Self-care is important and I always have a good hair day after a hair mask. I usually just experiment with ingredients I have on hand, like an egg-yogurt mask. A thermal cap is a very handy thing because it delivers heat, it opens the cuticles of your hair and makes your hair absorb the hair mask better. So it’s a very handy thing to have and it’s not so expensive so you can buy it if you want to. But they are all microwavable and I don’t have a microwave. But I do have an oven and I wanted something that I could take out and heat up and place back in the cap. So I needed to figure out how to make one for myself with an ‘opening’. I decided to make one with a zipper. But I’m hopeless with stalling them so if you are looking for a zipper installment tutorial you should definitely check it on YouTube. I’ll show you what I did but really you should see it done by a professional.
My favorite stage gathere your supplies and these are:
- Two types of fabric: cute patterned fabric for the top of your cap and a very soft and heat holding fabric like terry cloth or fleece
- A sewing machine and typical sewing supplies like scissors, thread in the same color of your top fabric because it will be visible on the outside, I took white. You’ll also need some sort of measuring tape to measure your head and textile marker that you can wash off or a chalk pen. Oh and don’t forget the sewing pins they will save your life at some point.
- You’ll need rice, cherry pits, or flax seeds
- You’ll also need a zipper if you don’t have a microwave like me and want to heat up whatever you want to use as filling of your heat cap
- And finally you’ll need an elastic band, first I wanted to use a broad one but later decided to go with a classic thin one you’ll see what I mean later in this post
The first thing that you need to do is measure your head from somewhere in the middle of your forehead to the back of your head somewhere where your hairline ends. So take your measuring tape and measure your head from your forehead to the end of your hairline mine was 40 cm. So then take that and divide by 2: mine is 20 cm. But this measurement will give a very fitting cap and we want it loose so take that and add 5 cm: so mine was 25 cm. This is your final measurement. Initially, I only added 2 cm and it was not enough so please add 5 cm to be sure yours will not be too tight.
So now take a marker and connect your two sides but not straight but a curved line. So this will be a more difficult method but this way you can control how big your cap will be.
The easier method is this one: find a big enough circular object and trace it. You can take a salad bowl or another big circle shaped kitchenware or not a kitchen whare and trace the circle it has to be bigger than your head. But before you cut, if you want to install a zipper you need to do this step first scroll down to see how I did it.
Do the same for the fabric that would be on the inside of the heat cap.
For installing a zipper I would advise you to take a look at this tutorial:
Install the zipper first on your cover fabric and then cut out the circle this will make the sewing two half together much easier.
Open it and sew one side until you come to the zipper head. the close it and stitch it till the end. Repeat on the other side.
So once you have installed the zipper you can sew the two halves of your fabric together. Do leave the zipper half open so you can turn your cap the right side out when it’s all sewn. Before you start sewing you have to place your top fabric and your lining fabric right sides in and ‘wrong’ out.
Once you have pinned your two fabrics you can start sewing them. I took one cm from the edge as my seam allowance.
Don’t connect your seam leave a fingers worth of an opening on both sides you can install your elastic afterward. Backstitch it at the beginning and the end for reinforcement.
Ones all of this is done you can turn your cap right side out from the opening of your zipper. If you didn’t install a zipper you can still turn in right side out because of the opening you left for the elastic band.
So here you can see the opening I left for the elastic off course if you didn’t want to install a zipper your opening should be bigger than mine to make your turning it out easier. And also if you didn’t need the zipper now is the time to fill your cap with the filling of your chose before you stitch everything shut. Once that is done stitch another seam all around, one centimeter from the edge. This seam should be closed, this is where the elastic band is going to be. If you already filled your cap do this very carefully.
To easily install the elastic take a safety pin and put it through the elastic. Then put the safety pin through the opening that you left for it.
If you like me chose a very simple elastic tie it in a knot and that’s it if you did chose the broad elastic you need to stitch the ends to each other. You can do it by hand or on your sewing machine.
Once you’ve done this you amazing heat cap is done! Enjoy it! It will make your hair mask day feel like a spa treatment. It will also promote healthy blood flow to your scalp which will make your hair strand even healthier.
Oh, and by the way, this thermal cap for your hair care can also double as a heat cushion for relieving the pesky menstrual cramps. It’s perfectly circular so it can cover your belly.
Enjoy this DIY and let me know how it went in the comments!
Elina