Hairball Alley

Glamour -Getter

My mum’s first choice of name for me was Rita.

Now don’t get me wrong Kay is alright, there’s Kay Francis…

Kay Kendall…

and the lovely Kay Starr…

…but, everytime I see Rita I curse my mother’s decision.

To be fair to my beautiful mother, who is one of my favourite hair models, Rita would sound horrible in most Scottish accents, maybe she did me a favour with the 1 syllable name that even the broadest of Scots can’t add much flavour to.

Moans over, I have this fabulous/hilarious article by Rita called “Every Woman Should Glamour for Attention”.

It’s a typical all over the place article by a filmstar, but there are a few gems in it which I can get behind in a Glamour Army kind of a way…

“Combine the two, mystery and sincerity, and you have a womanly personality which is irresistible. For the mystery will intrigue and the sincerity will gain and hold respect”

“It is your duty to be glamorous. This workaday world needs all the enchantment it can get and it is up to you to provide your quota.”

“Even the stay-at-home who has no chance to sparkle beneath the bright lights can be glamorous, for glamour does not demand public attention but is something you can be famous for even amongst a limited circle of friends or even in one’s own family”

She recommends expressing your “innate womanliness” through, perfect hair, perfect hands and a perfect voice (at least 2 or 3 registers below the everyday), carefully chosen perfume, and steeliness of spirit… make of that what you will.

Anyway, let’s work on the “perfect” Rita hair. 

First off, here’s my easy wave shaping method for wet setting…

Side part and comb hair back, securing with sectioning clip,

With hair securely clipped, comb the remaining part of the section back on itself, into a ‘c’ shape

Give that hair a little nudge up with the comb still in it, and stick a clip in to hold in place before removing the comb (which should have created a little ridge by nudging it up a little),

Now reverse the hair ‘c’ shape again, but pulling the hair away from the face, so the hair is now snaking over your hairline, again give a little nudge up with the comb, you can see the little ridge in the picture, this isn’t a really hard fingerwave ridge, just enough to encourage a shaping, and clip again,

I rolled in 2 pincurls with the ends of the waved section of hair.

2 finger pincurl, for slightly looser curls, 1 finger ones can be pretty crazy stuff to deal with and tame sometimes.

Now I’m thinking a good number of large pincurls throughout the hair.

I sectioned my hair into 3 layers.

Pincurls starting at bottom layer.

I noticed Rita often had a section of hair from the back coming over the front, so I simply combed that forward and pincurled beside the first pincurls I did with the wave.

All of this can be done with heated rollers or tongs, as always though I like the wet set effect for a traditional and long-lasting look.

The next morning comes the brushing out and using my new camera again, which I am trying to get used to using for this, but it’s not easy, I may revert back to the old one for blogging!

 I brushed out well for this style as I wanted looser waves rather than curls.

I do the sides before the front wave section,

I brushed through the wave, and remember I brought a section forward from the back in the set, well I combed that over the front wave, and tucked the ends behind the front section.

Now I just need to work on my voice.

And as Rita says:

“The girl born with pretty features can be lovely but it is the girl who uses her intelligence who becomes glamorous”

F#ck Yeah January

1st of February and I can’t stop thinking about January.

After seeing the SAG Awards red carpet, I am quite literally obsessing over January Jones’ hair, I’m following her hair stylist on Twitter (“…I love to make women feel beautiful” oh aye..?) , and I re-watched the red carpet show in order to catch some snaps from behind.

It was a lovely ‘do, 1950s-60s style, and not all that complicated.

Her hairstylist describes what he did here, although I wonder if he didn’t do a little backcombing at the back for stability and volume, and his “pining it up at the back” isn’t much of a description, and given I could see the sculptural curls on the back of the head, he’d taken time to form these too. For the record you don’t need to spend $105 (75 quid or so) to get this look, basic products will do the same job.

I’ll do a recreation this week with a full description of what I do.

It got me to thinking about her last red carpet do, at the Golden Globes, I loved this hair too, really simple style but so sleekly done, and it didn’t look like it was going anywhere, not even if Ricky Gervais threw a brick at it!

I did this super-duper simple set to get a similar result, only problem is Scotland doesn’t like super sleek hair, and it was windy as hell when I went outside and turned me into a deshevilled Veronica Lake by the time I got to work. So save this one for fine days, and use your freeze hold hairspray and set with plenty of setting lotion.

All this January, and I still wanted more, how excited was I to see her doing yet more 60’s style vamping in the upcoming X Men film as Emma Freeze, totally bodacious Barberella/Bridget Bardot hair. I wasn’t much into the last lot of X Men movies, but this one, with the swinging 60s feel and a seriously hot cast, has me eagerly awaiting it’s release in June, crying out for me to do some more 60’s styling (where’s my photoshoot?!!!).

I can’t talk about January without mentioning Betty. I find I really often take inspiration from Betty, with her Grace Kelly perfect hair.

She always has perfectly done hair, and it’s all set in really simple pincurls, check out this footage for a perfect Betty-style set, I love just seeing her with her pincurls in, even they’re perfectly done!

Some people seem to go a bit crazy with the curling all over the place when they do Betty style, I’ve noticed, so they lose the smoothness. Just keep it simple like she does, slight shaping at the top and large pincurls strategically placed rolling towards the face, keep it sleek and neat and add plenty of hairspray.

I need to dye my hair and trim it soon, the thought of the black hairdye at the moment is killing me when I’m hankering for blonde, but I’ve been there and done that, and it would not be shiney and sleek like Betty’s if I bleached the hell out of it.

Balleto-mane

This week is Ballet Week at Hairball HQ, and I am really excited.

I had a fab weekend, Friday I saw Franz Nicolay, who was amazing, if you like gypsy/cabaret punk, or just an excellent moustache, go check him out on tour, and Sunday I did the hair for Gary Crozier’s Broken Dolls at Miss Dixiebelle a lovely day with lovely people, but Saturday was the big thing.

I’ve been looking forward to Scottish Ballet’s Cinderella, the big trip out with Hairball Mama and Mama Bacon, since November, and Saturday was D-day.

It was amazing, the costumes were incredible and, jesus, ballerinas DO NOT sweat, they’re like a totally different breed, I wish I was that elegant.

The other addition to Ballet Week is the hugely anticipated (by me and Slybacon, at least) release of Black Swan, which I’m working on scheduling for the weekend

Since I’m clumsy and fairly curvy, Ballet Week is all about ballet hair.

Exhibit A: the Golden Globes, lots of ballet hair. 

Natalie Portman didn’t let the side down with this sleek ballet do, and I love the Victor and Rolf dress.

All the ballerinas had French twists on Saturday, and I’m definitely going for this do tomorrow.

So this week I’ve been all about slicking it back, keeping it smooth and frizz free.

On Saturday I did my braided bun, using fake hair (really cheap plastic stuff no less). After blow-drying my hair slicked back, I literally just twisted up and into a bun and pinned in place, and pinned around the 2 pieces of fake hair (which I braided and secured at both ends with elastic bands, easier would be to buy pre-braided pieces, but I don’t have them lying about the house like I do cheap plastic hair extensions). I was fairly drunk when I took this when I got home, but I don’t think you can tell, because my hair still looks relatively sleek, well I hope you can’t anyway.

And yesterday and today I’ve been seriously lazy and rocked a pony tail, though I loved it! I’ve not sported a classic 50s one in a long time. As I described on my ponytail post, I slicked it back into the pony tail and pincurled to dry for a bit to give a little curl at the bottom, and I wrapped a small section of hair around the band to cover and pinned in place.

So the rest of ballet week, hair is going to look like this, Black Swan, Red Shoes, and Cyd Charrise (note to self, buy Ziegfeld Follies.)

Killing a Camera

Braids, plaits, pigtails.. whatever you call them, I’m interested.

After doing my NYE inspiration blog, I’ve been doing some thinking about about these controversial lesions. I say controversial as I myself have a love/hate relationship with them and they’re in and out of fashion like no other.

They can either be 100% naff or perfectly glamorous, and there is a very fine line.

I’m not about posting pictures of bad hair, I’m sure anyone can find a picture of a ridiculous braided do in 2 seconds flat on google, and don’t get me started on white people with all over braided hair/corn rows. I’m interested in what you can achieve with braids that looks classy and timeless.

Joanie’s do is most likely done with a hair piece, matching her colour, though if your hair is long enough similar can be achieved, I’m rocking a similar do today, but more on this later down the line.

I love this style on Penelope Cruz, it’s very Grecian goddess, makes me think of Grace Kelly and Sophia Loren. I’m off to the Ballet on Saturday, and I think I’m going for a similar style, creating a bun by wrapping a number of plaits around the bun base. It’s funny because this is one of the styles I used to do back in the 90s (god that sounds weird), when I was still at school, I used to watch Ally McBeal and loved Portia De Rossi’s hair in it (when she wore it up similar to this and before she got painfully thin), then I dyed my hair green and the look wasn’t quite working anymore. Funny how things come back around.

These were from a tattoo mag and I’m not buying that it’s real hair, though I love the idea of creating something that looks like a little hat out of hair, just by wrapping like a bun. I have tried this style before on my own hair, but it’s just not long enough to quite pull it off yet.

Amanda Seyfried’s hair looks so simple and elegant here, it’s incorporating a vintage look, Veronica Lake-esque wave at the top, and turning into a modern pulled out braid through the length. I’m not a huge fan of pulled out messy braids, though this is nice, but I wouldn’t have gone for the black elastic, probably would have pinned the tail under the braid. I think this would work well with a herringbone/fishtail braid too.

I have no idea who this woman is but her halo braid is lovely, but I’d like to think she’s Poland’s first lady or the President of a South American country, I don’t want to be enlightened. This is similar to the milkmaid style, like Dorothy Lamour’s do in my NYE post, but it’s just one pleat right over rather than two which meet on top of the head, and the side parting is flattering especially with the slight fringe. You need a good bit of consistent length to do it, and this is the level of sleek you need to do this, as mentioned previously frizz is not a braid’s friend!

And finally I have to include Loretta Young, save this one for next years Fair Isle please, but she’s so adorable you have to love it.

Boardwalk Style

As a fellow Scot, I’m very proud of Kelly MacDonald, not just for being a great actress who’s done some quality work, but for her looking so damn amazing in those 1920s hairstyles in Boardwalk Empire.

I also got quite drunk last night, which made me feel kind of patriotic, and considering the boozing they did in prohibition era Atlantic City I’m hoping Kelly felt the same whilst making the series.

But back to the hair. Although you have the short flapper styles that were popular in the 1920s to consider, I think some of the longer styles in updos can be so much more flattering. They’re really soft and feminine, and they are easy to wear under a hat.

There’s a lot of long hair in Boardwalk, which seems to be just set in low pincurls, creating beautiful waves and ringlets, these are all just gently lifted and curled into varying sculptural curls and rolls.

Simple styles like this are everyday wearable, unlike really ridged fingerwaves which can be a little harsh for day time.

I’m also loving the evening looks, which is using the same principals, but just creating more volume and drama on the crown.

I did a little 20s Boardwalk-inspired-do last week, just some large fingerwaves at the front and large low set pincurls at the back set overnight with setting lotion, brushed out, and rolled up the hair from behind the ear into a sausage, and drapaed over the hair at the sides, and created sculptural curls with the ends of the hair.

I also came across these awesome, yet slightly terrifying, Devereaux Sisters dolls Here, they have excellent 20s hair and some killer costumes, worth a look, you can buy them here http://www.tonnerdoll.com, but they ain’t cheap!

Flick Me

I did a crazy flicking set last night, I say crazy because it was just one of those things, you just do what you feel, not really following the rules just throwing caution to the wind and making it up as you go along.

Basically I thought, I want volume on top, I want it to flick out, but I want it to look shorter than it is.

I used the larger rollers on top, set on base, to create scalp lift. Notice the front is off base, behind a backwards shaping which is held in place with curl clips, as I wanted to create some depth for the fringe.

Smaller rollers on the sides which were to create the shorter base for the longer hair to sit on.

Finally some pincurls, facing up the head, at the bottom, just for the hell of it really.

I brushed out each section using a round brush pulling the flick out the way.

I did a load of backcombing around the crown for volume and at the fringe for stability. I also used a couple of pins to pin under slightly at the back.

Here’s my Bobbie inspired look

I don’t think this was the ideal set for this, I’ll probably mull over some adjustments for the future. 

I decided to brush out more for a longer style, more of an Ann Margaret, I pulled some of the fringe out and brushed back, and reduced fringe volume by brushing through and flicking out the tip, and I pinned back one side behind the ear.

This in’t the ideal set for the style, I will do another set that’s more sensible for it in future, but it works ok.

It’s been snowing here again, and there’s a wee bit of snow sunshine coming in the windows, which gave me a bit of photo lighting for a change, which was nice!

Hope you get some good flicking done this weekend folks.

For the Record

Just in case you were losing sleep over it, I went for the Joan Blondell inspired do last night, Slybacon took a couple snaps on the phone cam, while I was drinking really disgusting cava.

It was a good decision, not the cava, the hairdo, lasted me all day through all my customers and was still in tact this morning, though today’s a new day.

I pincurled my hair all over to get the curl and worked with pomade to create all the sculptural curls, the hardest part was the perfectly messy fringe bit that Joan had, it looked either too messy or too tidy, I was happy with it in the end, it was a homage not a replica.

Today’s a lazy day, so no real curling going on, I’ve gone a bit Brigette Bardot, backcombing at the crown and brushing back the front, tying in a red ribbon, pulling out a few strands as fringe, messy look for the first day on the year

And with my baby boy, he’s wearing red too.

Happy new year everyone, hope 2011 is a wonderful year for you.