Curlformers: Ringlets In Disguise Or Super Simple Wave Makers?

Every time we have a post about buying cosmetics abroad, I'm reminded of my sister and her amazing knack for picking up unexpectedly great beauty bits while she's away on holidays. She once brought home a random gold glitter polish from Tenerife that turned out to be incredible so, er, I promptly appropriated it. Now every time it gets an outing on my blog, I get eleventy billion queries (or thereabouts) about what it is and where it can be bought.

In use - erm ...

One of her holiday buys was what appeared to be a set of plastic woven neon ringlets. I happened to call in to her when she was sporting a headful of these yokes while she was getting ready to go out and I nearly cried laughing: she looked like a modern day-glo Medusa.

I didn't think much more about her mad looking curl creators until, much to my surprise, I spotted them last week on a mooch around my local salon supplies store (try Sallys or similar).

I'd assumed they were some Canaries-specific bit of hair madness, but there you go.

Turns out they're called Curlformers and the instructions make them seem (fairly) easy to use. The plastic woven "ringlets", which can be purchased separately in various sizes to suit different hair lengths and achieve different effects, are threaded onto an implement very like an oversized crochet hook. That's then used to pull pieces of towel dried hair through the "ringlet", and the process repeated until that very desirable Medusa-alike look above is achieved.

Judging by the rave reviews on Amazon and from The Sister, they're certainly capable of curling hair (The Sister rakes her fingers through her hair when she's done and ends up with loose but defined curls.) I'm very, very tempted to buy a set, and trying not to let the fact that they seem to be favoured by cheerleaders and dance troupes in the States put me off.

Have you heard of or tried Curlformers?