She Air-Dried Her Hair This Morning

And you can do it too. Here’s how the right cut and our postshower tips can give you volume and healthy, bouncy texture. No hot tools here.

- Simone Kitchens

I found myself on a deep Instagram dive a couple of months ago, not stalking people from my past but rather the hair texture of my future. Each haircut by hairstylist Masami Hosono (@masamihosono) of the Vacancy Project salon in New York’s East Village had the most incredible texture—bendy, wavy, curly, and with body for days—but not in that hot-tool kind of way. As someone who has eased into air-drying my naturally curly hair, I needed to know more. So for this shoot, I persuaded our model Marquita Pring (that’s her above with the great curls) to meet me beforehand at Hosono’s salon for some Air-Dry 101.

“Everything used to be so styled,” says Hosono. “People only had celebrities to reference; now I can look at your Instagram and take that to my stylist. Everyone’s much more natural— their makeup, style, same goes for their hair.” And to those of you who say your hair will dry flat or poofy, we hear you. That’s where a solid haircut, hardworking products, and clever styling work-arounds come in. Here, five tricks for the air-dried texture of your dreams: