Rod Setting Shorter Natural Hair

I recently cut my hair into a Rihanna cut, and THEN decided to go natural. ( I couldn’t deal with the concept of relaxing my hair more often to maintain the short look. I’d finally had enough.) I was really worried about transitioning with the short hair on the back and sides of my head, but I was able to rod set my hair. Note: It required a lot of patience!

It is safe to say that my husband doesn’t particularly like my hair “curly”. One time, he even made the mistake of calling my hair nappy. (Boy, did he regret it.) Fortunately, the other night we had a breakthrough. During our usual evening banter, he said, “I love you”. In search of reassurance, I asked, “Do you even love my hair?” He answered, “Of course. I love all of you. It is a part of you so I love it too”. (Good answer.) So although he may not like my hair, he loves my hair since he loves me. The moral of the story is that your partner will (or at least should) still love you when you make superficial changes.

With that said, I present my first hair tutorial. Now that I have two totally different hair textures, I decided to rod set my hair to blend the two textures. I was worried about the short hair on the back and sides, but it came out great!

Hair Products
Avalon Organics Hair Strengthening Peppermint Shampoo (Sulfate free)
Organic Root Stimulator Replenishing Conditioner
African Royale Hot Six Oil
Sedal Hair Cream Lissage (It has alcohol in it, so it should be replaced. It helps hair stick to the roller really well though.)
Carol’s Daughter Some of Marguerite’s Magic
Carol’s Daughter Tui Jojoba and Shea Butter Hair Sheen
Aphogee Pro-Vitamin Leave-in Conditioner (mixed with water in my spritz bottle)
Let’s Jam

Hair Tools
Hair Dryer
Blow Dryer (The top of my hair was taking too long to dry so I pulled out the blow dryer)
8 packs of curl rods (really small since my hair is cut so short)
Hair clips
Shower comb
Bobby pins

Step-by-step Tutorial

• Wash and condition hair.(I deep conditioned.)
• Add hot six oil to damp hair. (This helps me retain a lot of moisture.)
• Divide your hair into sections to begin putting in rods. (Since the backs and sides were the shortest and most annoying, I did them first).
• Part a small section for each roller. Make sure you don’t try to put too much hair in the roller. Also make sure you keep your hair damp by spraying it with water/conditioner mix. (It is the key to any good roller set.) Use your setting lotion of choice on that section of hair and roll it keeping your hair taut. Use hair clips to keep other strands of hair out of the way.
• Continue throughout your hair. Exercise patience (especially on short hair). It took about two hours to complete roller set.
• Sit under dryer until hair is dry.

• Separate curls. I separated each curl into at least 3 curls. To do this, I took my Marguerite’s Magic (or moisturizer of choice) and placed a very small amount on my finger tips. I pulled a piece of the curl and twirled it around my finger. Thus separating the curl into at least three defined curls. I continued to do this on my entire head.
• Since the sides of my hair are so short and the top is so long, I clipped the sides down using Marguerite’s Magic and Let’s jam.
• Any hair that was too short for rollers (the nape of my neck), I put some Marguerite’s Magic). I used the sheen spray to add some overall sheen.