Hat Hair

One of my pressies from The Wolf at Christmas was the book "Vintage Hairstyling: Retro Styles with Step-by-Step Techniques" by Lauren Rennells. What a great hubby!  He's so clever! (ok, ok, I told him it was what I wanted). Anyway, I am so in love with this book!

available on Amazon

Over time I have worked out that I am allergic to most setting lotions and tried to ignore the issue. Diluting it only does half the trick and I still end up taking an antihistamine tablet in order to not be all blood-shot eyed and snuffy-nosed, which really defeats the purpose of getting ones hair all glam! 

Realising that I needed to see how my hair went with a wet set, using water only, I was feeling rather dubious about it until I came across the techniques in Lauren's book, and was doubly excited when I saw the technique called "Hat Hair". Up until then I had believed that my hair was really a bit too long and heavy for a small 50s hat.

I decided that the Sunday vintage fair at Hammersmith (a "goodies purchased" post to follow) would be an excellent chance to test it out and I spent all Saturday day in pin curls and rollers. Since I would be sleeping on rollers that I thought I would also try out what Charly has recommended to me in the past - and use perming rods where the recipe called for foam rollers at the back.

This was taken after the fair, after I had been rooting around in button boxes and trying other hats on, so it is now a little mussed up and fluffy. I was very happy with the way it worked out though and the curls and height stayed put.

But ha ha! Look at the frizz I got at the back!! To be fair, that was because I was running too late in the morning to spend long brushing it out and blending in pomade, which would improve it greatly. With today being Tuesday though, the curls have settled down nicely and are still going strong so a wet set certainly has more staying power than a hot roller set. With looser curls you are supposed to arrange them around the base of the hat which would give me both a suitable length of a 50s hair-do and be much prettier.

So all and all, I am very happy that I can work on fine tuning my technique and adorn myself with smaller 50s hats. Etsy/ebay here we come!

Lisa Freemont Street, who is enviably knowledgeable about hair stuff, has done a utube review of the book if you are interested (for those viewing at work, be warned: it has sound!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHHXBW5yAJQ


Have a good day everyone! 


Shona x