Hair Tutorial: How to Curl Short Hair

This Wednesday features a hair tutorial for a reader who desperately wants to learn how to curl short hair into a style similar to Kelly Ripa’s waves.

Woot Woot! Happy Hump Day! Welcome to Ask the Pro Stylist where I attempt to answer hair, beauty and nail questions. Around Christmas time a reader wrote in and wanted to replicate Kelly Ripa’s wavy celebrity hairstyle. I gladly answered Terri back, however, her waves are coming out too curly.

I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I just can’t get it to look this way. It always looks too curled. Maybe, I’m leaving the iron in too long?

I put together a photo hair tutorial to better help Terri curl her short hair in the style of Kelly Ripa’s. I would love to put a video up, however this blog doesn’t support that type of media.

1. Use a volume lifting styling product to add fullness when drying or after with a product such as Big Sexy Hair Powder Play.
2. Blow dry with your fingers and then lift the hair at the root with a large round or paddle brush.
3. Section the hair. It is easier to curl your own head, especially in the back, if it is in sections.
4. Start the curls at the nape.
5. With a medium-sized barreled iron, wrap one-inch sections vertically, but not to the scalp, leave about an inch or more of leeway and direct the curl away from the face. If using a curling iron with a clasp, wrap the hair outside and around the wand, with loose ends. OR, utilize the clasp, but only wrap the middle, leave the ends out, and then glide through to smooth.

Wrap the hair in the middle of the shaft, not near the scalp, and hold for a few seconds.

Then, slide the iron through the hair gently to smooth to the ends, but not curl them.

Use the fingers to loosen the curls when you are done with a touch of a moldable paste or wax rubbed throughout the palms. I love Kenra’s Platinum Working Wax.

Use the fingers to loosen the curl.

And voila, a head full of waves like Kelly Ripa.

Although the photos of the hair tutorial show my lengthier hair, the process is still the same to curl short hair.

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to use the right products. If your stylist recommends something, then use it. If you refuse and insist on not following the professionals’ recommendations, then do not question why your hair looks or feels the way it does. Hairstylists suggest what they know work.

If you have a beauty, hair or nails question that you would like to see featured here on a Wednesday, similar to the above hair tutorial,  please email me at DeirdreAHaggerty@gmail.com.

Happy Styling!

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