Roller Set Natural Hair – Your First Transitioning Hairstyle

Posted by admin on Nov 12, 2011 in 0 - 12 Weeks, Tools | 0 comments

 

 

Roller Set Natural Hair – Your First Transitioning Hairstyle

For your first hairstyle during your transition, you should try a roller set.  It is not at all difficult to roller set natural hair.  In fact, roller setting transitioning hair is the same process as roller setting relaxed hair. The one thing that you must remember when roller setting your transitioning hair is that you will need to have more tension to make the new growth straight.  Of course, you do not want to tug on your hair so much that it breaks, but you do want tension at the roots such that the roller will pull the hair straight.  Before my new growth grew in too much, I started to practice my roller setting techniques.

In order to roller set your own hair you will only need a few products.  I used mesh rollers with pins, and I still have not perfected using them.  I suggest magnetic rollers and clips.  Do not use sponge rollers.  I remember my sister using pink sponge rollers when we were young and there were always stands of her hair in those rollers.  Not only can sponge rollers rip out your hair strands, they can also dry out your hair.  Some people also use setting lotion for their roller set and end papers at the ends of the hair.

The steps you take to roller set your transitioning hair will depend on how you want the end results.  At the beginning of your transition from relaxed to natural hair, you will probably want to blend your curly roots with your relaxed hair, which means you will want to use large rollers for a sleek, straight look at your roots.  If you want a curly look, which you may want near the end of your transition since you will have more curly hair than straight hair, you will want to use smaller rollers or maybe even perm rods to make the straight hair blend in with your curls.  I used 2 inch mesh rollers in the beginning of my transition.  I was never good with magnetic rollers on my own (had tried to use them years prior) and I did not have a hood dryer at the time.  I decided to use mesh rollers and to air dry my hair.  On that first try to roller set natural hair it took me 59 minutes to get all the mesh rollers installed because I could not figure out how to use the pins to hold the rollers in place.   A few of the mesh rollers fell out, but in the end my hair came out okay.  I let my hair air dry for hours.  I later switched to using 2 inch gray magnetic rollers.

For my second roller set, I used magnetic rollers but since I could not get them to stay installed, I cheated and did a ponytail roller set.  A ponytail roller set is just like it sounds.  You put your hair into small ponytails and then add rollers to those ponytails.  Let it dry (air dry or hood dryer) and at the end you have curls.

By the time I figured out how to place magnetic rollers, I had purchased a hood dryer and I was also up to using 20 magnetic rollers.  I was down to 37 minutes to install the rollers (which I did later get down to 30 minutes).  In the beginning of my transition, I did not use setting lotion for my roller set.  I just used water with some leave in conditioner.  However, for my current roller sets I do use setting lotion since it helps to hold the style.  I do recommend using setting lotion for your roller sets if you want them to last for more than a day.

In order to roller set natural hair, begin with clean and detangled hair.  I use a wide-toothed comb and deman brush to detangle.   Add the leave in conditioner of your choice to your hair and also setting lotion (I use lotta body).  You will need to part your hair in sections and roll your hair onto the rollers from the bottom upward.  There are tons of videos on the topic of roller setting hair if you need to see the arm movements to get the hang of the process.  I can roller set natural hair with ease, but it took me 8 tries to perfect my technique.