hair

EASIEST FLAT IRON WAVES EVER

You pick up your flat iron, close your eyes, say a prayer to the instagrammable hair gods and lift up that first section of hair. You slowly set it in your flat iron and start to twist the wrist. Everything goes well on the first bend, but then you start on the second one and you have a moment of panic! “Sh*t!! Am I supposed to turn it forward or backward!?” UGH. So you pull the flat iron out and there it is… THE CREASE. You know no matter how many times you smooth over it, it’s going to be there. Right in the front of your hair for everyone to see. Well guess what… times they are a changin’!

I had a client in my chair this past week with hair that begged for flat iron waves, so I busted out this new FLAT IRON I just got. Figured there’s no better time than now to test drive it since I always use the same iron (which you might remember from HERE) and sometimes you just need to try new things. The thing I noticed about it right away was how round the outside of the iron is. There are beveled-edged flat irons, and then there’s this. It’s really helpful in getting that bend. If you just give the iron a good twist, it will do a lot of the work for you.

PRO TIPS:

• Don’t spray your hair with hairspray before you flatiron. It will cause the iron to stick which in turn can easily cause creases.
• Try getting the motion down with the flat iron off before you turn it on. It is really important to practice and get a feel for the wave pattern you’re trying to create so that it’s not unfamiliar and confusing when the iron is hot.
• Never stop the iron. The secret to a good flat iron wave is continuous movement. When you stop, you get a crease (and you can burn your hair!)
• Don’t use a flat iron that doesn’t have a beveled edge. It’s virtually impossible to get nice waves if you’re not using a rounded edge.
• You can mix curl and flatiron waves! Sometimes I like to curl the top of a piece and flat iron wave the middle and bottom. It’s nice and changes up the pattern. Plus it’s 1000 times easier. A lot of people just don’t know where to start a flat iron wave so this cracks the case.
• Lightly straighten the ends for a more relaxed looking wave.
• As I mentioned in the last flat iron waves tutorial, if you fail hard and want to abort mission, just wet that piece hair down (at least damp) to restore the moisture inside before moving on to curls or straightening with your flatiron. Otherwise you could burn the hair by trying to change the shape too many times with no moisture inside.

Is this helpful to you? What kind of flat iron do you use now? Do you feel like it works well for waves?