The idea of waking up to effortless curls without the use of a curling iron seems too good to be true, but thanks to a range of viral heatless headbands, it isn’t! You can’t scroll longer than a few minutes without a get-ready-with-me video popping up in-feed, the first clip showing the infamous baby pink headband.
Heatless curls are nothing new. As the owner of at least a hundred different flexi rods I can tell you, for a fact, there are some pretty meticulous and time-consuming methods to achieving those sumptuous heatless spirals. I love the look of big curls—every hairstylist I’ve ever had knows to give me big, voluminous curls—but when I’ve tried recreating the look at home, it requires three different hot tools and comes with at least one burn.
Giving your hair a break from hot tools isn’t just healthy—it’s a serious time-saver too. Heartless curl products are often slept in, so you’re actually getting beauty sleep—talk about double duty! Before I got my own heatless headband, I’d seen videos of yoga pants and socks being used to create heatless curls—which I may or may not have tried. Let’s just say, the results weren’t Instagram-worthy. I decided I needed to find out for myself if the headband is really worth the hype.
What happened when I tried a heatless curling headband
The selection for heatless curling headbands is pretty vast. I selected one to test by Lilysilk for $39. I was drawn to it because it’s made of 100 percent mulberry silk, and came in baby pink, of course. The fact that it’s silk and plush like a pillow makes it feel so luxe. The headband came as a set with two silk scrunchies. The idea is simple: Wrap your hair around the column of the band and secure all the hair in place with scrunchies. The promise? Salon-fresh curls when you wake up. I had to watch a few different videos to grasp the method everyone was using to wrap their curls around the headband, but it was actually as simple as it sounded. Most of the videos add a hair clip to the top in the middle of the headband close to the hair line to hold it in place, so I followed suit. Next, you take small sections and wrap them, gradually adding more hair each time you loop until there is no hair left, leaving you with two wrapped sections. I found it a little tricky to secure the band in place with the scrunchie but found that it worked great if you looped it a few times.
I was mentally prepared to have a night of uncomfortable sleep for the sake of great curls—my hair was, after all, completely wrapped in a headband, with the addition of the hair clip at the top. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t uncomfortable at all once I laid down. Funny enough, I didn’t notice I was sleeping with something attached to my head. After a few minutes, I forgot about it entirely. I’m a side sleeper and the hair band didn’t interfere at all. I was also worried the scrunchies wouldn’t be able to withstand my tossing and turning, but they did.
Waking up, I was still secure in the headband, and with the exception of a few rouge strands, my hair was essentially exactly as it was the previous night. Now, that may not sound like a huge feat, but for someone who often flattens out fresh hair, even when wrapped well, it felt like a win to see the band still on snug.
When I removed the scrunchies off the headband and lifted the band off, the curls were gathered and had to be pulled apart. Once pulled apart, the spiral curls fell instantly, framing my face, and I was honestly thrilled by how pretty and well defined they turned out. My hair looked salon-fresh and even had the same kind of bounce I’d get from a curling iron. They were soft but looked like they had been set with a spray already. When I tossed them around a bit, they splayed out perfectly, just the way they promised on the site.
Overall, if you have trouble maintaining curls or just want to add some extra oomph, a heatless curling headband is a great way to get some extra mileage out of styled hair or even create curls. Go ahead and put the socks and yoga pants back in their drawers. This is the only thing you’ll need.
Heatless curling products to try
