This Heatless Pin-Curl Hack From TikTok Is Life-Changing

hype ch

I'm not one to regularly heat-style my hair, but seeing as I am a beauty editor, I still want to look put together when I go to events and take meetings. Short of giving myself a blowout every time I wash my hair, I'm constantly searching for ways to style it that don't require me to pull out the Airwrap every time. That's how I discovered a heatless curl hack for essentially faking a good hair day by simply styling the front pieces surrounding your face. Let me explain.

Posted by hairstylist Matt Newman on TikTok, the bangs hack involves using the pin-curl method to style your face-framing layers. It only requires three simple steps without the use of a curling iron. In the 32-second clip, Newman takes the section of hair closest to his face and wraps it around his pointer finger before securing it in place with an alligator clip. He repeats the process on the other side to obtain two mini twists on either side of his head. From there, he gives them a spritz of hairspray and then uses a blow dryer (stay with me, I know I said heat-free . . .) to set each piece of hair with the cold shot. See, no heat is necessary.

I have chin-length, face-framing pieces on either side of my face that contour my cheekbones. I could write a love letter to these sections of hair; they really complete my look and round out my overall layered haircut. Without them, I'm nothing. That said, they don't always cooperate the way I want them to. When I air-dry my hair, these pieces have a slight bend to them around the mid-length and then fall flat, which is not exactly what I want. But I also don't want to fry them off by curling them every day. This heatless pin-curl bangs hack seemed like a good solution.

On freshly washed, dry hair, I parted it down the center and divided the two face-framing sections from the rest of my head. Then, with two alligator clips at the ready, I brushed those pieces of hair smooth and wrapped them around my opposite pointer finger going away from my face. Once the hair was spiraled around my finger, I carefully slid my finger out and used the clip to pin down the curl. After repeating that on the other side, I grabbed my Sisley Paris Invisible Hold Hairspray ($105) and gave it a light spray. Then, with my Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer ($429) on the lowest setting, I used the cool-shot button to blast the hair with cold hair.

Sisley Paris Invisible Hold Hairspray

From

$105

$105 at Nordstrom

Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer

From

$429

$429 at Sephora

To really ensure the curls were set, I decided to leave them like this while I finished getting ready for a total of 20 minutes. When I was ready to put the final touches on my hair, I was a little nervous the entire experiment would be for nothing but was completely shocked when I removed the first clip. A bouncy, perfectly coiled spiral of hair fell onto my cheek, and I quite literally gasped. The other side looked similarly good, though I have to admit the first was by far my strongest. Just like Newman did in the video, I used my fingers to comb through the curls so they didn't look too perfect and to get some volume back into my roots.

The quick, two-minute hack made it look like I had run a round brush or velcro roller through my bangs, adding a lot more volume and movement to the area. It's safe to say I'll be implementing this again in the future.