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How Do You Use the Dyson Airwrap to Curl Hair?

Stay with me, because I actually had a hard time figuring out how to use the Airwrap to curl my hair the first time I tried it. Heads up that the instructions that come with the tool don't give you much information aside from a cleaning step by step.

Since the Airwrap dries hair as it styles it, I started the process with freshly washed hair. The curling (and smoothing) attachments are designed to be used on damp ends, so I used the dryer attachment as suggested first. I've never used a Dyson hair dyer before, and I was impressed by the speed with which the dryer got my hair from wet to damp.

There are two sizes of curling barrels in the Complete kit, so the next step is to select your desired curl tightness. I chose the bigger barrel (1.6 inches) for loose, voluminous waves.

Here's the tricky part: there are two barrels in each size. After reading the Dyson website, I figured out why: because of the way the openings on the curling barrel let air out and make your hair wrap around the barrel, if you want symmetrical curls (all toward your face or all away from your face), you need one barrel to curl the left side of your head and another one to curl the right side. If you like alternating the direction of your waves (one curl toward your face, the next one, away from your face), you'll have to switch the barrel attachments a lot! Yes, I tried holding the wand upside down to trick the process; no, it did not work. I settled on curling all my hair in the same direction, because, you know, who has time for all that extra work?

I normally use a 1.4-inch curling iron and wave about 2-inch sections of hair at a time, but that won't work with the Airwrap. I found that because the air coming from the barrel attracts your hair and wraps it around the barrel quickly and the wand is shorter than that of a regular curling iron, more than a half-an-inch section of hair will result in an overflow of hair toward the top of the barrel.

So I wrapped about half-an-inch section of hair around the barrel at a time, first holding the wand toward my ends until they spun around the barrel, moving the barrel upward to my roots (without twisting), and holding it until my hair was dry. I finished by giving the curl a shot of cold air to set it and releasing it just like I would when using a regular curling iron. The result: old-Hollywood, bouncy waves.

Image Source: POPSUGAR Photography / Neil Foresto