How Do You Sleep?

For those of us with textured hair – from the slightly wavy to the tightly curly – maintaining our hair through the night is a big deal. I believe this comes down to the fact that we don’t like to brush or comb through our hair. Oftentimes, this can make things much worse. I showed you guys what it looks like when I brush my hair – but that’s nothing compared to curly-tops with tighter textures.

There are a few ways that curlies try to prevent the bedhead:

The Pineapple

This technique requires you to bend over so that all your hair is hanging towards the floor. Then, taking a scrunchy, gently gather all your hair into a loose ponytail right on top of your head. Some curlies like to make a loose bun, especially if they have particularly long and thick hair.
Pineapple-ing (yes, it’s a verb now) keeps your hair out of the way while you sleep, and hopefully only the underside of the hair will get smooshed.
The downside to this for some is that no matter how loose the scrunchy is, they get a dent in their hair when they take it down the next day. Luckily for me, that doesn’t happen – my only problem is that at the moment my hair is only long enough to keep half of it up.

The Satin/Silk Pillowcase

This isn’t a technique – just a product, really. The idea is that silk or satin is much smoother, and a lot less likely to suck moisture out of the hair than absorbent and snagging cotton. I’ve never ended up buying a special pillowcase, but I did buy a cheap silk scarf big enough to lay over my pillow – I really did notice a difference, although it’s tricky trying to get the scarf to stay all night.

The Satin/Silk Bonnet or Scarf

Satin and silk bonnets are very popular in the curly community, and a scarf is just another way to put the protective material around your hair while you sleep. With the scarf method, I find it hard to get the happy-medium between tight enough to stay on and loose enough to be comfortable. And with bonnets, if you buy a cheap one, the elastic gets loose quickly and I find that they also fall off by morning.
On the bright side, I recently bought a silk bonnet through a fellow member of the Aussie Curly Girl Facebook group* – her mother makes them – and it has been great so far – the elastic is firm but not uncomfortable, and there’s enough there that when my hair gets longer, it won’t make the bonnet fall off.
One thing I have heard is that it can cause breakage to the fine hairs at the hairline – I haven’t seen any evidence of this on my own hair (I’m convinced that the fine hairs at my hairline are never going to change).

Braids or Twists

Twisting or braiding the hair while you sleep is a good way of preventing tangles in the hair. It also preserves the ‘S’ curve in the hair. However, depending on how many braids or twists you do, it can alter your curl pattern. That’s what lots of curlies are going for, but if you don’t want looser or tighter curls overnight, maybe stay away from this option.

The Combo

Many curlies use two or three of the above methods, either for extra effectiveness or insurance against one failing (like the bonnet comeing off or braids coming undone).

My preferred way is: switch it up. When I first started learning about how to take care of my hair (and make it look good in the process), I used the pineapple method. Because it was the first thing I tried, I found it worked really well. But as I found out more and more, I experimented with different things. That’s what I love about hair in general: there are so many ways to style it and take care of it, no one way works for everyone and, if you’re like me, different things work depending on the results you want and the changes in seasons and hairstyles.

So, readers, what do you do to keep your hair from getting messed overnight? Let me know in the comments, and if you try any of these ideas, also let me know – I’d love to hear what works for you.

Love and waves,
Astrid

*If you’re in Australia and would like more information, go to my contacts page and let me know. I’ll see what I can do about getting you in touch 🙂