Greetings from the Arcata, CA airport! :) I don’t know why I’m so smiley and chipper, given that my flight was cancelled. I was supposed to get into Saskatoon (that’s Canada, y’all) at 3-something this afternoon and now it’ll be 10-something tonight. Ah well. That’s air travel for ya. I guess the upside is that now I have a few hours to kill and write this blog post about how I manage to deal with getting up super early for flights AND still keep my curls looking good. :)

My flight was supposed to leave at 6:00am, which meant I had to get up at 4. There’s no way I’m going to shower and style my hair at that time of day just to sit on a bunch of planes all day. No way. But I also didn’t want to just wear my hair up in a bun either. What’s a sleep-loving, curl-obsessed Jess to do? Start the night before, that’s what! :)

A few years ago I was doing an event at Honey Fig in Toronto (that’s also Canada, y’all) and Marlene gave me this awesome satin sleep accessory. I wish I could tell you what it’s called but there is no tag sewn into it. You can see in the picture below that this one has a bonnet part that goes on your head, and ties that allow you to tie it and secure it behind your neck. I think any satin cap that has decent elastic will suffice for this particular purpose.

So last night about an hour before I was ready for bed, I did my regular hair routine. Shower, condition, style and diffuse. After diffusing I let my hair air dry until it got to that “crunchy” stage, as you can see in the picture below.

Normally at that stage, I’d scrunch out the crunch and have my soft, bouncy curls and be on with my day. Not this time! I left my hair in that crunchy stage, because I know that crunch would help preserve my curls overnight as I slept.

I placed the satin sleep cap on a chair, bent over from the waist and gathered my hair with my left hand in a pony tail (without actually securing it into a pony tail) while guiding it down into the satin bonnet with my right hand.

I live alone, or I’d have had someone take a picture of this process, as I realize it might be hard to visualize. Oh that my dog had opposable thumbs and could have taken a picture for me! We’re working on it. :-)

I tucked all the hair into the bonnet part, stood up and tied the longer parts behind my neck. I could tell that it was on really well and wouldn’t come off when I slept. I then cringed as I set my alarm for 4:00, and went to bed.

As you can see from the final picture below, when I took the cap off in the morning, my hair had survived beautifully!I didn’t have any crunch to scrunch out, so I just fluffed it, grabbed my stuff and headed out to the airport.

Again, I wish I had a brand name I could cite for this particular accessory. I looked on the Honey Fig site and couldn’t find it. I think the key here is that you use a satin bonnet that has elastic to keep from coming off during the night. In that regard, anything that fits that description should work. The other key is to make sure you’re starting from that “crunchy” place with your hair, as that really does help preserve the curl pattern and reduce frizz overnight.

It won't ensure that all your fights are on time, but you can only control what you can control in this world, right? :-) Eventually I'll get to Canada today, I'm sure of it. :-)