FlexiCurl

Intention

Tightly curling hair is very time consuming and may last only a couple of days for some, while weeks too long for others who opt for more expensive, semipermanent styling options such as perms or curled faux locs (a temporary hair attachment to the base of a persons natural hair) and end up wanting a straight style prior to the end of their hairstyles lifetime. I want to provide people with the flexibility to transition between straight and curled styles in a matter of minutes.

Materials

- hair (not synthetic)

- fine lace wig cap

- muscle wire

- metal clasps 

- metal screw rod with metal nuts

Techniques and Concepts

- oven to set the memory of the muscle wire

- hair heckle to detangle hair samples or mix colors

- crimper to secure metal clasps

Procedure

1. Wind a strand of muscle wire at least double the length of the wig around a threaded metal rod and secure both ends with metal nuts.

2. Place the metal rods with muscle wire in an oven to set the memory of the curl

3. Choose a color of preferably real hair and a lace wig cap as heat may ruin synthetic materials

4. Run handfuls of hair through a hair heckle to detangle, straighten, and sort the hair. Pull and tie it into sections using hair elastics.

5. Pull a very fine section of hair through the lace and a strand of muscle wire in a loop and knot it using a ventilating needle (smaller size needed for smaller lace holes in the wig cap). Micro-twist or micro-dread the real hair around the strand of muscle wire to hide it and use glue and a small metal clasp at the end to secure the twist. Work from the neck up.Micro-twists are shown above.

6. A hairdryer can then be used to return the muscle wire to its memory state (a tight curl). Manually pull hair strands straight as desired.Dreads thinner and lighter than those shown in the picture above would likely work better for this project.

Considerations

Thicker dreads may be too heavy to cause the muscle wire to curl, or the strands may just become wavy. Experimentation is needed to determine a good hair-to-wire ratio for different curling styles as well as for different methods of covering the wire [dreads, braids, twists, etc].

As technologies similar to muscle wire develop further and cheapen, I could see this technology being integrated into faux locs (an already time consuming and expensive process), adding more flexibility to their wearers and hairstylists as the hair could transition between straight and curled in matter of minutes.

Sample Book

Soft Sensors:

Push-Button (w/ heart symbol), Pressure Sensor

Muscle wire scrunch test

Speaker w/ gemma to be integrated with soft sensors