Curling Hair With Balloons
Hello, reader! I think I’m due for a sincere thank you — thank you for sticking by me as I subject myself, and, by extension, you, my dedicated readers, to silly hacks that turn household tasks into long, convoluted journeys of (arguably) wasted produce and burnt fingertips. With that being said, oh boy, have I got a hack for you.
This edition, we are tackling a real problem that people around the world deal with daily! Can you believe it?! A hack that might actually help somebody! We are going to be testing out a heatless hair-curling hack! If you aren’t familiar, many people search for methods of styling their hair without heat (ex: straighteners, curlers, blow dryers, etc) to avoid potential heat damage. Today, I’m using balloons to create perfect coily curls sans heat!
Now, you might be thinking, “Ella, you were blessed with naturally luscious, voluminous curls. Your ‘heatless curls’ hack could just be waking up. Doesn’t it make sense for you to just try another hack?” And you’d be correct. But, you’d also be a total wet blanket!!!! Let me curl my hair with balloons, for goodness sake!
My hypothesis on the efficacy of this hack:
After my previous two experiments, I’ve found that a negative hypothesis doesn’t help my results. So for the sake of optimism, I’ll say that yeah, sure, this could work! I mean, I don’t think this method will produce the waves shown in the video (pictured below) because, quite frankly, how is that possible. Like, I didn’t even get an A+ in 9th grade Geometry, but I can tell that a balloon of that radius has absolutely no capacity to create those crimps. Sorry Charlie! However, I do think this could absolutely create a much looser curl.
Procedure:
- Straighten a few strands (or all, if you’re feeling confident) of your perfectly healthy curly hair for the sake of the scientific method.
- Blow up a few balloons to about the size of a softball.
- Wrap about an inch thick strand of hair around each balloon and pin the balloons to your head using bobby pins.
- Leave on for many hours (I wish I could give an estimate of time, but that’s all the creators over at 5-Minute Crafts gave me).
- Gently unpin the balloons from your head and show off your curls!
My Experience:
I was quite surprised to find that nowhere in the procedure was I supposed to wet my hair. Usually, these heatless methods call for whatever curling contraption to be worn overnight so that wet hair can dry in the shape of curls. So how would my hair take the shape of the balloon if I didn’t wet it? Anyways, I wrapped my dry hair around the balloons, which, surprisingly, took less time than I thought. It did not, however, take fewer bobby pins than I thought. I probably used 15 bobby pins for just two strands of hair. But after all of that pinning, I was done, free to go about my day while my curls set. Well, I guess “free” isn’t really the right word, as I was bound by the confines of the two carbon dioxide-filled orbs on my head. It’s not so comfortable to lie down with balloons pinned to your head, so I was forced to watch The Great British Baking Show sitting upright in a chair with my head sticking forward like a snapping turtle. Nevertheless, I made it through. But when it was time to reveal my final ‘do, things started going downhill. This hack did WORSE than not work. It left my hair looking damaged and like I had tried to straighten it, but my arm got tired in the middle, so I just stopped.
Conclusion:
No words. So I’ll use numbers: 0/10. I would’ve been better off destroying my hair with heat, because at least it would’ve looked temporarily presentable. I actually did curl my hair using heat, and, while it also looks slightly frizzy, it’s objectively more curled. Well, I guess you can’t win ‘em all. Tune in next time where I (hopefully) come out triumphantly.
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