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Writer's pictureSarah Taylor-McAllister

My Quest for the Perfect Pin Up Hair: Pillow Rollers


One of the things that drew me to vintage/ pin up style was the hair. I just love the sleek silhouette of a 1940's victory roll and the glamour of Hollywood waves from the 1950's. That said, I am not a natural born hair stylist and my big mass of frizzy hair is not the most co-operative (anyone else regularly break hair brushes?). Therefore it is my mission to find ways to style my hair that give me those gorgeous vintage styles but are also lazy person friendly and not too complicated. I have a lot of hair and with a busy toddler running about the place, I've found that using a hot curler to curl my hair really isn't an option- it's just too time consuming. For several years, I was using foam rollers to set my hair overnight. However, with their plastic centre, they are so uncomfortable I find that I just don't sleep well with foam rollers in. I tried crocheting my own rollers a while back (here) and while they are certainly more comfy than my foam rollers, I was still waking up with a sore neck. So that brings me to my most recent hair purchase... pillow foam rollers!


I bought mine from Ebay but they are available online in several different places. I have quite a lot of thick shoulder length hair, but still found there were more than enough rollers for me to do my whole head. Because of how thick my hair is, I only ever do dry sets and use a small amount of curling moose to help shape the curls (I use one from Tresemme but many other brands would work just as well.). Rolling my hair took about 20 minutes and I liked the soft wire in the middle, which made it really easy to fix them in place. The rollers came with a hair net which I used, but I did also tie a hair around my head to keep the rollers staying neat. I slept overnight in my rollers and then kept them in my hair the following morning (I rocked the Nora Batty look all around the village. No regrets). I then took all the rollers out and gave them a quick spritz with some hair spray before brushing out the curls with a paddle brush. After a good amount of brushing, I smoothed some gel over my hair (I love the Dippity Do Girls with Curls one, and not just because Dippity Do is really fun to say). I then used long metal hair clips to help shape my hair and then gave it another good hair spray blast. Once the hair spray had dried, I removed the clips, popped in a hair flower and bosh! Job done.



The next morning... (Yes, my pyjama top has a cat with lazar eyes on it. Best. Top. Ever.).




So that's how I used the pillow rollers. Here are some of the pros and cons-


Pros

* Reasonably comfortable to sleep in. I still had to be a little careful with how I positioned my head as I was falling asleep, but unlike other rollers, they didn't keep waking me up.

* The flexible metal in the middle made it really easy to fix them in place.

* Comes with plenty of rollers so I didn't have to buy multiple sets.

* At £11.65 for a pack of thirty, they were pretty cheap.


Cons

*A little more fiddly to do the actual roll, but I think that'll get easier with practise.

* Curls were slightly less defined than with foam rollers.



All in all, I was pleased with these rollers and will definitely keep using them. I think with a little more practise I could get a really good set with them, without sacrificing sleep. And I do bloody love sleep.


Every good set needs a hair flower to finish it off... find some of mine here!


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