I've been bleaching my hair since I was in seventh grade. Yes, you read that correctly, seventh grade. That's nearly 10 years of maintaining a very light shade of blonde that too-often brings about dryness and brittle strands.

I was taught early on how to care for and preserve my long, thick hair, and if I'm being honest, I pride myself on how healthy it is, despite the insane amount of bleach used to achieve my beloved color.

Nothing comes without a price.

However, and in following one of the cardinal rules of bleached-hair care, I tend to try and stay away from heat products of any kind and rarely use straighteners or curling irons.

While my naturally straight hair makes daily maintenance easy, I've always envied the beautiful curls and beach waves that I see so many girls rocking.

For years, I've tried every heatless method out there from french braids to curlers and rolled-up ponytails.

All without success. Or so I'd thought.

Enter my recent downloading of TikTok (which I'm not ashamed to say greatly helped me get through those early days of quarantine).

When I saw the first of what would be many "sock curl" TikToks appear on my For You page, to say I was skeptical would be an understatement.

How could a few hair-wrapped socks possibly create such beautiful curls?

Was there really no heat involved? Not even to touch it up? And so, with nothing to lose, I decided to give the viral method a shot.

After washing and partially drying my hair, I sat myself down in front of my mirror, armed with a vague TikTok tutorial, two pairs of knee-high socks, and a lot of rubber bands. 30 minutes later, I looked akin to a frazzled Shirley Temple after an unfortunate run-in with some laundry, much to the amusement of my family members.

Rebecca Bondy

The next morning, I made sure my hair was fully dry before carefully unwinding the socks from my hair.

I let them sit for a moment, allowing the surprisingly tight curls to fall a bit before combing them out.

What I saw when I finally looked in the mirror truly blew me away. They were perfect. Absolutely perfect.

The best part about these curls was how long they lasted. On the rare occasion that I've used a curling iron, my hair would begin to fall and straighten within a few hours. Not this time.

These curls took days to fall, softening into beachy waves nearly four days with a little help from some dry shampoo.

Day Two Beachy WavesRebecca Bondy

I'm not exaggerating when I say that I now use this method weekly to achieve just the right amount of curl and volume.

It gives me another easy to-do option that's quick and turns out beautifully every time.

So if you're looking for an easy, heatless way to achieve bouncy curls that loosen to beachy waves, I'd absolutely recommend giving this method a try. TikTok really came through on this one, and now I'm more excited than ever to see what else this platform has to offer.