My ‘no diffuser’ curly hair drying experiment at home had its challenges. First, I didn’t have the same gel from my vacation and had to improvise. Then, I thought the weather and the water quality would be the biggest change. Surprisingly, what I hadn’t thought about was the difference in hair dryers!
The products
For my products, I couldn’t find the same gel I used on my vacation, so I chose an original favorite, the Bioterra Alcohol Free Defining Gel. I styled my curls in the same way and topped them with the Innersense Organic Beauty hairspray. The non-aerosol hairspray is my go-to curl-friendly product for heat and weather protection and a must for unpredictable vacation days.
The hair dryers
Quickly, I found out that my hair dryer was much more powerful than the one provided on my vacation. The one I used last Sunday was a 10+ year old Revlon 1875 Ionic. It had a low-speed setting that was so gentle that it hardly moved my hair around. Also, the low heating setting was also a true warm.
With my powerful Chi Rocket hair dryer, however, my hair was blowing around without the diffuser, making it a challenge actually dry my hair. Also, the low setting on the Chi is a high warm. I’ve never even used the hot setting. I even toggled between the cool setting to give myself a break. I got too hot. My hair was only about 65 percent dry. After 20 minutes, I gave up. It was 10:30 pm.
Night Routine
I decided to sleep with my still damp hair – not my favorite thing to do. I just lifted my hair up so it was above my head and air-drying over the silk pillowcase. This tends to create wonky curls, flat spots, and of course a wet pillow. Still, I hoped for the best.
Curl Tip: Always have an extra pillowcase on hand.
Morning hair
Here are my results! I was surprised to still have some definition, even with all of that movement. Note that I held the hairdryer pointing down the length of my curls at all times, not sideways or up from the ends. I focused on drying the roots first; and then tried to dry the lengths as best I could. My ends are less defined, though I can refresh them with a bit of water and gel to get the curl back. Still, I definitely give most of the credit to the hairspray for that protective hold. My hair does have a stiffness from the product combo (gel cast), but isn’t sticky or weighed down.
Conclusion
Ultimately, I got lucky with my vacation hair dryer. A new version of it is available for $15! Shall we see if the settings are the same?? For now, I can’t recommend this ‘no diffuser’ hair drying technique as a tip in general. But, I do recommend the hairspray + travel size to use with any hairdryer that you have. I’ll be using my diffuser as it makes for quick and easy drying with my usual routine. Cheers!
For more details on this hairspray, check out this post too!
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