Creating Late Victorian Hairstyle

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Equipment:

• Hair brush
• comb 
• hair band
• curling tongs
• grips 
• supra colour palette 
• mascara wand 

In our recent Victorian hair practical lesson we were looking at creating a hairstyle during the late Victorian period. Our lecturer Helen first gave us a demonstration of what were were expected to produce in the lesson.

We starting with first parting the hair in the centre then parting the fringe area (around about where the ear is) and gripping it up out of the way. Then we halved the hair so half was up in a pony tail while the other half was down. Next was curling the ponytail, I pre heated my curling tongs and starting curling individual sections of the ponytail until it was completely curled in all directions. Next I went onto the fringe and curled 4 sections into ringlets going down the side of the face. For the last sections (which there was 3 left) I curled them but curling them away from the face as this will be gripped backwards. Once all the fringe section was curled I brushed the curls through with my finger and gathered the whole fringe together and gripped it back to meet the ponytail curls. 

Once the top half of the head was completed I moved onto the bottom half which was untouched so far. I used small tongs and curled individual sections to create ringlets below. In the Victoria era they would either leave the curls hanging down or grip parts up and let the curls drop over. In this case we were gripping all the hair up so I used brown grips and clipped the bottom half up and pulled the ringlets down to drop slightly. Unfortantly my Kate dolls hair isn't very long so it doesn't give the full effect of the ringlets dropping down as her hair isn't long enough. However in the Victorian era the women would grow there hair very long and would easily be able to pull of this hair design. 

Back of my hair design 

Side view of the hairstyle

Next Helen showed us how to make the hair look older and how to create grey streaks through the hair. Firstly our lecturer showed us with a certain palette she had which was particularly used for ageing the hair. However in this case we would use our supra colour palette to create the ageing in the hair. For the colour we mixed white with a dash of yellow and if you wanted to make it a darker grey then use a little bit of black. 

This is a Victorian curling iron that would of been used in the
19th century. These metal tongs would of been placed hovering
over a hot fire to be heated up and then used on the hair, which
in some cases the hair burnt off. 

Overall I think my late Victorian hair design went very well and I really enjoyed the practical session. I think my curls all came out very neat and together and was well placed. I think my grips could of been secured a little better in the hair to keep the curls up, and I think would of looked better if her hair was longer so the curls dropped down further than looking like an up-do hairstyle. Overall I'm pleased with my design, I think I could manage my time a little better so I could get the whole design finished in a reasonable pace.