My Regency Hairdo

[elizabeth_mn]

I want to preface this with the reminder that I tend to be pretty lame at doing historic hair. For many of you, setting hair in curls is old hat, but I am just starting to learn about this, so it's all still new to me!

That being said, here's what I did for my Regency hair.



I was inspired by several portraits from the era, and collected a few of them on this pinboard. I discovered that there is more variety in the specific details of the styles than I expected. The basic look I wanted is a bun or knot or pile of hair on top or in back; smooth, flat hair on top and sides; and some curls or wisps around the face.

Some of the buns were flatter and wider, while others were more doorknobby. The hair around the face ranged from profuse, tight ringlets to scant, short little wisps; some curls were very defined, others were more loose.

Here was the first try. I said more about it in this previous post. Basically, I liked the shape of the bun, but the curls were way too long and loose. This is because my rollers were too big and also because I had a hard time wrapping the hair securely on them.



For the second try at making a hairpiece, I used smaller rollers, I think 3/8", and rolled the hair as tightly as I could. I had a hard time getting the ends to tuck in nicely, so I rolled a little scrap of parchment paper around the base as I began to roll each strand. (I realize now that an actual product exists for this purpose, but the parchment worked fine.)

For each hairpiece, I used a piece of natural human hair sewn to a weft, with slightly diluted Lottabody setting lotion to dampen. The hair I had was 14" long, and I trimmed it shorter, which seemed an awful waste, but I wanted to use what I had on hand.

Here is hairpiece #2 in the rollers.



I blow dried it a little, then let it sit for a day or so to make sure it was completely dry. When I took the rollers out, I was shocked at how horribly tight and sproingy the curls were - like poodle hair!

I fiddled with it despairingly for a while, then I decided I'd better try to make it work somehow, so I steamed the hairpiece with the iron, held just above the hair, to help the poodle curls relax. It worked!

Here it is with the right half fresh out of the rollers and the left half steamed out.



And the whole thing steamed.



After playing with it for a while, I decided that too many forehead curls looked stupid on me, so I cut the weft into a section for each side. I ended up with an extra piece which I saved to use at the back. I also trimmed the length of some of the scragglier curls.

To put it all together:

I put all my hair into a high ponytail with an elastic. I braided it loosely in a single 3-strand braid and formed it into a big, loose bun as high on top of my head as I could get. I wound from the outside in, the reverse from the norm, so I could get the thickest, prettiest bits in front. This meant I had a harder time hiding the length of poofy tail at the braid end, but whatever.

I pinned a false curled section to each side of my head with bobby pins, and added the third at the back for neck curls. I placed them so the curls would fall where I wanted, but also in the right position for the bandeau to cover the wefts.

For the bandeau I decided to go a little wider and more turban-y. I used Jen's tutorial to figure out the wrap, but I pulled mine a little smoother for less volume in the fabric. My fabric piece was about 14" x 54", and I tried to play up the double-sided effect with the twists.

For my "daytime" look, I left it plain. I liked it, but I wrapped the bandeau too high, and it kept annoyingly slipping up my head, exposing too much of my giant forehead.


(photo borrowed from jenthompson)



For evening, I re-wrapped, pulling the fabric much lower down. I also added feathers (one set of two white ones sewn together and one set of 3 light blue ones) and a big blingy brooch.

These are from the end of the night, when I had gotten a little rained on and lost a little curl. But you get the idea.





And a detail crop from the restaurant where Jen's giant feather (she's behind me) is masquerading as my own! Alas, only the tiny feather is mine.



This was such a fun and easy hairdo! I hope to try it again sometime.