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”

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

Curls on Film

After a mad, but fantastically rewarding, couple weeks of wedding styling, I’ve had the confirmation this week that I’ll be working down in London at Vintage 2011 at the Southbank Centre. This is mostly exciting, although the thought that people might be asking me for 80s hairdos does send a shiver up my spine, since when was the 80s vintage? This makes me feel old, and I’m not! I’m sure I’ll come to terms with this over the next few weeks and suck it up in time for the styling. 

With my time in Miss Dixiebelle of late, the days I wasn’t in South Queensferry -Weddingsville, I took the time to admire (ie. steal photos from) some fantastic books that a lovely customer had dropped in for Emma. These Film Review books are most excellent for reference, and have some photos I haven’t come across anywhere else.

I have just ordered 5 of them from the 40’s 50’s and 60s from Abe Books, who I love for old photo books.

The 2 books in the shop have left me a bit embarrassed by my loose curls/waves that I’ve been sporting a lot lately, while rushing in the morning with heated rollers.

I did one slightly half-hearted wet set last weekend, but now inspired by these lovely bushy-haired vixens I set about setting.

For this styling I used traditional 40s pincurls, now today was hot and sunny, the lighting was fun… not!

I’m pretty lazy when it comes to pincurling, my pincurls are rather large and not the neatest, though I have slept on these to dry, when you set them damp with setting lotion, do comb the hair through and try to get the pincurl as neat a possible, I section into rows and pincurl from the neck up.

I did some large stand up pincurls on top, as I like a bit of lift, you can do flat ones if you suit a flat to the head style.

You get your corkscrews when you take them out, this is what you want and the more you have the more volume you’ll get, though the more you have the harder it is to work with.

I should mention that wet setting, although it seems like it would be better for the hair than heat, the breakage is far worse, you’ll notice how much hair you loose in brushing it through.

Brushing out I worked the top through to create my undulations, which all classic 40s style should aim to achieve.

And that’s my fluff all brushed through.

I used a smidgen of pomade and combed the side back to pin.

My taste for the asymmetric (if you have a non-symmetrical face, you should do the same) meant I pinned one side low, with a low parting.

I created my shaping on top using sectioning clips to assist, and pinned the ends of the hair into the top of my high back section

I’ve actually watched very few films of late, but given that the Film Review is my new bible, things could be changing.

Stand-Up Gal

I’ve got a cat and black hair, I’m no Jayne mansfield, but I did fancy having a bit more volume on top, cue some stand-up pincurls…

The bigger you want it the bigger you set these, and you’ll get it higher with a shorter fringe and with back combing if you want, I didn’t back comb this time.

Rest of the hair: some forward rolling pincurls, very low set at the back, but set high from the ear forward.

I set this pretty dry, I always blow dry my hair a fair bit before adding setting lotion otherwise it’s still wet in the morning and doesn’t curl at all. It was good in the morning, but dealing with a windy day I looked pretty messed up again by the end of it.

Phoney baloney smile, it doesn’t come naturally to the Scottish people.

Today I did smaller, longer stand up pin curls, more like barrel curls.

Always have a cup of Jasmine tea, it makes your hair feel better. Set was pretty similar to yesterday, but it brushed out an effing mess, this is what I’m talking about when I say it can be so variable how your hair reacts to different conditions, I felt pretty ill yesterday, and who knows maybe that ruined my set! I didn’t have my Jasmine tea yesterday I hasten to add!

But never be defeated. The hair was really flicking out, so I decided to work with what it was wanting to do. This meant rolling it up and pining it in, and in the end I really liked it, plus it lasted all day because it was pinned up.

Lesson for the week, don’t let the bastard hair grind you down, similar happened on Monday, so I did my foolproof fix of twisting to the side and pining, seriously, no matter how badly wrong it’s gone, this always works.

That’s my smug “I always have this style to fall back on” face.

I need to get back on the love track again after this super-long post, and wow it was a Double Poster today oh my god, so expect some more romantic inspiration soon.

Making More Waves

I’ve been waving away this week, and have actually tired myself of it, I moved on, but that’s for another post. One last giant wave tomorrow I think.

I’ve done a few different waves, 2 from sets and a quickie job with tongs.

Here’s one set I did, which is really basic and it can just be adapted to get different effects.

I do yoga on top of my sets normally, headstands tend to make your set a little messier than it even started, my sets aren’t neat anyway, especially when it comes to the back!

basically a load of pin curls going towards my face, you can see the directionality clearly in the photo above, just work forward from the back of the head.

Brush out, totally basic brushing with a standard denman styling brush. and the resulting style:

I did less of a dramatic wave at the front, a bit shorter and tighter and less depth of the hair taken into the wave, for this next one, but similarly set through the back and sides, but pinned one side behind the ear. 

I always do a pincurl at the end of the wave the one for the previous style was going away fom the face, you’ll see this one was toward the face.

This is my quickie tonged style, I did a bit of curling along the hairline to create a more dramatic shaping- I prefer doing this for wearing my hair pinned back, as it creates a really strong ridge, which can look a bit harsh on long hair down, but this week’s about waving and I waved it alright!

You can really see the difference a proper wet set makes, if I’d had longer than 15 minutes to do this it would be better, but it’s a lot more work to get similar effects from heated products on dry hair, and the wet set lasts so much better.

It’s my big presentation night tomorrow and this has actually really helped me to think, next time you have a project to do write a blog about it!

Attitude

Ballet week’s been a tiring week, but I’ve struggled up in the morning to do some Ballet inspired dos that are pretty simple to do, I’ve avoided anything that takes major prep as I don’t imagine ballerinas sit all evening doing full sets.

I, of course, did a Natalie Portman, classic ballet inspired French Twist.

Here’s a nice clear video for how to do a French twist, it’s actually a bit fiddly on yourself, but once you’ve mastered how it should feel, it’s a simple style that doesn’t need much prep, I created a bit more volume at the crown by backcombing before twisting.

Then it was time for a Red Shoes inspired do, I’ve already done a Ludmilla Tcherina look, so it’s time for a leading lady.

This is a bit of an impossible style to get exact. Maintaining Moira Shearer’s perfect curl under takes some serious pincurling work, so I did a really basic set version with two large pincurls on top of the head taken from in-front of the ear, and the rest of the hair I split into 2 sides at the back doing 6 large pincurls facing toward my face on each side.

All you need to do once the pincurls are out is put the font part back up pretty much as they were, and brush under all around the head, using plenty hairspray.

You can see the back is the tricky part, doing it yourself is virtually impossible to get perfect, but it’s still a nice style to wear, even if it is imperfect.

If like me, you’re planning to go see Black Swan this weekend, I hope you can come up with a hairstyle worthy of the occasion. And I fully intend of taking notes on hair and makeup throughout for future reference.

Setting Too High

The problem with expectations is that they’re either to high or too low. If you set them too low you’ll end up never trying anything new, but if you’re like me you set them too high and end up disappointed.

When it comes to styling inspiration I generally look at a picture of an incredibly beautiful woman with fantastic thick luscious and perfectly coloured hair. Everyone does it when they go the the hairdressers or stylist, they take a picture of a model and say I want hair like this… STOP, you don’t want their hair, you want their face, I even met a pale Scottish girl who was horrified that she didn’t end up looking like Alexandra Burke after her new haircut!

This process is worse when you are following a styling recipe, you do the set and follow the shaping instructions (as best you can, as they tend to be poor), you expect to get the same end result and end up pretty defeated after a load of work.

I have black hair, you’ll notice most styling reference books don’t often use black hair. Despite Dita looking amazing, black hair is really difficult to show detail with (with my quickie camera jobs even worse) blondes and redheads tend to wear sculptural stuff better, particularly on camera, black tends to look quite flat.

I did a set last night using a 50s long hairstyling book (“How to Handle Long Hair”), there’s 11 styles from the 1 setting in the book, I use this for a few styles I do and I’ll sometimes do quick interpretations using tongs. The one I did today “Whisters Mother Moderne” as pictured above, didn’t really live up to expectations, there’s a lot of factors about different hair types and lengths, different faceshapes, not getting the set exactly right, doing it on oneself always makes it more tricky as well! As my hair gets longer I’m going to revisit this, I’m determined to get this one looking right!

I’m going to give you some more thoughts from this book, so don’t worry about rushing out to get it just yet, hopefully you’ll get all you need here, plus I’ll give you some thoughts on what I think is better advice than the book gives.

So here’s the basic set pattern for pincurling anyway, and here’s the first bit of advice, unless you have a really big head or very very thick hair, you won’t get that many pincurls up the sides (my mother has very very thick hair and we just about get it with hers).

The basic guide is, to start out, vary the amount of brushing out you do depending on the style you want, give a really smooth brush out for the waved styles and not too much for curls, this information is probably more valuable than the book itself,other people’s instructions are always confusing, especially hairdressers from the middle half of the 20th Century.

It’s a decent set to have a play around with, so my advice is to do just that and explore the shapings you can get, rather than look at the pictures of the Carey Mulligan-alike with her legions of blonde locks and expect it to look like that, you should look pretty in your own way and work with what suits you best.