How often do you "set" your hair?

[BinkieBaumont]

As a child in the early 1960's during school holidays I remember the Boredom of mom under the dryer for 45 minutes

 

[Tenuki]

The salon I go to has a hair dryer and I've always wanted to sit under one as long as I can remember. Fortunately, my stylist has been enjoying my foray into vintage hair and she's set my hair since I got my middie. Thirty minutes of undisturbed reading with the white noise of the dryer is soothing.

However, I can't use heat-based products on my hair regularly as my hair becomes dry and brittle. I've been experimenting with wet sets. Rollers are uncomfortable to sleep on. Rag rollers are comfortable, but I think I need more practice because my results have been frizzy. However I've finally gotten the hang of setting pin curls and keeping track of which direction I'm setting the curls, so I'll probably settle into a routine of pin curl sets. I use setting lotion on the first set after shampooing. On the reset nights, I either stick my head under the sink or spritz with rose water, depends on my mood, how my scalp feels and how much time I have.

 

[Land-O-LakesGal]

The salon I go to has a hair dryer and I've always wanted to sit under one as long as I can remember. Fortunately, my stylist has been enjoying my foray into vintage hair and she's set my hair since I got my middie. Thirty minutes of undisturbed reading with the white noise of the dryer is soothing.

However, I can't use heat-based products on my hair regularly as my hair becomes dry and brittle. I've been experimenting with wet sets. Rollers are uncomfortable to sleep on. Rag rollers are comfortable, but I think I need more practice because my results have been frizzy. However I've finally gotten the hang of setting pin curls and keeping track of which direction I'm setting the curls, so I'll probably settle into a routine of pin curl sets. I use setting lotion on the first set after shampooing. On the reset nights, I either stick my head under the sink or spritz with rose water, depends on my mood, how my scalp feels and how much time I have.

I by far find the pin curls easiest to sleep in although a bit more tedious to produce more comfortable and better results in the end. Cheers to pin curls.

 

[Marla]

Once a week, on the clock, on Sunday. I use rollers because I still haven't gotten the hang of pin curls. I've been actively trying to switch to pin curls for a year and a half, but pin curling the back of my head still does not seem feasible. Pin curls are infinitely superior to rollers, but rollers are faster to set.

As for the sleeping issue: I have a big, well-stuffed feather pillow. It does the trick. Perhaps if I didn't have said pillow I'd have weaned myself off rollers long ago...

 

[Octavia]

I set my hair every night. It took me a little while to get into the routine, but I finally found a way that works for me. I do a nice pin-curl set after I wash and blow-dry my hair smooth, then before I bathe every night I loosely re-set the curls just so they don't get ruined overnight. My re-sets look something like this:

Sort of haphazard and chunky, but it keeps my curls all week long without much fuss.

 

[zombi]

Pincurls every night, however, I only do 4 on each side which is quick and gives me nice Veronica Lakeish waves. I wash my hair once a week, I find that since I've been pincurling my hair doesn't get greasy as quockly. Oh, but on the night I wash my hair I don't pincurl it, because it usually falls out very quickly, so the day after washing is usually my snood and victory roll day.

I'd love to start setting my hair more often, but I usually find the back so difficult. This seems like a nice way to bridge the gap & get more practice with it without killing my arms. I'm interested in how you're setting the four on each side? Are they very big?

I have only rarely set my hair. As I said before I'm still not very practiced with it, and I've found myself mired in a very busy schedule which leaves me little time to set my whole head. I'm sure with more practice I will do it more often. I do wish I pincurled every day.

 

[Tatum]

I'd love to start setting my hair more often, but I usually find the back so difficult. This seems like a nice way to bridge the gap & get more practice with it without killing my arms. I'm interested in how you're setting the four on each side? Are they very big?

I have only rarely set my hair. As I said before I'm still not very practiced with it, and I've found myself mired in a very busy schedule which leaves me little time to set my whole head. I'm sure with more practice I will do it more often. I do wish I pincurled every day.

zombi, I know how you feel! What I do at night is grab sections that seem to match, and do standing pin curls to keep the curl intact (I am a dunce with regular pin curls). However, I did get my hair cut finally on Thursday and had a wave put in, so maybe things will hold better now! I couldn't get a set to last longer than 2-3 days anymore.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

Since my last post in this thread, I've cut my hair to a little above shoulder length. Now that it isn't so long, setting my hair is easier.

Quick question: Do you all consider pin curls and wet sets to be "vintage"? Whenever I'm at the salon, EVERYBODY is under the dryer with rollers in their hair and a lot of the women pincurl their hair at night to keep it up. Or maybe it's because I go to an *ethnic* salon where wet sets, pincurls and fingerwaves are just standard hairstyling practices and techniques. It wasn't until I came on this board that I discovered that women consider these techniques vintage.

 

[rue]

I set my dry hair in the morning with hair spray and sponge rollers if I'm going to have time and it can stay like that for three hours. It'll last me two days with no touch ups and the third day I just wear a pony tail or wash it. On days or nights when I can't be home all day, I use hair spray and hot sticks and that lasts about the same time, but it's not as curly as the sponge rollers will leave it. On the days I wash it (about every three to four), I use a setting lotion and dry it, before I roll it, because I can't bring myself to sleep with anything in my hair.

 

[crwritt]

I don't use pins or curlers since I have a natural wave and I've figured out how to comb, scrunch and shape
my wet hair. I wash it and add some leave in conditioner and gel, scrunch out some moisture
and shape it with a comb and my fingers, then I sit under the dryer for 15 minutes or so.
If you read the Naturally Curly boards its called a Deva Set.
I do it about twice a week, sleep on a satin pillowcase, restyle it with wet fingers if its messy looking in the morning.

 

[kamikat]

CaramelSmoothie, I'm a stylist and have worked in both mostly white salons and multi-ethnic salons. Most women with straight hair (white, asian, hispanic) consider wet sets to be old fashioned, but it's still commonly used for special occasion hair. In multi-ethnic salons, I found that both clients and stylist of African American decent are mixed in that view. While it tended to be more common with older women, not unusual for younger women. It's been a while since I worked in a multi-ethnic salon, 10+ years, back then older women got wet sets and younger women were mostly getting weaves or braids, but I don't think styles are as fashionable today. The reality is that perms are so damaging to African-American hair that wet sets and nightly pincurls are healthy than setting with curling irons daily.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

CaramelSmoothie, I'm a stylist and have worked in both mostly white salons and multi-ethnic salons. Most women with straight hair (white, asian, hispanic) consider wet sets to be old fashioned, but it's still commonly used for special occasion hair. In multi-ethnic salons, I found that both clients and stylist of African American decent are mixed in that view. While it tended to be more common with older women, not unusual for younger women. It's been a while since I worked in a multi-ethnic salon, 10+ years, back then older women got wet sets and younger women were mostly getting weaves or braids, but I don't think styles are as fashionable today. The reality is that perms are so damaging to African-American hair that wet sets and nightly pincurls are healthy than setting with curling irons daily.

Ahhh. Thanks. I had no idea that Whites, Asians and Hispanics considered them old fashioned, which explains the comments on this thread. I go to a Black salon and I would say almost 100% of the clients get put under dryers for wet sets, myself included. And I know that these women either wrap their hair at night or put pin curls in their hair to keep it up. As for finger waves, I see finger waves just about everywhere I go, ESPECIALLY in the South. I am in Mobile, AL and I have seen so many girls with finger waves and I bet they don't even know that it originated in the 1920s.

 

[Kiri]

Every night, as my hair doesn't hold curl very long. Sadly. :c

 

[Frenchy56]

Once every three days, normally, after I've showered and washed my hair. If it didn't come out well and/or got ruined by weather, I'll sometimes re-set it, but more often than not I just be creative with snoods/ headscarves.

If all goes to plan, on the first day I have pretty tight curls- my shoulder-length hair curls up near my chin at the shortest points. On the second day I normally get wavy curls with big curls on the ends, then on the third day it's pretty much the same, though it's more of a wave than a curl. On rare occasions my hair is still curled enough to leave it another day, but I couldn't go four days without showering and it's just more convenient to wash my hair at the same time!

 

[cherry lips]

I wash and set once a week, on Tuesdays, so that it looks it's best on Fridays and Saturdays! On Mondays I have to wear a ponytail or a bun, not due to lack of curl, but because it's oily.

 

[Frenchy56]

I wash and set once a week.

wow, what do you do to make your sets stay curly for a whole week? Surely they don't hold even if it rains?

 

[Miss Tuppence]

I set and wash my hair once a week sometimes I can leave it a little longer when the front still looks alright and just cover the icky back with a snood/hat or scarf, but on average it’s once a week- usually on a Friday so it looks it’s best at the weekend…. By the end of the week Thursday and Friday I have to start curling it up in a few places, to give the curls a little more oomph! My Avatar was taken a few days into my set and also before I had a little chopped off it!

 

[Berlin]

Every evening.
My hair only stays fixed for a day

 

[Clabbergirl]

At risk of asking the obvious, when you say you can go a whole week on one set, do you mean you only curl your hair one time and then sleep the other nights on your hair without anything in it/on it? And it doesn't wreck the style? No tangles or frizzes? Do you wrap it in a silk scarf or something?

 

[Miss Tuppence]

At risk of asking the obvious, when you say you can go a whole week on one set, do you mean you only curl your hair one time and then sleep the other nights on your hair without anything in it/on it? And it doesn't wreck the style? No tangles or frizzes? Do you wrap it in a silk scarf or something?

When I say once a week, I mean once a week! The first few days the curls will be styled very close to my head and the after it’s dropped a bit, I just style to suit. If I want it to be close to my head all the week, well then I just put bits up in rollers to lift it. On the whole, I just leave it and do what I can with it! At Night I just wrap it up in a net, and brush out in the morning.

I couldn’t go a week without brushing though- no one could!
Here is what it looks like, the morning after I set it. The eve of Christmas Eve! Sorry for the daft and scarily large photos!

And the day before I washed it- New Years Eve. 9 days in all.