Crimping Your Style

Put away your curling iron. Stash the hot rollers. Today’s latest look is crimped hair, those zigzagged, crinkly tresses that add fullness and mystery to the plainest of Jane locks.

In the old days, girls would braid their hair in teeny-weeny braids overnight to achieve the crimped look. Today, modern technology has invented the crimping iron.

“We have crimpers, wavers and straighteners and one that does all three in one unit,” says Ron Marx, proprietor of Diamond Beauty Supply in Studio City. Models run from $14.95 to $49.95, depending on how highfaluting you want to get.

Crimping irons have actually been around for at least 15 years, but it wasn’t until models and rock stars like Cyndi Lauper started crimping their hair that the fad really caught on.

“They’re hot. Every beauty supply and drug store has them now,” says Marx, who adds that he sells at least one crimping iron a day at his Ventura Boulevard store.

What’s the attraction of crimped hair?

“It’s awesome and wild-looking, it looks real cool, almost Rastafarian, and it makes your hair real thick,” one recent convert says.

But Kathy Lagatta of Sebastian International Hair Care and Cosmetics Co. in Woodland Hills cautions that crimping irons, just like hot rollers and curling irons, can weaken hair and make it break off if used too often.

“Anything that puts intense heat to your hair is obviously not going to be good for it,” she says.