Frizzing the Hair

One very popular and well know technique for the Elizabethan era is frizzing, another way to look at is waves/crinkles in the hair. Its slightly different than a normal curl which is normally done with hot
curling tongs as this curl we want it to look more crinkled or a zig-zagged pattern down the hair. On the right is a portrait of Mary Queen of Scots, part of her hair is clipped up into a small beehive which was probably padded out, and the bottom strands are loose. The top of the hair has a crinkled/wavy look to it however has been put up with jewels and accessories. The style of the loose parts of the hair is slightly different than a tradition curl/ringlet. In our recent lecture we were shown a demonstration of how to create this particular look.

Our teacher started with showing us all a demonstration of how to create the waves that are loose on Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth and probably many other Elizabethans during that time. Start with getting a small section of hair, and with a geisha pin put the root of the hair inside the pin. You then need to start wrapping the hair round the pin in a figure of eight. Once all the hair is wrapped around, you need to take the end strand and wrap the end piece round the pin and then use a normal wavy grip to secure the ends.






Once the ends are secure you can then use your straighteners and press them down onto the hair to heat up the wound hair. Make sure all the hair has been flattened by the straighteners, you only need to hold them in the straighteners for around 5 seconds and it should hold into place.

 Once you've done a few, the firsts ones you created should of cooled down by now. All you need to do is take to wavy grip off the end and pull the geisha pin out and your section of hair should come out looking like this. You can then style it how you want, either separate the curl or brush it out to make a frizzy curl.







Here I started trying the technique out myself. In the first photo is what the hair looks like wrapped around the pin. You can use more hair in one section than the other however when there more hair its harder to fit in and wrap around the hair. The second photo is what the hair looks like when I pulled the grips and pins out, this create a defined wave. The middle photo is when I separated the curls and the volume increased and there were more small curls and it was slightly frizzy. The next photo is what the hair looks like when it has been brushed out. It give a lot of fluffy volume and is very frizzy, this works well because you can really work with the hair and play around with it and it creates a lot of height and volume. I think this technique would work really well with the Elizabethan era hairstyles as its gives that defined wave and frizz that the Elizabethans had.