I am going to begin student teaching either next week or the week after and I’m trying to make doing my hair as easy as possible. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to attempt to look professional. Right now my hair is cut into a long bob, sort of. I would eventually like to grow it all out to be very long again and with no layers at all but for now I’m wondering if having layers in it would make it look better and possibly less unruly.
Is this a dumb idea or does anyone have any better ideas for easy hairstyles for unruly curly hair?
Here’s a few pictures of what I look like now. This is a good hair day. Badhair day complete with wardrobe malfunction! Mediocre hair day here.
The problem is that I have little or no control over what sort of day it’s going to be in advance. My hair does whatever it wants to do without consulting me first.
First, find a stylist who’ll listen to what you want and not push whatever their salon is into “this week”. Be very clear what you’re looking for and bring pics of the styles you like with you.
That said, with naturally wavy/curly hair, a good “wash-n-go” style is layers with an overall length of just above the shoulder. Bangs are optional, but I’ve always liked them.
I didn’t know I had curly hair until I lived in a high-humidity environment for several years. So I’m still learning as an adult how to deal with curly hair. Recently, I cut off about 18" of hair and went to a pixie. What I didn’t know is that a pixie is not wash and go for me. Because the curls, they go every which way and if I don’t spend some time and effort (and money on product) styling, I pretty much look like Kramer from Seinfeld. ;>)
If you’re okay with curls going every which way, then try a pixie. I find that the more layers are cut into my hair, the less the curl is weighed down by the weight of the hair itself so the become much springier and much less controllable.
Here’s the google image results for “naturally curly pixie styles.” Note: many of these do not appear to be curly hair styles at all, but there’s a few in there.
Your hair is pretty much like mine. I’ve found lately that with it shorter, I have to start poofing it up and not weighing it down.
When it was longer, I was using Garnier Fructis Sleek & Shine Anti-Frizz serum and it did a nice job of making the curls stay curly. It weighed my hair down a bit, which was fine because I had massive amounts of hair on my head and it needed to be tamed.
But then when I went really short, slightly shorter than what you’ve got, the anti-frizz serum just made me look like I had wet greasy hair all the time. Kind of like your “mediocre” picture, and I’m just not a fan of that look for curly haired girls.
I decided that I needed to stop trying to make my hair smaller and actually make it bigger. So I switched to Garnier Fructis Smoothing Milk as my leave-in conditioner and got rid of the anti-frizz serum. The new secret ingredient is Loreal Alcohol-Free Curl Activating Mousse. It helps me get a little lift in my curls, which is something I never thought I’d need with my mounds and mounds of hair but it makes such a huge difference to have my hair “up” - where I put it, not just flying every which way - and with lovely curls.
Anyway…I like your “bad” pic best, then your “good” day and then “mediocre.” I think you need a little more curl on top, and I guess that’s done with layers. I suck at remembering how I get my hair cut
I don’t have many pics of me with the mousse in my hair because it’s only been a couple months (hot months, where I spent a lot of time with my hair not done!) but here’s a good example of me “poofing” my hair up.
I think it would look very good on you, and of course professional!
Oh and by the way my hair routine is shower, smoothing milk (leave-in), let it dry a bit while I get dressed, then mousse and go. One could probably also blow dry at that point but I don’t bother, I let it air-dry.
Layers absolutely help with unruly curls. They also prevent your hair from getting too voluminous and making your head look like a poofy triangle (not that your head looks like this, but generally speaking).
Right now my post-shower routine involves mixing some leave-in conditioner with an anti-frizz serum, shaping the curls with my fingers, and air-drying. Pretty easy. Bad hair days still happen depending on the humidity, but that’s how it goes.
Ask if anyone at your salon is really good with curly hair - they can give you the right cut for your needs and recommend products.
My hair is much like yours, and layers help tremendously. My curls stay curly instead of heading toward the frizzy wave they like so much during Georgia summers.
But, I have to keep it up - my layers are fairly short, and there’s a point, at about 6 weeks, when it just looks like crap and I have to get it cut. That’s when it won’t curl, won’t straighten but just flops there on my head.
Hey, you look cute! I like that haircut, and it looks easy to grow out if that’s your goal.
I think we have similar hair - wavy-curly, fluffy, fairly fine, and on the thinner side of average. Yours doesn’t look as insanely dry as mine though, lucky you! Do you use products?
Based on all these things I wouldn’t go for layers. If you have thick curly hair, they can help you avoid the ‘triangle’ but I’ve grown my hair out from super-short to very long twice and I never found that was an issue for me since I don’t have that much hair on my head (though I do have volume for days). Also, during the grow-out process from super short, I found that the naturally occurring layers tended to just turn into more frizzy, floaty, fly-aways to deal with.
Long hair with very little layering is absolutely the fastest and easiest for me to manage on a daily basis. There is NOTHING low-maintenance or ‘wash and go’ about short hair for me. My hair is simply too unruly and responsive to weather changes. Even resting the back of my head on a chair would make my short hair look crazy. And if it rained? Forget about it.
Updos for longer hair are easy to make look professional, polished, even fancy. Of course there’s a learning curve, I recommend youtube tutorials. I wear my hair up every day for work, using a variety of hair tools (forks, sticks, pins, and clips) but no elastic bands. Ponytails make me feel too high school.
Well, I took the plunge and got layers added in. I honestly cried after I did it but apparently I’m the only one that even noticed that it’s different as no one who knows me and has seen me this evening said anything at all, good or bad. So, here itis…
I wish my hair looked like yours does now-- mine’s evidently slightly less curly, and hasn’t been cut in months. Plus it’s presently all one length, which can be good, but presently is kinda blah.
I think it looked fine before, but it looks great now.
Good luck student teaching. I was older when I decided to be a teacher, and I compared student teaching (and then mentioned this to my own student teachers) as living with your mother-in-law. Sure she is fond of you, but you won’t do things the way she does and sometimes you will be able to tell she is biting her tongue, and by the end both of you will be a little happy it’s over.
What grade? Good luck, and I hope it’s wonderful for you!
I will be spending 8 weeks with 2nd and 3rd graders in a resource room and the second 8 weeks at high school in a multiple disability room because my licensure will cover both mild to moderate and moderate to intensive disabilities. I am looking forward to it all but especially the second half of the semester.
You never know! I’ve known people who swore they wanted to work with one age group but fell in love with a different group!
I, however, know I couldn’t do primary. I taught fifth and seventh, and fifth was stretching it for me. Seventh was good, and high school would have been good, too.
