Of all things beauty, hair has always been my favourite. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good lippy as much as the next person (unless the next person is Mrs O’Shea) and I’m well up for a quick drying manicure but for me, it’s always been about hair.

I’ve had most colours, I’ve been shaved, lobbed, fringed and now I seem to be in this ‘really long’ phase. The main issue I have with these longer locks is that it takes forever for me to dry it. It’s that sort of hair that retains water really well – I can even see my hairdresser getting arm ache when she starts to dry it. And now that there’s just so darn much of it I just end up in a sweaty horrible mess.

So I decided to start letting it dry itself. I’m lucky in that I have a natural wave to my hair – well I say lucky now, 13 year old me would disagree entirely but after living with it for 32 years I now finally know how to properly manage it. Although having said that I don’t think you need a natural wave to get a good air dried look. One thing I learnt quite quickly in my air drying journey is that you absolutely need product if you’re going to let your air dried hair look remotely good. Without anything it was limp and almost greasy looking. Yuk.

I would avoid oil based products. I have an excellent serum that I use when I blow dry my hair – honestly I’ve been so impressed with it but it just makes my hair look greasy when left to dry alone. No amount of tszujing  could fix the wet look I was left with. And so I looked at products designed specifically for air drying – these are my current faves.

Bumble & Bumble – Don’t Blow It – £24

The process and results for this product are in the slider above. I love this. It’s a really lightweight cream and it doesn’t seem to matter how much I use it never leaves any horrible residue or wet look. I have a lot of hair and so I use about the size of 50 pence piece and it seems to be just the right amount. It gives my waves some really nice, natural definition and deals with my frizz effortlessly. I rake Bumble and Bumble Don’t Blow It through my hair with my fingers trying not to put too much on the roots, give it a good old scrunch and shake it out.

Lee Stafford – Beach Babe Sea Salt Spray – £7.99

If I want something a bit more volumised, a bit more textured I go for Lee Stafford Beach Babe Sea Salt Spray. I use quite a lot, spritz it all over and let it do it’s thing. There are more frizzy elements with this product but not in a bad way – literally in a ‘I just got out of the ocean and the sun has dried my hair to sea salty perfection’ way.

Other things I’ve learnt to help get a good finish are:

  • Don’t brush it. When I’m in the shower I use my shampoo and conditioner (FYI if you have blonde hair and want to get rid of some of the warmer tones this is my new fave silver shampoo from Tigi – and you can get mahoosive bottles of it to so it seems to last forever – also smells really nice) and I comb it when I’m in the shower too – I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that this might not be the best time to comb your hair but I figured I’m saving breakage and split ends by not blow drying so hey ho. If you do need to detangle some bits post towel dry, I’ve found that either using your fingers or a wide toothed comb is best. You can also twist sections to try and get a better wave if you have had to brush it out a bit too much. But where possible, just leave it alone – it’s that just-from-the-towel look that will help to give you volume and texture.
  • Keep it wet. I towel dry my hair but not for too long – I find if it’s still pretty wet – I’m talking just finishing dripping wet – then the end result is much better. You can scrunch it dry with the towel to give you some extra waves/curls/texture.
  • Perfect your tszuj. You don’t want to tszuj too much else you risk ‘the frizz’ but once or twice throughout the drying period will help give some volume and prevent it from drying flat to your head and two, because tszujing makes you feel fabulous.
  • It takes a few hours for it to totally dry but I would much rather that than half an hour under the intense heat of the hair dryer resulting in me needing to shower again by the time it’s all over. Timing is definitely something you need to work out with air drying. After about an hour mine looks pretty dry and in an ok state to leave the house and face the general public – I’d say it takes about three hours to dry completely but it’s definitely presentable about after an hour.

So, anything I’m missing folks? Any specific shampoo recommendations for air drying hair? Any vital steps I need to include? and please let me know about any products I absolutely need to try. We should also probably talk about the word tszuj. Who knew it was spelt in such a fancy way – I would’ve absolutely said it was jujj. And apologies for the terrible roots – I’m booked in next week to get it fixed!