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If Cosmo Kramer had hair that grazed his shoulders it may look something like mine when dried naturally without “guidance.” When no product, curling iron, or controlled environment is implemented my hair takes on a halo of Einstein frizz. For the first five years that I worked at Vogue, beginning in 2011, I wrote about parties, galas, and weddings for the website and the magazine and went out three to five nights a week, often in black tie. I would change clothes and do my makeup under the fluorescent lights of the bathrooms at the old Conde Nast headquarters at 4 Times Square and would either slick back my hair with water and pomade or run to the midtown Dry Bar and get a $40 blowout. Never, in 15 years of party reporting and gala attendance has it occurred to me to wear my hair curly. The risk was just too high. Plus, where would I even begin? How would I make it presentable and look dressed up rather than like I’d just been electrocuted in a cartoon?
I like my hair curly, it feels most me, and with two young kids and a lot of job, I never feel like I have time to get my hair blown out or salon-styled into an updo anymore. So what to do? I’ve started wearing my hair curly with the guidance and advice of certified curl guru, Lorraine Massey.
It was only this past spring in anticipation of the Garden of Time-themed Met Gala that, upon the suggestion of our intrepid Beauty and Wellness editor, Margaux Anbouba, that I considered wearing my hair curly for what is arguably the most high-stakes red carpet of the year. The dress code suggested earthy, organic leanings, and my emerald satin H&M dress was embroidered with jeweled bugs. Natural hair seemed only fitting for the occasion.
Nestled between Balloon Saloon and the Odeon, I almost missed Massey’s sleek, pale-wood paneled Salon XYZ in Tribeca due to its discreet signage. Inside, after serving me her signature watermelon ginger iced tea and sudsing my hair on lie-flat hair washing beds, the Leicestershire-born Massey shared some of the curly hair wisdom that has made her a preeminent name in coils as both the founder of DevaChan salons and Curly World products.
How, for example, would I go about wearing my hair curly to any formal—or special—event.
One hack for event-ready curls, says Massey, is to find a nearby salon and offer them $20 to use their dryer chair on your wet hair. The static heat sets the curls eliminating much of the frizz and prepares it for formal attire. (At her own salon, the dryer pods have petticoats extending from them like the most elegant mosquito nets.) If you don’t have access to a salon go with the traditional fail-safe measures, wash hair and treat it with curl cream or gel (Massey recommends her Leave In Lover hydrating gel) then let it air dry without touching it, the fingers causing frizz and friction to the curls as they set. Working a gel product through wet strands before air or chair drying acts as a gel cast on the curls, what Massey calls, “vacuum packed curls” keeping them set until you strategically loosen and fluff them just before your event. (But be sure to loosen them and break the cast so it doesn’t look like you have a helmet of crunchy Medusa curls.)
A trick for a curly updo? Massey smiles with a twinkle, “It’s so easy.” She demonstrates on a colleague pulling two pieces of hair out from either side of the nape of the neck and crossing them over the canopy of the hair before securing them together with a bobby pin. The resulting ponytail can then be folded up and under into a low loop and secured with more bobby pins under the barrel of the large loop of hair in a sort of horizontal French roll. “Et voila! A two-step, red carpet ready updo that you can do yourself!” says Massey proudly, her own silver curls bouncing with her enthusiasm.
Soon enough she’s doing that bobbing and weaving with bobby pins in my own hair and sure enough, I liked the resulting updo more than any sleek, straight style I’d ever had. Let s give these curls a whirl!
