If you are going to blow-dry your hair, though, you might as well be as kind to the strands as you can. Below, hairstylists explain how to achieve a salon-quality blowout at home—one that won’t interfere too much with your natural texture. The specific number of sections differs depending on how much hair you have, but if volume is your goal: Taking relatively larger sections of hair will offer more bounce, while smaller, concentrated sections will lay flatter. After you blow-dry each section, you can even pin the hair up in rollers to really encourage the curl, or simply wait for the strands to completely cool before you unwind the round brush. On that note, you’ll also want to properly detangle your hair before blow-drying. Again, your spirals are fragile and breakage-prone, so you don’t want to put any unnecessary tension on the hair while you style—hacking through a knot while blasting it with heat is a recipe for broken strands. If you don’t have a tool with a comb attachment, though, don’t fret: Dickey says using a paddle brush and a blow-dryer with a concentrator nozzle yields the same results. A final note: If you find your sections of hair too dry as you move along, Aaron Grenia hairstylist and co-founder of IGK, mentions that you can always spritz them with product or water to re-moisten. “As the hair is drying, re-spray the sections of hair and blow-dry again,” he says.
