Ponytail with Spiral Curls

Ponytail with spiral curls
Photo: Shutterstock
Q: My daughter is in competitive cheer leading and for her competitions she must have her hair in a ponytail with spiral curls. Her hair is really fine and really thin. The coaches suggest the hot sticks or the pink little foam rollers.
 
I know that both are used in different manners, but I do have a lot of hair curling experience. Which product would be better to use to stay set for a long competition day? Thanks so much for you help.

 
A: Well, my personal preference for a longlasting curl style is to use a wet set with a strong hold styling gel. You can generally accomplish most of the work in this the night before and allow the hair to dry overnight. Just be sure to allow enough time to make sure your hair gets fully dry.
 
Take the freshly washed, towel-dried hair and apply a liberal amount of styling gel and comb the product through the hair to evenly distribute it. Pull the hair back into the ponytail you desire and then wrap the ends of the hair on the foam rollers. If possible, you can use a bonnet dryer to help speed the drying process.
 
If you wear the rollers to sleep in, be sure to wrap the hair (rollers included) in a lightweight scarf to avoid friction between your hair and the pillows and bed linens.
 
If a wet set isn't an option for you, you can make the use of hot sticks/hot rollers work better by plying the hair as listed above for the wet set with styling gel, setting the ponytail and blow-drying the tail until the tail hair is fully dry. After the tail is dried, spray the hair with hairspray and let the spray dry fully, the wrap the hair in to hot sticks and allow it to set. Make sure the styling sticks get fully cool so that the curl has a chance to set strongly.
 
Once the curls have been fully set, spray the curls again with hairspray and let the curls dry. Afterward, you can arrange and redirect the curls as desired using your fingers.
 
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See also:
 
Wet set tools
 
How to create spiral curls with a curling iron
 
How do I get spiral curls with a curling product?
 
How to wrap a spiral perm
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