue. But if they are, just go back in and curl the pieces that drop out and then wrap them into your larger piece.
4. Split the back section into 2 pieces and curl both under using your 2″ HOT TOOLS. This is a very large curling iron so take the time to practice the motions with the iron off before you attempt curling your hair as it feels very different than a regular curling iron and can be hard to control the first time you use it.
5. Clip up the seciton immediately after you remove it from the iron using your SETTING CLIPS.
6. Continue on to the next section. Give each piece a light spray with your SUPERFINE HAIRSPRAY before putting it into the iron. I like to slightly change the angle of the curling iron for each piece I curl. You can see in each of the following steps it’s slightly different. That keeps the hair from looking too perfectly patterened. You want movement and you want the hair to go in various directions, so set it that way!
7. See how this section rolls back toward the nape of the neck?
8. Now this one goes almost straight down.
9. Once everything is curled under and set with clips, give it a light mist of SUPERFINE HAIRSPRAY all over.
10. Let that sit for as much time as you can spare. You wouldn’t want to set this overnight as you would crush the curls but 10-30 minutes would be ideal.
11. Once the hair has cooled down, begin taking out your SETTING CLIPS.
12. Give the hair a light shake and “comb through and scrunch” using just your fingers. You shouldn’t need to use a brush and if you do it’s probably because you saturated the hair a little too much with hairspray before you curled– or you may have used a hairspray with super strong hold. If you have to brush the hair out, please do it gently. This hairstyle is meant to feel bouncy and airy so you don’t want to over brush it and make the “locks” of hair come apart.

Here’s what Kim’s hair looked like from the front and the back after the sections were taken down, finger brushed and sprayed.

We also took it one more step and used a blowdryer on cold air to “stir” the hair up a little and make it a bit more piece-y.

Hope you loved this as much as we loved creating it! For any of you that are curious, there were no extensions used in this but you could definitely add some before starting if you need to!

If you do this fab fake blowout, please let us know! Post a photo on insta and tag us @TheBeautyDept so we can repost it!