Styling my bob - any ideas?

[giuditta]

Hi girls!
I have been reading this forum for a while now, and first thing I understood, if I want my hair to grow fast and healthy I shouldn't use any heat on it.
Now the problem is I was my hair in the evening, and when I wake up in the morning I need to do something to make it look a biiiit like it's a nice model.
So I use a heated brush to kind of blow dry it into style.
Any ideas or tips on how I could achieve this in any other way?
Thanks!

[Siiri]

Have you tried using a few large velvet rollers on damp hair? If you are trying to slightly curl the ends in, it should work, if your hair is long enough for large rollers.

[giuditta]

So dampen it a bit in the morning and use rollers? You have some good ideas Siiri!:cheese:
I still have some from when my hair was longer, I will try in the morning and see if my hair is long enough!

[selderon]

Some heat is okay for my hair. I use the warm setting on the dryer if I must or style my hair.

The warm setting is much cooler than, for example, a curling iron or flat iron.

[pepperminttea]

Seeing as your hair is 1A naturally, a spritz spray and a comb might do the job? :)

(Incidentally, I'm not one of them, but LHC has a number of male members too. ;) )

[giuditta]

It's too flat after the night to just comb unfortunately :(

Oooo so sorry gentleman, so bad of me, and I can't edit my post anymore! :-(

[Anje]

Rollers sound like a good idea. I've heard good things about the Caruso steam rollers myself. Just stay away from the velcro variety.

Honestly, if your hair is the length in your avatar, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Less heat is better, certainly, but when hair is long enough to be pulled back into a ponytail or bun, it can look good with a lot less styling than when hair is shorter, and the damaged parts can be grown out from that point.

Whether you use heat will make no difference in the rate at which hair grows (i.e. how fast you would get roots if you dyed your hair), though if the tips of the hairs are crumbling off it might seem that way.

[selderon]

It's too flat after the night to just comb unfortunately :(

Oooo so sorry gentleman, so bad of me, and I can't edit my post anymore! :-(

If you just want to add some lift at the roots, a volumizing styling product could solve that for you. Aveda's Volumizing Potion is great for root lift on already-dry hair, works beautifully on fine and thin hair. If you wash your hair every day, that would be my first suggestion.

[giuditta]

Thanks Anje!
I''m afraid my hair is the length of my avatar right now *cries* and you are right the shorter it is the more you need to style it. When my hair was longer I didn't need anything.
By velcro do you mean the ones that stick in your hair by themselves? That's the ones I have. They pull out your hair a bit too though, that musn't be very good...

[BlazingHeart]

If you turn your head upside-down (just bend at the waist for this) and scrunch a little aloe vera gel into your roots, that gives some people more volume. (I can't speak for myself on this one, because my problem tends to be too MUCH volume, not too little)

~Blaze

[KatiSasha]

Just to give a break to your hair once in a while you can do a half updo. Gather top half of your hair, twist it once , lift a bit to give it a bit more whoompf on top and secure with a clip. The longer your front pieces are the lower on one back you can do it, so the less of your underlayer will show if it's less than perfect to your taste :)

[Anje]

Yeah, the velcro ones are probably what you have. They like to eat hair by all accounts. There are also "magnetic rollers" which are solid plastic but seem to stick to hair somehow. You need to pin them in, though, and use them on fairly wet hair. Foam rollers are one of the more hair-friendly choices that I'm aware of.

[torrilin]

Stuff I'd try:

Half up - you can vary this more by turning the "ponytail" into a mini-bun. Cinnamon bun works, but I've seen posters make almost any bun work.

Lace braided headband - Torrin Paige has a youtube video for this. It's not very length dependent, and lace braiding is a very useful skill. It looks stupidly elaborate too :D

French braid - you can do this as a single braid, or as a pair of twin braids. You might not have enough length just yet for a single, but you can tie it off whenever adding sections gets tricky. Twin braids you might have enough hair already.

side combs - you can use them to pull your bangs back and give your hair a bit more shape. I find they stay better than barrettes.

pin curls - there are a lot of ways to do this, and most of them involve sectioning your hair while wet, forming the curl, and then sleeping on it. Brush it or finger comb it out the next day and voila, curl!

claw clips - my hair is really fine and slippery, and tends to spit out a lot of hair toys. But I can make the little 1/2" long claw clips do useful/interesting stuff.

Pick one or two of these, and just work on it til you master it. It can take me dozens and dozens of tries to master a new trick in hairstyling. Lace braids, French braids and pincurls are all going to be very useful as your hair gets longer, so they'd be my first picks. Even if you only manage a pretty new style half the time, that's much less heat styling. Don't worry about perfect. No one's hair care is perfect.

[tinti]

Do you have a round brush? You could re-wet your hair in the morning and just blow dry a bit while forming your hair how you want it with the round brush. A blow fryer is better than a straightening iron, I think.

[Mesmerise]

I'd also agree that if you're a 1a, then just giving your hair a spritz with water in the morning to get it into shape should prevent you from having any messy sections.

It really depends on what you want to achieve!

My problem with a bob was always that one side would stick out and one side would curl under!! I would have loved it a lot more if I'd had 1a dead straight hair ;).

I also agree with doing half ups, and using hair clips and stuff to pull the sides back, so it isn't all just hanging there.

[giuditta]

Blazingheart that sounds interesting, just normal Aloe gel? So not specifically gel for hair?

Wow Torrilin and KatiSasha so many good updo ideas! And I thought with my length of hair I wouldn't be able to do anything. I will try everything, I hope something works and I promise to try and not be too impatient

Anje that's what I was afraid of, no velcro ones... I don't think I've ever seen foam rollers here in Holland, I have only seen the celcro ones or the ones that have foam but are really small, and you have to bend them of fold them over in your hair. Might try those as well.
I have never seen the steam curlers you mentioned yesterday over here either, I googled them and they seem so nice! I often used normal heated curlers when I had longer hair, this seems much better. Might look for it on Ebay one day...

Tinti that's basically what I do right now, I have a blow dryer with a round brush on top...

Mesmerize you are right, I should try that as well. Spritzing my hair in the morning to make it wet again so it is like I just washed it is the best option if I don't do an updo I think...

I really appreciate you all helping me with tips, it is so nice! I wish I could all hire you to do my hair in the morning hahaha

[kwaniesiam]

Headbands are great to push your hair back out of your face so that you don't have to do any additional styling.

[kidari]

I also agree with doing a half up with a mini claw clip or bobby pins. Just gather half, twist and push up then clip. You could also do a french twist with the bottom half and pin it up as well. This is what I did daily when I had a bob that I was growing out. If you want volume in your roots, I like to sleep in 4-6 pin curls with very damp hair only on the crown area of my head. In the morning just brush it out: major volume at the roots.

[giuditta]

The pin curls sound so easy but look so difficult to do! I googled it but pfew you think I can do that?

Kwaniesiam my problem with headbands is always that I have a big head so they are too small and slide off to the back of my head, argh. Same problem with hats by the way :(

[torrilin]

how big is big? mine measures 24", so as big as a lot of men's heads... but I'm only 5'6"

[giuditta]

I'd have to measure Torrilin, I have no idea! :D

On Friday I put my hair up with a butterfly clip but boy o boy I spent the whole day putting it in again, it kept coming out...:(
This is what it looked like in the morning before the fuss started:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y56/giuditta373/Haarklip.jpg

This weekend I found some foam curlers so when I washed my hair tomorrow evening I will put them in for the night, I will let you know and show you how it comes out :)

[giuditta]

I looove the effect of the foam curlers overnight, thanks for the tip!
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y56/giuditta373/Krullen.jpg

[Siiri]

Your curls look beautiful :) I use foam curlers too, mainly for special occasions.

[Lilli]

Hot brushes use much less heat than a regular blowdryer. I would use it on low with the plastic bristle attachment (not the metal one.) Your hair is very cute. I had that haircut, but as my hair is slightly wavy, I had to iron it to get it to look right, and it caused some damage on the ends. I would not iron it, for sure.

[torrilin]

I'd have to measure Torrilin, I have no idea! :D

On Friday I put my hair up with a butterfly clip but boy o boy I spent the whole day putting it in again, it kept coming out...:(
This is what it looked like in the morning before the fuss started:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y56/giuditta373/Haarklip.jpg

This weekend I found some foam curlers so when I washed my hair tomorrow evening I will put them in for the night, I will let you know and show you how it comes out :)

Oh my! That's a lot bigger than what I use. I have two sizes of claw clips, one maybe a half inch long (maybe 1.5 cm?) and the other is about an inch (so maybe 2.5cm?). It looks like your claw clip is more like 3"/7.5cm long, and it's probably way too big for me still.

My hair is really fine, so if I try to use bigger clips it just slithers out and is irritating. But I can hold a bun with 2-4 little clips and I can probably do a half up with 'em. The little clips hold small enough chunks of hair that they're useful on my head.

[giuditta]

That's a good idea, smaller clips! Why don't I think of these things, I really appreciate you girls and your tips!:cheese:

@Lilli I use the plastic brush, but it does feel hot, it's quite an old one... It's funny when you had my haircut you straightened it, and I do everything to make it wavy :D

Thanks Siiri :)