You don’t need to spend hours at the beach to recreate beachy waves. This on-trend style is the ultimate summertime look and can be achieved with nearly any length hair. For the perfect tousled beach waves, follow just a few simple tips.

Prep the Strands with Mousse

A lightweight mousse can help you create sexy beach waves without help from the ocean. To get this look, your hair shouldn’t be too clean. If possible, style second-day hair or build your hair up with a not-too-sticky mousse and distribute evenly through the hair.

Texturize and Tousle

This next step is one of the most important. To create carefree beach waves, you need a texture spray, preferably a sea-salt spray for an authentic look. Spritz the product through your damp hair sparingly and gently tousle with your fingers. Don’t scrunch! Work in small sections to create extra volume.

Add a Little Bit of Bounce

The key to achieving beach waves is to not have it appear uniform. Instead, you want to look like you’ve spent the day lounging in the sand. For natural looking bouncy beach waves, wrap random sections of hair around a curling iron and hold for three to five seconds.

Create Extra Volume at the Top

You don’t want your beach waves going limp halfway through the day. To keep your tresses looking volumized, spray the roots with a volumizing spray. You can also choose to gently backcomb the underlying sections to achieve even more volume.

Keep the Ends Straight

Creating beach waves can be tricky, especially if you use a curling iron. You don’t want the ends of the hair to be curled. For a modern take on beachy waves, you want to leave the ends straight. If you find that your ends appear too curly, pull each section downwards to help straighten them.

Sleep with Damp Hair Overnight

Want the look of beach waves but don’t have time to style it? Section your freshly washed hair into four sections, twist each section and create a tight space bun. Sleep in the buns overnight and release them in the morning. The result will be lovely beach waves with minimal effort.

Cosmetology Students Learn to Style Beach Waves

Long Island Beauty School is offering Pretty In a Minute Styling Class with Damon Ayala. Students will have the opportunity to follow Guest Educator Damon Ayala as he teaches trending styling techniques.