Bouncy, perfectly curled hair often takes dedication and routine as well as specialist equipment to get it just right. But one woman wowed TikTok when she showed off her easy, at home trick for diffusing your hair in a pinch.
The video by @foxcraftcustom shows the curly haired Liz using a pasta strainer or sieve to dry her hair, with the caption "I can’t tell the difference between genius and crazy anymore lol."
Stunned viewers watched as she released her hair from the strainer to find her hair in perfect curls, Liz wrote: "Just found out my pasta strainer is better at diffusing my waves than my diffuser."
Now, the hack has gone viral as other women with curly hair rush to try it - but is it any good for our hair?
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Hairdresser Kelly Vowles, a specialist in curly hair, told The Mirror there could be some method to the madness as this is a "really old hack" that she herself has used before.
Kelly said: "When I started working with curly hair, I actually used to keep a sieve in the hair salon and use it to diffuse hair with. But I do find that using an actual diffuser gets much better results because of the way that the diffuser is formed."
According to the expert, the sieve does the same job as the diffuser by breaking up the air flow so it distributes evenly through your curls. Kelly, from Pixal-Rose Hair Design in Swindon, added: "If you are new on your hair journey and you are wanting to experiment and you don't know if you want to start buying lots of different equipment, it is a good thing to try."
"In my experience, the sieve method would work better with finer, type 2 waves because the hair can dry quicker and it's easier to cup the hair into the bowl," she said. "As you move up into thicker hair, which takes longer to dry, it might be harder to control the hair with a sieve."
Her top tip for diffusing hair is to use a low heat on a slower speed setting and "avoid touching the hair too much, just hold the sieve in place for 20 to 30 seconds at a time with no movement".
Not getting the metal of the sieve too hot is also important and Kelly said everyone should be using heat protectant, especially if you have curls which are "delicate".
She explained: "As long as you're keeping the heat low so that you don't heat the metal up too much it shouldn't, in my experience, cause issues but it's one of these things where if you can professional equipment is always the best route to go."
Other than heat, another limitation of the sieve method is that the air may not reach your roots to dry them properly, which Kelly says is a common mistake made when people are starting their curly hair journey.
Diffusers have prongs to help break up the hair so your roots are dried evenly with the ends. With this in mind, Kelly warned that the sieve method could cause your ends to dry faster than your roots. While you're attempting to dry your roots, the ends could be losing all moisture, meaning you need more product and making it look unhealthy.
Kelly's advice for anyone starting out is to speak to a curly hair specialist and purchase recommended products that works for your hair. She added: "In my experience, a lot of the time getting the curls right can also be about getting the product right not just about the styling or the diffusing.
"With anything though, it's about giving things a try and seeing if they work for you. I know that I get the best results for my clients using a professional diffuse but I'm sure there will be people out there who have achieved great results with the sieve method."
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