If New York City last weekend was any indication, 48 degrees is the new 70. Some people said it with t-shirts. I said it by air-drying my hair en plein air. It was my new mid-length ‘do's first opportunity to skip the blow-dry and find out how it really behaved. But, short of going completely clean, I wanted to ensure two things—first that my thin, straight-yet-wavy hair would have body, movement, and texture that wasn’t fluffy; and second, that I wasn’t adorned with a halo of gravity-defying baby hairs and frizz.

To my clean, damp hair, I distributed a base of the utterly weightless Living Proof Frizz Nourishing Styling Cream. The thin, silky serum basically takes an eraser to your aura of frizzies and really doesn’t do much else, which is a good thing. Then, I added a dime size of Bumble and bumble Grooming Creme, which is designed to create “polished, elegant, and smooth” hair, but I’ve product-hacked it to create the opposite. I rub it through my mid lengths and ends for a little oil-free weight, and to give my hair some grip and second-day grit. Then I do some light scrunching and back-twisting to my hair (if and when I remember to) throughout the drying process. The end result? Worn-in waves and not a stray in sight.

—Mackenzie Wagoner

Photos by Elizabeth Brockway.