Style

Remember styling your hair with Spoolies curlers

Jan 01, 2019

Spoolies were all the rage in the 1950s. Source: YouTube - Fleek Trends

Remember when Spoolies hair curlers were all the rage?

Created in the 1950s, the retro hair curler allowed women to create perfect curls while they slept. These fun-shaped rollers were also super easy to use, heat free and only set you back 59 cents for a pack of 28. From tight curls to soft waves and spirals to pin curls, the styling options were truly endless!

To create a curl, all you had to do was wrap your hair around the roller, snap it in place and leave overnight for the best results it was that simple. But by the late ’90s, these vintage rollers had slipped off the radar, paving the way for a world of high-tech heat styling tools.

However over the past few years Spoolies have made the ultimate comeback thanks to American entrepreneur Jeanne James, who bought the trademark back in 2003 with the intention of reviving the brand. While the original Spoolies were made of rubber, the new curlers are made out of silicone, which is heat-resistant, meaning wearers can now set a style with heat should they wish. And although they were not as comfortable to use back then, people still loved them.

The evolution of curls first began in the ’50s with Marilyn Monroe sporting her famously curly do and from there the style took off with women and girls across the world grabbing the rollers out at home or spending hours in a hairdresser’s chair with a hot hair machine over their head. Shaggy layered cuts combined with tight curled perms gave everyone the awesome look of the era – fluffy!

From the goddess of pop Cher who truly rocked the curly style, to Meg Ryan in the classic When Harry Met Sally and singing sensation Barbra Streisand, tightly wound curls were absolutely everywhere back in the day. Sure, you sat for hours and hours getting your hair pulled and tugged and then coated in that strong-smelling, eye-watering perming solution, but it was totally worth it. Well, everyone thought so at the time!

But when straighteners came into play in the early 2000s, perms became a thing of the past and hairdressers stopped offering the previously favoured service.