Heat Free Curly Hair in Summer: The Styles

Haircare in summer can be a nightmare anyway, but especially when you're dealing with curls. They are very unreliable (can be perfect one day, a horrible mess the next!) and prone to frizziness, especially in the heat and humidity. As well as that, styling them with heat is near on impossible when its 30+ degrees out so I decided to write a guide on dealing with curly hair in the summer heat!

Soon I will focus on products, but today I'm talking about style. Finding the right products to on curly hair to survive heat free during summer is only half the battle. The other half is finding a style that looks good and is manageable in the heat and humidity. You may be lucky enough to have perfect hair that you can just comb and leave to dry naturally without worrying, but I do not. With curls, sometimes some bits sit strangely, and my fringe always looks awful. It's full of baby hair from years of heat damage so I do my best to 'hide' my fringe in cute styles.

Braided Fringe

Loving this look right now. It's a bitch if your curls don't go right, but hand cream can be great for that. I always have some on me and if my curls look too big or too frizzy during the day, I just smooth a tiny bit of hand cream through the ends and it'll smooth them right down! Here, I start a french braid where my side fringe would be, doing around 3/4 cross overs, then just carry the braid through the ends and pin it back.

You can really vary this style too, essentially doing the same thing every day but with a little twist each time;

• Tie the braid at the end with a clear elastic.
• Pin the end of the braid at the back of your head.
• Braid one side, or both to meet at the back.
• Do a standard french braid,
• or a Dutch braid where the strands go under one another to make the braid really pop.

The Topknot For Long Hair

If you have long hair, this is perfect. As has been popular for years, just throw your head upside down and create a messy bun on the top of your head. Pull a few strands loose around your neck or face and let it dry like that. Bosh. This is perfect in the heat as it'll keep your face and neck cool and hair free.

The Topknot for Short Hair

My hair isn't long enough to fit into a topknot right now, so I section my hair in a 'half up/half down' style and make a bun right on the top of my head, then run some mousse through the lower section and let it all dry naturally.

French Braid

This will work on all hair, all times of year. Simply wash, run a little oil through your tresses (I love the L'Oreal Mythic Oil), then comb everything back and begin a french braid. You can pull your fringe free if you think it will behave, or otherwise just braid it nice and loose so the hair isn't flat to your head, give it a little movement and allow to dry this way. This can often look really nice once dried if you let it down.

The Cheat: A Little Heat for Perfect Curls

OK, OK, sometimes we just have to resort to a little heat. But I promise it's only a tiny blast and this is my favourite hairstyle of all. It's like.. my natural hair but better. Once my hair is washed, I comb it into it's normal part and apply some heat protecting leave in conditioner. I like the Herbal Essence Bee Strong Leave in Conditioner and the Avon Advance Techniques 360 Nourish Moroccan Argan Oil, but I don't think either of these are available in Malta, so check out heat protectants on Look Fantastic (who ship to Malta for free!). Then I blast just the roots of my hair and my fringe with the hairdryer. This just dries the top of my head and makes sure it's straight and smooth and sits nicely.

Whilst drying the roots, the ends may dry a little too, so I then wet my hands and run through the mid-lengths to ends, making sure they're damp and curly again. Once done, I add some curling product like this Curl Sculpting Spray from Yves Rocher in Malta, which makes sure the ends dry smoothly but without frizz or crunch. I might take the straighteners to my fringe a little to smooth it out but that's it. It only takes a few minutes and most of the hair gets to dry naturally, but nice and controlled and smooth on top. This is actually the look I'm always after when I straighten my hair then curl it with my curling wand, so that process suddenly seems so ridiculous when this is my natural hair!