The beach has a way of turning normal, nice-girl hair into a tousled mass of unruly, wild curls. It’s beach hair, and it lends an air of devil-may-care to your summer style.

And you don’t have to spend a day at the beach to get it. Haircare products such as Bumble and bumble’s Surf Spray, Frederic Fekkai’s Beach Waves, and Freeman’s Surf’s Up Curl Enhancing Spray, promise they can do it for you.

All summer I’ve been trying to achieve beach hair. I’ve hit the salon, tried multiple approaches at home, and spent a day (okay, several weekends) at the beach. In the end, the results varied widely from day to day — and curiously, beach to beach.

For advice on creating this look at home, I headed to Bumble and bumble in the Meatpacking District, where stylist Roy Romo gave me a few pointers. We started with a Bumble shampoo and conditioner, Curl Conscious Creme, which enhances the hair’s natural shape. Then, while my hair was still damp, Mr. Romo applied a layer of Grooming Creme before getting to the signature beach hair product: Surf Spray. Launched in 2000, Surf Spray was among the first products to emphasize the allure of beach hair. The product’s salt derivatives are intended to mimic the effects of saltwater.

The next step was for Mr. Romo to wrap individual locks hair around his fingers to give them even more curl. “You should avoid brushes for a sexy, tousled look,” he told me.

After more rounds of Surf Spray, followed by the Curl Conscious styling cream and hair spray, I sat under a heat lamp. After about 45 minutes in the salon, I had loose, wavy, and, yes, beachy hair that was photo ready. That said, my hair was so stiff with products that I could barely get my hand through it, which contradicted Mr. Romo’s reasoning on why beach hair had become a popular concept: “Guys like hair they can get their hands through!”

Maybe the at-home version would be softer? Yes, it was. But my early attempts were so bad that no one would want to touch my unkempt tresses. Maybe I too literally headed Mr. Romo’s advice: “At home, this should take only 10 minutes,” he had said.

For a few days, I followed his streamlined set of instructions. The key was twirling only the strands of hair framing the face — and ignoring the hair dryer entirely. I dutifully used the suite of products — Grooming Creme, Surf Spray, Curl Creme. It was okay, but did not resemble Mr. Romo’s results.

Then I got lazy. I started skipping straight to the Surf Spray, which seemed to be the key product. The result was more like desert hair — dried out and not necessarily frizzy, but sort of light and “dusty.” (In fairness, Mr. Romo had warned me about this.) I gave the Fekkai and Freeman sprays a test run, too. But my hair continued to look as if I spent a day in an electromagnetic field.

My do-it-yourself beach hair looked best on a day that I used only a comb and the Curl Creme, then stepped out into brutally hot weather.

Had I been overdoing it? Stylist Patrick Melville, owner of the Patrick Melville Salon in the Sports Club/LA Rockefeller Center, explained what was happening. “Beach hair is great, but it’s drying,” he said. “Salt will dry it out.”

In addition, with fewer products in my hair, the sun and air had been able to dry it more or less naturally. Mr. Melville, like Mr. Romo, advised staying with the natural form of drying. “The heat from the sun is a slower form of drying,” he said. “Direct heat can disturb the curl. Anytime you use forced air, it breaks the curl.”

And how did it look compared to the real thing? The best authentic beach hair day I had was at Fire Island. After two swims and one nap on a day that alternated between bright sun, light fog, and a slight overcast sky, my hair was wavy, loose, and perfectly beachy. It hadn’t looked that good since Mr. Romo worked his magic. There was one drawback: To the touch, it was sticky and slimy. Again, I could barely get my hand through it and when I did, my hand felt like it was covered in seaweed.

Oddly, after spending roughly the same amount of time in the sun and water in Montauk, my hair didn’t have the same looseness or gentle curls. My theory goes back to Mr. Melville’s comments about heat. The mix of sun and clouds in Fire Island allowed for a slower dry than the direct sun in Montauk.

Through all of my beach hair experiments, the best discovery I made was that Freeman’s Papaya Pomade is a miracle cure. After a morning spent at Fire Island, I returned to my city apartment, and took a shower and a nap. I woke up with a frightening case of bed head. By working gooey pomade into my slightly damp hair, I was able to regain control and head out on the town. Technically, it was a combination of postbeach and bed hair, but hey, at least it was presentable.