costumekullan: My hair at the ball

Tuesday, 25 November 2014

My hair at the ball

For the ball I of course wanted to have a nice and elegant hairdo. My hair now is quite long and since I've started with more historical costumes I've learnt quite a few tricks about styling hair, and even if I'm not good I wanted to do something that looked a bit more refined. My main inspiration was the hairstyle I did for the 1920's party I went to this summer. With all the stress of preparations, my friend that I stayed with hadn't even finished her ballgown until just before we left, I didn't take any progress photos of my hair work.

I started out with rolling up my hair. Previously I have used the long foam rollers, but now I had bought the hard plastic rollers that are used for perms. The plastic rollers were a lot easier to manage than the foam rollers, something I really noticed since I couldn't get all my hair up on them and had to finish with the foam rollers. I sprayed some water on the rolled hair to make it damp. I did not roll quite a large chunk of my front hair, wich I had parted very much to the side. This I put in a braid, to get it out of my face and then I went to sleep.

Or rather tried to sleep, it was not easy get a comfortable sleeping position with the hair. The rollers themselves weren't too bad, but every time I moved my head they pulled on my hair. I did suspect this was how it was going to be, but the ball started at 14:00, instead of in the evening, and my hair takes a really long time to dry, and I didn't want to get up early just to start with the hair. Anyway when I woke up the next morning the hair was a bit frizzy, but I had a lot of curls.

Now I tried to make the front hair into fingerweaves. I didn't get quite as good as a result as the first time I tried, I actually think it would have looked better with less hair. I also can't really manage to get them even, it feels as if I need three hands for that. With some practice I can probably get a nice result though.

When all hair was dry, including the front hair, I took the rollers out and had a lot of unruly curls. Now my hair is quite frizzy in it's natural state, and I had a big halo of frizzy hair. I have discovered the joy of a volume and anti-frizz gel though, so put it on generously all over the hair. It really works wonder and helps give that that finished and sculpted look to the hair. After having just let the curls loose a bit with my fingers I had a lot of volume as well. I put on a headband that I bought, and then I simply pinned the curls over the ribbon that closed the headband in the back. It's always hard to see what you are doing in the back of your head but I didn't go for perfectly symmetric. I also pinned the front hair in place. I didn't get the distinct finger weaves that I had hoped for, but I got a bit of voluminous wavy hair, and it still looked good.