No Heat Curls – from Socks

Did you realize you can get curls from a sock bun? I stumbled upon THIS video at the end of summer and was all kinds of excited to try this on the girls. The fabulous gal in the video is the same one I got the idea from for our Figure 8 braid. She’s got some great ideas! Anyway, Since we try to be careful w/the girls hair and not use a ton of heat to curl it I was antsy to try this to see the results!

Over the last couple of months I have tried this sock bun method at least a half dozen times on the girls in an attempt to achieve the amazing curls that are shown in the video. I’ve got to admit I was pretty bummed at first. So here’s how a bunch of our “sock bun curl experiments” turned out!

Our 1st attempt was on Goose & I thought because she has such long hair I’d put 2 sock buns in for extra curl. I had random socks floating around that had holes in them so I cut the toes off & rolled them up. I figured for as much hair as she has I should use a big sock.

Put 2 pig tails in really high for her to sleep in.

Pulled the hair back down through the bun & started wrapping. It’s kind of hard to see it in her video because the part where she wraps the ends in is out of her camera’s view. One of these days I’ll have to make a video so you can see that part.

When I got done she had HUGE sock buns on each side. And I mean they were HUGE. We laughed quite well about it!

The next morning this is how they looked. I was worried about them falling out so I’d used a few clips & bobby pins to try keep them attached to her head.

I unrolled them & there was a bit of curl. Not as much as I’d hoped for.

Once we got the ponies out and finger combed her hair, this is all that was left. I was so disappointed. Her hair always holds curl well so I was surprised. It also made her hair very dry feeling and almost straw like which it never does.

I ended out pretty much bagging the curl idea & pulling her hair back into a braid & leaving the bit of ends that had a little wave hanging out. I was sad it didn’t turn out better.

Our 2nd attempt, I did it on both Bee & Goose. It was just with 1 bun like the gal does in her video. I thought maybe I’d rolled them wrong and just need to use the 1 sock. It was an even funnier site with them having these HUGE mounds of a bun on top of their heads!

The next morning Goose’s had stayed put for the most part.

And the ponytail had a lot more curl it seemed. I assumed I hadn’t rolled it right the 1st time I’d tried it or her hair had been too damp.

But sadly, once again after we’d let the ponytail down and finger combed it in the hopes it’d stay – the curl just turned to a very slight wave and it felt like straw. Weird. Good gravy — how hard can this be? Strike #2.

But when I pulled Bee’s out (I’d had to clip the bun to stay since her hair seemed to slide more) …

Her pony wasn’t as curly as Goose’s had been …

Once I’d done her hair we did still had a bit more curl but it was pretty much gone by the end of the day. Still not a total success.

I decided to try a smaller sock. We had the little socks I’d used clear back when I’d done the Ni Hao Kai-Lan Buns on Bee forever ago, and so I thought I’d try that instead of my big adult socks.

I just did one in Bee’s hair & it was barely hanging on in the morning.

We got about the same result in the curly pony tail –

But when I let her hair down I was a lot more pleased with the result.

But sadly once I’d pulled her hair up, it seemed to already be relaxing and falling out.

So on yet ANOTHER attempt – with the small socks, I decided to give Bee 2 little buns on each side. BUT the ONE CHANGE I made was to put a bit of mousse in each pony before I rolled them up. I decided maybe that was needed to help achieve more curl – or at least curl that would hold.

Again, I’d sort of clipped them on to keep them in place, and in the morning they had still come off a little.

But her pony tails were much much curlier than any other result I’d had to this point.

And voila! Success — FINALLY! These curls were gorgeous and reminded me of the ones you see the rodeo queens sporting! We sprayed the curls a bit with hair spray to hopefully keep them this time!

As in the past, I didn’t want to disturb the curl too much so I simply twisted the hair on the sides & joined them in the middle on the back of her head. It was so pretty.

She was so excited that she got curls from a sock & that it finally worked — and so was I! They held up pretty good, although she was wearing these for Church so it’s not like she was running around being a crazy kid on Sunday. They relaxed a bit as the day went on, but it was finally a success!

So to sum it up — I love these but I highly suggest you use some kind of product when doing them and don’t use too big of a sock in your dd’s hair. I never did try it again on Goose because after 3 tries (I haven’t posted all the pictures from each attempt here) it just didn’t seem to work. I’m assuming it is because her hair is so thick & long. The weight of her hair probably didn’t help either. I had the most success in Bee’s hair using the 2 socks which I continue to do.

Have you ever tried this? If so, what were your results – and did you find anything else helpful when doing it? We’d love to hear your tips!