057: How to Get Effortless Hair

What you'll need: hair clips, texturizing spray, and nowhere to go.

Effortless is a fascinating word. Upon first encountering, one would imagine it to mean with less effort. More words than not in the English language with the suffix -less have negative connotations. Affectionless, useless, hopeless, meaningless, and my personal favorite, artless. Brutal, cut-throat, cruel. Words of the -less variety are derogatory at best and will eviscerate, at worst. But this is where effortless is an outlier.

Effortless means the absence of effort, which, in my personal opinion, does not sound all that wonderful. It should be used to describe a poorly conceived account or essay, for example, “What on earth is this woman even talking about? It’s so god damn effortless!” But alas, the condition of Effortless is regarded with utmost esteem. One capable of work, action, or effort without the exertion of effort is one who is highly regarded. The greatest accolades for Effortless are reserved for the Beauty category. These acknowledgments and distinctions are, of course, reserved for women only. No one is saying, in reverent tones, “Joe Bro is such an effortless beauty!”

Jean Shrimpton photographed by Richard Avedon, Harper’s Bazaar, April 1965

A subdivision of Effortless Beauty is Effortless Hair. Often, it is the crown alone that determines whether one shall gain entry into the hallowed halls of Effortless Beauty. Effortless Hair typically occurs in the summertime: one moment hair is a tangled nest suffocating under an itchy wool hat, and the next, voilà! The hat is removed to reveal beach waves. Other terms that are synonyms of Effortless Hair include tousled, shaggy, beachy, wavy, waves, no matter that there may be nary a beach in sight.

Last year in the fall, I cut my hair short. It was a Big Deal, as my hair had not been that short in thirty years, or since my mother had come to realize that she should not be allowed to cut my hair. For six months after that first dramatic chop, I let my hair grow out, unsure of whether I wanted to go back for more. A month ago, I decided that I did in fact want more. Seated before the hairstylist I had first submitted myself to nearly eight years ago, and guarded with a Pinterest board of Shaggy Bobs, I motioned, hand at just below the chin, shorter.

When the cut was complete, what looked back at me in the mirror was an Effortless Hairstyle, a Shaggy Bob good enough for my own Pinterest board. It was wavy and tousled and beachy, even though I was seated at a hair salon on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, the murky East River and the industrial Gowanus Canal the nearest bodies of water. However, there was a caveat: it took four different products and prolonged applications of both a hair dryer and curling iron to achieve this effortlessness. The actual hair styling portion of my visit to the hair salon took just under one and a half hours.

By the time I reached home, my very fine and straight hair, which no heated instrument has stood up against, hung limp. I cursed myself for being too self-conscious to take a commemorative picture of my new ‘do at the hair salon.

One evening a few weeks ago, my best friend called me over FaceTime. “Your hair looks amazing!” she exclaimed. I thanked her, I wasn’t going to deny it. “Now, let me tell you what it takes to get my hair to look like this,” I continued.

First, I wake up.

The earlier I take a shower, the better for my Effortless Hair.

After showering, I begin the process of letting my hair air dry. If I use a hair dryer, my hair will hang straight. For my hair to fully dry, it can take anywhere between two to four hours, depending on the humidity for the day.

During the air drying process, there are a few interventions. The first thirty minutes, the hair is left to its own devices. Then, it is imperative to gather as much hair as possible at the top of my head, twist it around itself multiple times (which can be tricky at this length), and finally, secure it with a clip. The remaining hair is twisted into a miniature version of the top layer and also fastened with a clip. Having damp hair tied up like this often gives me headaches, but that’s alright. Allow the buns to rest for half an hour.

An alternative procedure: when the initial thirty minutes have passed, brush the hair to reveal the natural part, which is slightly off center, from left to right. Sweep the shorter “face-framing” pieces of hair from the left to the right, and secure it with a pin just above the right ear. Separate the hair in two even sections down the center. Twist the hair on each side tightly (as mentioned above), and secure each bun just below the ears with large clips. A too-large clip will not provide the required definition, and a hair tie is hopeless. Allow the buns to rest for half an hour.

First procedure (left); second procedure (right)

After the specified time, unfasten the clips and continue the air drying process for another thirty minutes. When I was a child, my grandmother used to tell me that tying my hair before it was fully dry would make it a breeding ground for lice. Whether this was fact or fiction is something I haven’t gotten around to clarifying, but I alternate between letting my hair down and twisting it all back up every thirty minutes in an act that I have allowed myself to believe will keep the lice at bay. The contracting and releasing of the hair is also essential to create waves.

Today has been a very humid day, and as such, the time required for air drying was approximately three hours. Once the hair is fully dry, I spray texturizing spray over and around my head. Time is of the essence here, and before the vapors have settled, the hair must be bound according to either outlined procedure. Switching to a different procedure at this stage of the process is discouraged.

The longer the hair is bound, the greater the chances of achieving effortlessness. Keeping the hair in their respective twists and clips for about eight hours post-texturizing spray will provide optimal results.

This means, on days when my hair looks so good, my Effortless Hair has had no contact with the outside world. I get to experience its effortlessness for an hour, before I tie my hair to wash my face in order to go to bed. And what a blissful hour it is.

Et voilà! How to get Effortless Hair!