Hairball Alley

We Need to Talk About Audrey

It’s no secret that I’m more than slightly obsessed with the character Audrey Horne, from Twin Peaks. I’ve mentioned her on my blog many times, and half my wardrobe is based on her 1950s style. It’s not just the character to be fair, Sherilyn Fenn, the actress formally known as Audrey and hardly seen since, had the classic 50s sex kitten look down.

There’s no one more important in establishing this fact than the wonderful, god rest her soul, Elizabeth Taylor.

I spend 50% of my life trying to be Audrey yet I don’t have a bob. 1950s bobs and short cuts are quintessential, keep it short, set it tight, pencil in those eyebrows heavy and you have a killer look.

BUT… when you have all those fabulous Rita dos to consider you need to keep it long don’t you? This is why it is of vital importance that everyone perfects their own mock bob.

There’s so many different things you can do with a mock bob, consider the possibilities, not just 50s, this is going to take you from the 1920s Louise Brooks, in any of her hair forms

To Natalie Wood 60s style

And everything in between

First thing to think about is curl, how much curl, how tight the curl and how big the curl. Even a classic Louise Brooks, you should curl your ends to help you with the style.

Next do you want a wave shaping? A fringe? Well you’re going to curl that in too. This is the fun part, just try things out, directions, size of curl, you can get some great effects from just going wild.

Once you’ve brushed out to suit your style you’re going to need a mountain of kirby grips, and possibly a little backcombing, depending on your hair type and the volume you want, and a heap of hairspray.

Every mock bob is going to have the under-section of hair pinned at the nape of the neck and it’s up to you to get creative with what you can do from there, especially at the front.

Nothing without lipstick, as always.

This is my Lizzy Taylor tribute, but I might well be bobbing all week. Hopefully I’ll have a glamorous assistant on Friday in the shape of the beautiful model and talented artist Eleni Kalorkoti, who has the privilege of having a bona fide bob, oh the fun we’re going to have! 

Her Eyes Like Light Reflect The Aura of Her Hair

The weather is turning here, it’s wintery cold and it’s not something I dislike, the excuse to wear Fair Isles and cashmere cardis makes the season entirely enjoyable. I had in-mind in the summer that it was ,generally, my 1940s season, and if that’s the case the 50s is a definite for the winter.

All this positive winter talk is slightly marred by the runny nose and cough that I am, and everyone else is trying to shake, I wasn’t helped possibly by the face tattooing and more leg colouring in. Seriously, face tattooing is not comfortable, me and the lovely Miss Cutie Kills (more on her later), got our eyebrows tattooed on a couple of weeks ago, it was an interesting experience, but suffice to say I’m thrilled with the result, no regrets, and no more smudged brow pencil.

Happily timed, the October low-season means I’ve just got a bit quieter work-wise, but I’m taking the chance to get out and about a bit. Doing Judy’s Affordable Vintage Fair was a blast, some absolutely lovely customers and I stayed busy so avoided spending all my money on the lovely 50s frocks I was stood next to all day. The rest of my not-so-spare time was spent making a dress for my supremo tattooer Venus Flytrap, which has started me sewing again for myself like a maniac, which is probably not part of my business plan!

On Saturday, after sewing myself an impromptu frock, I headed out for Miss Cutie Kills leaving do, not only is she the best nail tech on the planet, she’s a super-lovely little lady that will be sorely missed by her fellow Dixiebelles, she’s heading out to Australia, so if you’re in that part of the world I’d highly recommend her for vintage style nails and tattoo/retro inspired nail art.

Avec cashmere cardi and Zara’s beautiful nail work, I took inspiration from the 50s and set my hair for a whole 24 hours, wearing my set during the day and taking out the next morning. Setting for a long time gives it a much stronger set that’s going to hold a pageboy type style like this.

Brush under and into shape, the long set time should give you stability, but you may want to do a little bit of back combing to hold, though I didn’t need it.

Use pins where necessary, but this style is fun 50s, so don’t worry too much about curls separating, it keeps it cute and away from the more structured 40s styles.

Finish the look always with red lips, a smile and perfect half moon shellac nails

Lying There Like You’re Tame

I arrived back on Monday afternoon, slightly spaced out from a weekend of highs and lows at the Vintage 2011 Festival, at the Southbank in London.

My intimidating day 1 first job was to style a TV presenter for the news.. I got through it looking very nervous, but reasonably happy with the style I did in the 5 minutes I had to do it. I went on to style the public for the next 3 days, for free, 3 hour long queuing ensued, but overall I have no regrets and am both proud of myself and glad that I did it, despite points of wanting to throw in the towel/punch someone in the face.

I’m not a event reviewer and I saw very little of the festival itself, as I was too busy, all I can comment on is the hair and what I took from it is that people really want to know how to get a traditionally vintage look, not modern reinterpretations. The amount of people who asked about my hair was incredible, I did wet sets for ease all weekend (I was sleeping on a friends couch, and trying to keep disruption to a minimum), and I told countless people about how to do a wet set.

One thing that bothers me about modern vintage styling is the fear of the frizz, my hair was far from sleek in the hot humid Festival Hall, and I’m going to argue the point that frizz is sometimes a good thing!

As I used my Babyliss stylers and Wave Envy (glorified crimpers if you ask me, my 1 unhappy customer got treated to these, it was an experiment that I won’t revisit) over the weekend, I thought about how much more “vintage” it looked to have a bit of fluff.

I set my hair last night with rags for a change, and today was close, muggy, rainy, hot, you name a weather that scares your hair, that’s what we have today; so perfect frizz weather.

First off here’s the ragging.

Once you’ve cut out some fabric strips this is so simple and you can play around with the size of sections and directionality, just as you do with pincurls and rollers.

As usual I had almost dry hair, wetted down just slightly with setting lotion and water mix.

I did a heavy side part and rolled my hair up in the rags all over, just have fun with it, most people seem to roll straight down the head, I used the approach I take with rollers and pincurls and went in various directions.

Unrolling is easy.

Rag curls tend to be a bit looser than pincurls and rollers.

As usual I brushed and brushed and brushed out the curl, don’t be afraid to really brush it out, and always use a Denman styling brush.

One side brushed out, undulatey.

I went with what the hair wanted to do and shaped in my fringe, as I felt looked good, and which went with the undulations made from the curling.

Pinning back one side seemed like a good idea.

And that’s the sleek part done…

….I just needed to go out for the day and work on wrecking my hairstyle.

My inspiration here is going to have to be the infamous Betty Page, who’s hair is often frizz-tastic, but gorgeous.

After a full days work and walking about in the hot rain for a couple of hours I brushed my hair through, quite fluffy, a bit frizzy, but not in my opinion bad hair. I love brushing out the products girls with curls put in their hair that make it look crispy or wet and giving them a good frizz and fluff, I have no idea why there has become this fashion dislike of brushed out curls.

Before I went out I brushed it furiously to a real frizz. Inspired by Betty I rolled in a fringe. Don’t be afraid to backcomb for this, it’s the only thing really holding it up, the pins are really there to keep it in place, it should stand without them if you have the backcombing stability correct.

Smooth the top layer of hair with a soft brush.

You should roll in and pin in the middle of the roll, before spreading around the sides.

The backcombing should hold the roll together as you spread it around the side of your head.

A quick RIP to Betty, and you’re ready for your Jungle moment

The artificial gloss of the Vintage Festival is over for me now and it’s back to the reality of being amongst the over-straightened. For those about to frizz, I salute you.

Getting Warmer

After my little obsession with Lana Turner it feels only fitting to be wearing something well fitting. What I mean is that I’ve gone in to a 1950s frenzy, not only am I obsessing over mid century furniture, I’m wearing my warmest sweaters and tartan skirts, and it is supposed to be summer.

In thinking about 50s hair, you really want it to match your sweater, in that you want it to be casual, clean and subtly sexy . I looked to Gil Elvgrin for inspiration on how to make a sweater look sexy, and there’s a man who likes a ponytail!

I know many a man, and woman, who are particularly impressed by this Vanity Fair shot of Isla Fisher, which incorporates the sweater/ponytail combo perfectly, and demonstrates the impact of both if done right.

So, with my inspiration I was ponytailing away last week and did a quick set of photos before I went to work at the Green Door Club on Saturday night (hence the poor lighting I’m afraid), which was a good one might I add, and I felt especially 50s and especially warm given my cashmere choice.

I started with dry hair, with a little touch of setting lotion in for hold, and scraped in a slick ponytail, using hairspray, a smoothing brush and a comb to do the final smoothing.

I left out a rectangle for the front, and secured  the ponytail itself using a regular hair elastic.

I put in medium heated rollers through the front and through the back, I kept them all rolling in the same direction for smoothess of shaping, if you want wilder curls just put the rollers in all different directions.

The back comes out all ringletty as usual, so brush through with a styling brush to get a nice whole together shaped curl.

Like this!

I secured the bottom with a grip so that it would last the whole night in the Scottish weather.

I also wrapped a small section of hair from the ponytail around the base to cover the elastic.

Curly front.

Combed it through, with a smidge of pomade.

And backcombed the base for a little bit of 50s lift, ala Beverly Owens:

Tip:Use sectioning clips to help you in achieving nice shapings.

I then just pincurled the ends into a sculptural curl and pinned front and back with grips.

And that’s your front done.

And this is me with my new (well old) stereogram and 50s sweater girl do!

I warn you, this 50s phase could go on for a while, I am living and breathing 50s design at the moment and wearing anything but wool just seems wrong right now, this is Stylish with a capital S.

Getting Headache From a Ponytail

Ponytails: quick, simple, practical?

WRONG. Well wrong if your are doing them the ‘How to Handle Long Hair’ way.

Starting off with the basic set as per my previous post, I heavily brushed out the curls, using sectioning clips to help put the sides up I brushed and ‘undulated’ (this is making the wave shapings) the hair. It took a lot of combing through to undulate, and it’s exceptionally tricky to do this yourself.

Here’s the pincurls out:

This frizziness is the initial brush through, so if you’ve got this, you’re doing it right:

You then need to work with pomade to smooth, defrizz and undulate.

I have to say I think a lesser set could have accomplished the same result (or better), maybe just doing a few larger pincurls through the sides to get a shaping, and more at the back to really give good tail, but it was fun to work the hair so I’m not going to complain. The thing I really like about this is the method itself, rather than the modern ponytail which is all the hair taken back at once, you take up the back section, from behind the ears first, then work up the sides and use the ends to cover the base.

The base is something that I’m not wildly keen on in the book, the authors so called $50 trick is not my favoured method. They advocate using a Grip Tooth Comb throughout the book, I have used this and sometimes it’s ok, but mostly I’d rather use kirby grips/bobby pins, and for the ponytail I used a basic elastic band, I went on to use a red ribbon on it, but the ends of the sides did cover the elastic band anyway.

If you want the Louis Vuitton style ones as at the top, I’d recommend combing all your hair straight back as is the finished style with a low, quite large, pincurl set through the lengths, give it a good brush out once set, using plenty pomade or defrizzing product, and brush up all in one go and secure with a band, take a section of hair from the bottom of the ponytail and wrap it around the base to cover the band. You could use tongs for this, but the pincurl set will last longer and gives a nicer finished look, just remember not to be afraid to really brush out.