Once we had a few practical lessons of using different types of hair techniques that were popular in the Elizabethan era we started with creating a complete hair design. I had to gather a few ideas of what I wanted to create and it had to include at least frizzing, crimping, curling or plaiting technique. This was because we had to show a variety of skills we've learnt over the past few weeks and put all the skills together to complete a full Elizabethan hair style. I adored the frizzing technique where we had to wrap the hair round a geisha pin in a figure of eight and hold the straighteners on it to heat it into place. I wanted to used crimping as well for the main part of the hair to give it dimension and volume on the top. I also wanted to include curls to the front of the hair which would be more subtle and flat to create a neat pattern on the front of the hair design.
I started with crimping the whole of the hair. I started at the bottom of the head and worked my way up the head until I reached the front of the hairline. I knew I wanted to curl the front, frizz the sides and the two strands underneath so I clipped them apart from the rest of the hair so they weren't going to be crimped.
Once I finished the crimping I took the section I left at the front of the hairline and curled all the front. I used small heated curling tongs to create this effect as I wanted smaller curls at the front. I separated strands the strands of hair at the front and curled them individually and put a grip in the curl to hold it in place while it cools down. Once all the sections were curled and pinned in place I started on the next part while these were setting.
I then started with the two original strands I left underneath the hair. I used a geisha pin (because they are large) and put the hair in the pin and wrapped the hair round, in and out of the pin in a figure of eight. With the last piece of hair I wrapped around once more and used a normal pin to hold the ends in place. I then did this to the other strand of hair and also the two strands of hair left by the ears.
For the back I back combed the main part of the hair and put it into a beehive. I did'nt use a rats for this style because I finish the hair style off at home and I didnt have one at that particular moment. Instead I back combed the bottom part of the hair, wrapped it up and gripped it into place, I then back combed the top half and pulled it over to the middle part of the head and gripped it into place. I feel as the hair was back combed and crimped it contained a lot of volume anyway so I achieve the height with these techniques.
With the curls at the front of the head I took all the grips out of the curls and let it down. I then wrapped the curls up into there original small curl and gripped them to the head. I had four curls going along each side of the head and gripped them all up next to each other to create a pattern going along the front of the hair line.
This is a view of what the front of the hair design looked like. You can see each side where the curls are all gripped up to the head. If I went further with my design I could of added pearls or jewels to the inside of the curls going along the front of the hair. Jewels and pearls were very popular in the hair with the upper class genre in the Elizabethan era.
Here you can see the underneath and side of where I used the technique of the geisha pin in a figure of eight. I think these distinctive curls came out very well and I was very pleased with them. When taking the pins out, all you need to do it take the bottom grip out and them slide the geisha pin out and it comes out like this. You can separate the curls to make a few more or even brush it out however then it goes very frizzy. I preferred to keep them like this as I think it looks neater and compliments the overall hair design better. I was going for an upper class Elizabethan hairstyle which contains a few elaborate techniques in the hair. I didn't want the hair completely up so I left two strands at the back so they can hang forward and two by the ear. I think this gives the design pattern and a variety of lengths to the hair instead of being completely up. I think this design could be used for someone who was un-married as it is partly down which show freedom however it could be for a married woman as the hair is mostly up and they're being dynamic with there choice of hairstyle.
Overall I'm very pleased with my hair design and think it came out very well I think I did each section and technique with time and care however I think I need to become a little more quicker which I will learn to eventually when doing the hair. My timing to complete this hair design was around two and a half hours, I would like to get it down to at least one and a half hours with my time management. If I could I would of included a rats to the hair, this is another technique which is basically just padding to the hair to give it a solid height. I think this would of made it easier to get the height of the beehive, however next time I can incorporate this into my hair design. However, overall I think the design came out very well and neat and definitely has an Elizabethan element to the overall hairstyle.
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