Practice, practice, practice

Yay, finally updating my hair blog!! Seems I've been paying more attention to my make up blog as of late which is a shame as I think being a hairstylist is a career I'd definitly like to persue. This being said I am going to make much more effort to keep an even balance between the two subjects and update my hair blog on a more regular basis. To start with today these are some of the practice "New Elizabethan" styles from our practical lessons and my final choice of style for my timed assessment in a few weeks.

This first style was created using curling tongs to form small curls to the width of the tong which sat neatly on their base, allowing them to be pinned into place to cool. We created curls firstly in an upward direction and then in a downward direction alternatley, starting from the side of the head at the hairline just in from of the ear, continuing this pattern of alternate curls up the head to the centre where we kept a straight centre parting as this is authentically Elizabethan.

this second style I designed after practicing the heart shape style in a previous lesson using to pieces of padding. The heart shape was a popular style throughout th Elizabethan era and I personally used it in this design as I consider it to be one of the more glamourous Elizabethan styles. I added two french plats down through the middle of each raised side to add some extra detail. As mentioned before the Elizabethans were great fans of the centre parting, however I managed to get a little carried away trying to make the french braids as neat as posible which trew the parting off centre.

This style was produced using curling tongs, a single piece of padding for volme in the centre of the head and french plats for decoration. Although this style was fun to create I do not think the end result looked very Elizabethan

This heart shape style was created using two quite large pieces of padding and a crimper to add volume to the hair and unlike my previous attempts at styling this was the first time I worked using a live model. In some ways I found it much easier to style the hair on a actual person rather than my dolls head, due to the fact that the hair was in much better condition and the length of the hair was consistent throughout the head. However at the same time I found there were also a few draw backs to using a real model, firstly because I was nervous about hurting the client I was much more gentle in styling the hair which meant I was not able to gain the same tension when pulling the hair into shape which resulted in the style being less tidy than the previous attempts usin my dolls head. I was also alot more aware of the effect of heat damange on the models hair so used applied the heated tools for a shorter period of time which mae the crimp limper and did not provide as much volume.

This is my first attempt at the final design I have chosen for my timed assessment. I have incorporated Techniques which were popular during the Elizabethan era but used them in such a wasy that gives th overall style a subtle modern twist. the hairstyle consists of a french plat fstarting at one side of the head over the top front section of hair following the hairline down to just below the ear on the opposite side, with a heart shape created using padding sitting sort of lopsided to the top left of the head. I deliberatley positioned the heart shape to one side and the plat to follow the hair line to break the rules of Elizabethan centre partings and give the style a more contemprary feel. The back section of the hair which is left over will be sectioned down the middle and pinned to either side of the head and curled to hang loose over the shoulders.