Lolita Hairstyles: Ode to the Spiral Curl

One of my favorite Lolita hairstyles is the spiral curl, or ringlet. It's used to be one of Lolita's must have looks, but now it's nearly never seen. Which is understandable, it is very hard to pull off without looking like a Little Bo Peep cartoon and it's even harder to maintain if you do pull it off. One little slip-up and you can end up pulling your perfect curls apart never to be able to get them back together without busting out the curling iron yet again.

I can't really decide what I love most about the look, perhaps because it is a perfect example of the porcelain doll aspect of the Lolita aesthetic, or the wave of nostalgia I have whenever I see them, reminding me of a time when Lolita was still new to me and I would have given anything to get my hair to behave in such a manner.

The most classic spiral curl for Lolitas is the tight, highly styled spiral curl. These are typically perfect looking. Shiny strips of perfectly flattened hair curled into an impeccable spiral and held that way with lots and lots of hair spray. Or, probably more often than not, a very well cared for wig. This is the most "doll like" of the spiral curl, for it's perfect and near artificial look. Often seen down, but also in a pair of pigtails, this style is more suited for Classic Lolita, Gothic Lolita, or any kind of old school style.

Another variation on these curls is the "form all the curls into big curls". In which, you guessed it, you carefully form all the curls into a couple big curls. You most often see this with 2 big curls, either in ponytails or worn down with one across each shoulder, but you can have more if you feel like it. This kind of spiral curl can easily go with any of the Lolita sub-styles and makes a good, toned down alternative, for the big huge pigtails that are so prevalent in Sweet Lolita. It's much lighter on maintenance too. So long as your hair can hold a curl you need not worry too much about this getting stuck on long fingernails, buttons, headbands, or anything else that might get too close to your head as you can easily reform the curl so long as it still has some spring back in it.

One other variation is to soften up the curls a bit by going easy on the hair spray and fluffing them with your fingers. It creates a much softer and fluffier curl that is also relatively light on maintenance, since you can easily hide any accidental unravelings in the volume of the hair. This is another variation that can easily go with any of the sub-styles. As seen in the pictures below, it's perfect for hair that's too short for the other versions of the spiral curl.

How do you get these perfect curls you ask? There are a number of ways, the easiest is definitely to get a wig or a pair of clip-in extensions. You don't have to spend a couple hours carefully balancing a hot curling iron over your head to get those hard-to-reach spots, all you have to do is tuck your real hair up and pop on a wig. These curls are also pretty much never going to go flat, they'll always remain springy and perky.

Bodyline sells a rather nice looking spiral curl wig in a variety of colors. I'm seriously considering getting the reddish brown one!

You can also style your own hair by using a very thin curling iron and a whole lot of hairspray. I can't tell you the best thing to do for your type of hair, but typically what you want to do is start off with a very thin curling iron, work with small sections of hair, hold the iron vertically and gently shake the curls off of it once they are set, then spray it with hair spray. There are tons of tutorials and videos about this online for lots of different kinds of hair, so look around and experiment to find the best one for you and your hair!

I know these curls are either a love-it-or-hate-it sort of thing, but I can't help loving them, I have to admit I even like the ultra-shiny fake looking ones. But what do you think? Is it a trend you wish would come back? Or do you cringe every time you see them?