Sleep Rocks

Dear Amalah:

I am not a morning person. The noise of my alarm clock in the morning makes me want to scream and kick, and possibly cry depending on my mood.

Therefore, I take my showers at night, usually not too long before bed. Which enables me to sleep in for as long as I possibly can in the mornings and still have enough time to primp, dress, check out Matt Lauer’s outfit, and run out the door to make my train to work in the morning.

Since my routine of choice leaves me with limited time before I have to rush out the door, I usually just leave the waves in my hair (from sleeping on it wet in a bun all night) and pull it back in a low pony tail. I am not much of a product person, so the wave doesn’t keep throughout the day and my hair just winds up straight and flat. Do you have any suggestions on what product(s) would keep the wave/curl for longer than a few hours, and that is quick, maybe even idiot proof so that I don’t have to stare at the bottle for 10 minutes trying to figure out how to maximize my results?

Thank you in advance,
J

Hi! Guess who is writing this column verrrry early in the morning? Before she’s even had her coffee, even!
I am not usually up verrrry early in the morning, but today I had to get up to let an electrician in because last week the guys who installed our new fancy high-speed Internet access decided to mess with our wiring and knocked out power to our kitchen, and I am so not even kidding about that, despite it still not making a lick of sense to me.

Also not kidding: the electrician is not even HERE YET. I COULD STILL BE IN BED. HATE! SEETHE! CAPS LOCK!
Anyway, I hope you get the sense that I totally sympathize with you on the morning thing. (Seriously, somewhere in all that whining was some sympathy. I think.)

(I am brewing coffee in the dining room. Things should start making a little more sense in a few minutes.)

So. You need to be switching to the Catwalk Curls Rock line of products soonly. I assume you use both a and a at night, so just swap to the Curls Rock versions and half your battle is done, right there. Then, if you can stand adding about five seconds to your morning routine, get one of the styling products. I’ve used the Curls Booster and love it, but I’ve also heard raves about the Curls Amplifier and the hair spray. (Although I think the Amplifier requires a blow-dry, so maybe that one is not for you.)

The Booster is super idiot-proof though, since it’s just a spray. Seriously, just aim the bottle at your head and mist all over. Scrunch. Done. Another plus is that the Booster can be used on wet OR dry hair, and I’m guessing your hair is probably somewhere in between by morning. (You can also toss it in your purse and re-spray, re-scrunch and re-ponytail later.)

If you try these and find that your hair is still falling kind of flat, add the hair spray for added hold. (The hair spray, for some reason, doesn’t seem to be available online many places, although I always see it at the salon and TIGI’s web site still lists it. So it must still exist, right? Or is it simply a product of my exhausted, non-caffeinated imagination?) If you can’t track it down, try a volumizing hair spray in the meantime and see if that gives you a boost. I use Pantene. Yeah. Quiet, you. Or I shall hit you with this alarm clock.