Naturally Curly Hair in the 1960s: Mad Men-Era Style Guide

The years spanning the 1960s make up an exciting decade to emulate stylistically and your naturally curly hair will make for a great base to work with for these fun vintage hairstyles.

I could go on for hours about how much I love the hairstyles in the tv show Mad Men, but there isn’t a ton there if you are looking for ideas on how to style natural curl.

If you got here because all of the images of 1960s hairstyles you came across looked like they were built for straight haired girls, then you have come to the right place. In this blog post I am going to show you how your natural curl is so helpful in styling the mod styles of the 1960s.

Curly Hair in the 1960s

In the early and mid 1960s, hair fashion ranged from sleek flips to high-volume bouffants, and big, controlled curls played a central role in achieving both. In these early years, the curly look was more about a big bend in the hair.

But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a place for curly hair in the 1960s. Roller sets remained essential at this time. Level 2 curls could be smoothed into shape as the roller size grew bigger than the look of the 1950s. Teasing and hairsprays added lift and hold.

For women with level 4 natural curl, texture could be smoothed with relaxers for controlled styles and reshaped with big rollers to create the fullness that defined much of the decade’s look.

Toni, the common home permanent of the time, released Smooth ‘n’ Sleek Toni, “the uncurly permanent” in 1963.

The increased availability of inexpensive modacrylic wigs also offered an option to natural curl women wanting a quick solution to these well formed styles.

Hair falls, switches, and wiglets were also very popular at this time thanks to the availability of faux modacrylic hair to make them.

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But in a huge swing away from the taming of the curl, the late 1960s also saw women embracing natural curl. Young women of all races at this time embraced natural as part of their rebellion. Hippies grew their hair long and wore whatever natural texture they had and the Afro gave the black curly haired woman freedom from the expectation to look “white”.

circa 1968

Using your natural curl in a 1960s hairstyle

Smooth, Round, Big… That’s 1960s hairstyles in a nutshell. And with your natural curl, you can smooth it out if that’s what you want, but first let’s just start with emulating Round and Big.

There is no need to make yourself insane trying to copy the curl level or texture of a vintage style. You can if you want, and we’ll discuss easy ways to do that that later in the blog post.

For a finished vintage hairstyle to look great, getting the silhouette and form right makes all the difference. The silhouette or form in hairstyling refers to the outer shape of the hairstyle. Manipulate your curls to emulate the silhouette and you are ready to go. 

Without any teasing, you can pin your natural curls into the desired shape of the 1960s inspiration hairstyle. In this example, I pinned the lower curls up to emulate the bob hairstyle and styled it with a Tidy Tresses bouffant hair scarf to exaggerate the height in the hair.

More inspiration 1960s silhouettes

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Mad Men actress Teyonah Parris has worn some wonderful 1960s inspired hairstyles using her natural level 4 curl to both shape and fill the big, round ideal.

Mad Men inspired hairstyle how-to

For this style, the silhouette I’m going for is the bouffant look of the early and mid-1960s. 

Section a small piece at the bang area and gently comb it forward over the forehead. For just this one look it might help to use a large barrel curling iron or straightening iron to get the front section to swoop over to the side nicely. Direct it forward and to the right with your fingers. Roll the ends into a small pin curl. Pin the curl at the hairline.

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Pull the rest of the hair back into a ponytail leaving the hair loose on top of the head. Flip the curly ponytail up on top of the head and push it forward to add height to the style. Pin everything in place.

With just some simple building up of the curls, you can build a sophisticated 1960s inspired updo.

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Modifying your natural curl

Modifying your natural curl, for when you have time, can be done with some very simple tools and steps. These hair smoothing options include thermal brush w/rollers set, single-pass curl reshape, rollers wet-set, and retexturizing.

Thermal Brush and Large Rollers Setting

If you are not interested in the time involved with the roller wet set process, try a thermal round brush (circular in shape, not oblong shaped) coupled with large rollers. You’ll be surprised how nicely it works for 1960s hairstyles. This process smooths the natural curl and adds the big bend to hair so popular during the 1960s.

Start by prepping the hair section with a thermal protection spray. This will help protect the hair and help the new shape hold. My favorites include Joico Heat Hero Thermal Protector or Rusk Thermal Flat Iron Spray.

Comb through the hair section to avoid snagging while using the thermal round brush. Then pass through the under side of the hair with the thermal round brush and use the same action you would use if you were doing a round brush blow dry, only without the hair dryer part.

Or I prefer wrapping the hair while it is still warm around magnetic rollers or wire mesh rollers for this cooling process. These types of rollers keep the hair more smooth and taught in the big 1960s shape as compared to sponge rollers. They better prevent the natural curl from returning to its natural coil shape.

The roller size you use for the cooling process will partly dictate the size of the curl in the final hairstyle. For a 1960s type curl, I really like 1 1/2 inch rollers. They are big, so you get the nice flip at the ends of the hair, instead of curly ends. But not so big that the hair straightens out when released from the curler.

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Single-pass Curl Reshape

The single-pass curl reshape process uses a curling iron to smooth the natural curl out and reshape it into the desired curl size and shape with one pass through with a curling iron.

To start this curl, always spray with a heat protection spray like the ones I recommended above before curling. I’ve tested these ones for hold, shine and manageability.

Separate out a wide, but thin section of hair. This will making smoothing each section easier in one pass. Insert the hair between the rod and shell of a 1″- 1.5″ curling iron on medium heat with the rod about 1 inch away from the scalp. My favorite curling iron right now is this one from Hoson.

Close the shell over the section and start rolling the curling iron around to smooth through the hair from root to ends and slowly collect the hair into the curling iron. Don’t leave the curling iron on for too long, but long enough to saturate the entire section with heat.

Then clip the hair in its curled form to let the hair cool.

Roller Wet-Set

A roller set with magnetic rollers or tension rollers will smooth natural curl beautifully and gives hair that great 1960s volume we all love.

Magnetic rollers are a wet set option. So you set your hair while it is damp on a good set of rigid rollers to help keep the tension to straighten the curl out more. Dry the hair completely, either with time or a good hood hair dryer. Check out my hood dryer recommendations here.

Retexturizing (Relaxers)

A relaxer is a permanent chemical process that breaks down the natural curl bonds in the hair to make it straight. Once it’s relaxed, the curl is gone for good. You can still curl it with rollers or curling iron, but you’re working with straightened hair. The natural curls won’t spring back on their own and a roller or pin curl may not hold as well. But since the 1960s hair ideal was a smooth bend in the hair, setting relaxed hair with roller could give you the look you want.

Relaxers and keratin treatments often get talked about together, but they’re actually very different. Keratin treatments don’t permanently change the curl pattern. They coat and smooth the hair, which tames frizz and can loosen curls for a couple of months. The trade-off is that the coating can make hair resistant to curling tools, so getting a good, lasting set with rollers or a curling iron can be trickier until the treatment wears off.