photos: life.com, gettyimages.com, style.com post designed by kristin ess
Maybe you’ve never been backstage at a New York Fashion Week runway show. Maybe you haven’t been in the “glam room” at your favorite starlet’s house hours before she walks down a red carpet. So then maybe you’ve never seen the “other” tools we use to make their pretty little locks look the way they do. Turns out there’s much more to it than a curling iron and a blow dryer. We’re going to start with these three slightly less famous beauty gadgets:
The Wand. This is literally like a curling iron with the clamp side removed. It’s just a stick, and it usually comes with a glove. Wearing this heat protective glove, you take a lock of hair at a time and wrap it around the barrell spiraling down (I recommend wrapping backwards, away from the face). Hold the ends while the hair heats up and then slide the wand out. No unwanted crease to worry about because there is no clamp.
Root Control. We use the root control during fashion week a lot. Every girl from every country with every type of hair is rushing around backstage and when you have to make sure all of their hair looks exactly the same, this can come in very handy. Ethnic can get frizzy/poofy at the root where it’s not relaxed. This is a very hot iron with a protective comb shell and it’s a wonderful, quick alternative to the pressing comb. You can lay it directly on the root and it will not burn the scalp. Watch the video on this page to see how it works! It’s IN-CRED-IBLE. It also works really well for those with super thick stubborn curly hair when you just can’t quite get the roots tame with a blowdryer and/or flat iron. I love this thing.
Waving Iron. Some waving irons come with a clamp, but I feel like clamp flattens the wave and makes your hair look crimped. Typically I turn to the version above without the clamp to create wave with more body. This is my favorite for refining naturally curly hair! I do a “circle 8″ by weaving hair between the prongs which creates a more natural curl pattern than what you get with a regular curling iron. I also use this when I want a more modern, loose version of a Veronica Lake wave. To do that, you put the hair between the two prongs and give it a twist.
xxkristin
