Natural Curl is the Perfect Beginning for Fingerwaves

This Mother of the Bride came to see me yesterday at the studio because she wanted to do a practice run on her hairstyle for her daughter’s upcoming wedding. Her hair is short and has natural wave to it and the wedding is vintage-inspired. She loves finger waves, so it was an easy trial run.

It isn’t often that I get a member of the bridal party in for a practice run, so when I show up for a wedding, my life is full of surprises. I’ll usually have the bride all figured out from her practice, but the rest of the party will be completely new to me. With vintage-inspired weddings, if you don’t have a mass of techniques and ideas already stored away in your brain, you are in for a stressful day. After years of doing this, I still get stressed out on weddings. Any opportunity to prepare ahead of time is welcome.

I don’t get a whole lot of opportunities to do actual finger waves. I do the contemporary version all the time with a curling iron, but it just isn’t the same. Classic finger waves with sculpting lotion, comb, and finger shaping are just stunning.

This was also a nice opportunity to put Beauty & Pin-ups Linger Sculpting Gel to the test on true finger waves. (Since this post was written, this sculpting gel has unfortunately been discontinued. Any quality setting lotion or gel will work.)

Here is a picture of my simple set of tools for this, minus my fingers.

Supplies you will need:

• sculpting lotion/gel
• carbon rat tail and styling combs (better grabbing power than plastic combs)
• duckbill clips
• cut-up playing cards in various lengths and widths
• I also have hair tape pictured here for the spit curls I did.

The lovely Kathleen before has naturally wavy hair. This what her hair looks like when she just shoots it with a hairdryer, no product or manipulation.

My technique here was so easy. I just listened to her hair. I let it tell me where it wanted wave. That’s why the waves don’t all connect in a forced, symmetric row of waves. They are organic and soft. This is better for her anyway. Those really wetted down looking finger waves would be too harsh for her.

I just got her hair nice and saturated with the Linger Sculpting Gel, no water needed. Water takes too long to dry and wasn’t necessary in this case. The sculpting gel dries faster on its own and her hair is already predisposed to wave.

I had her sit under the hairdryer for 10 minutes. She didn’t need much time because I didn’t use boatloads of product or any water. After she was done, I just carefully removed the clips, cards, and hair tape very gently combed through the areas I felt looked too crunchy.

The other reason I am so glad she came in is that I know that I get to do this hairstyle again! I had so much fun and was so happy with the results that I am looking forward to the wedding day where I can recreate it!