I realised belatedly that I shouldn't have used a blonde wig. I honestly have no idea what I was thinking when I decided to butcher this one, probably something along the lines of 'blonde hedgehog inspired styles worked on Kirsten Dunst in 'Marie Antoinette' thus they will work for me too'. Whatever was going through my mind I was wrong. But, I learned from my mistakes, moved on and tried again. Luckily I have plenty of past their best wigs that lend themselves perfectly to experimentation.
Let us first look at my inspiration...
 |
| My main reference point. A portrait of Marie Antoinette Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, 1783 |
 |
| Mr and Mrs William Hallett (The Morning Walk) By Thomas Gainsborough, 1785 |
 |
| Fashion plate, 1790s |
 |
| Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire By Thomas Gainsborough, 1785-87 |
 |
| Fashion plate 1780s |
 |
| From Journal de Luxus, 1791 |
The first step I took was to trim my brown wig to around shoulder length. When I started it reached around the middle of my back and since the blonde wig being too long was one of the main factors in its impressive fall from grace I knew to start off with a much shorter wig.
I then took small half inch to one inch sections of hair and rolled them around strips of cloth.
I forgot to take any photos of this bit the second time around so here's a picture of what the rag rolling looked like on the blonde wig. The brown one looked much the same except it had perhaps twice the number of rolls in there. This made for much smaller, tighter curls. The bottom section of the wig I left down for much of the process, going in at the end with four large, thick socks and rolling it into four curls. These gave a bit more life to the ponytail part that hangs down my back.
Once the curls where tied in I put my wig in the sink and poured a few kettles worth of boiling water over it. I left it there until the water was cold.
I then took it out and towel dried it to get the excess water off before leaving it to air dry overnight.
Once it was dry I then carefully undid every knot and unrolled the curls letting them spring back on themselves. The boiling water melts the plastic hair fibres into a different shape and thus the curls are permanently fixed in place. The brown wig was perfectly straight when I started and once I'd removed all of the fabric strips it looked like this.
When I froufed (shut up, that's totally a word) up the blonde wig I had to do an awful lot of back combing because I left it so long, that ended up looking awful and the wig looked matted instead of curly. This time I merely separated the curls with my fingers and only lightly back combed a few of the sections on the back to keep them from hanging down too low.
 |
| Similar to the above photo but lighter so you can see more of the curls |
 |
| Yet more frouf! |
 |
| And the final amount of frouf |
I left the curls across my brow more whole than their counterparts on the sides and back of my head, this was done so that the lines were cleaner and it was easier to tame. I also wanted that section to appear more wavy than curly. The large ponytail curls were the last to be undone I immediately tied them back to keep them neat.
With my fingers coated in LBCC Historical Apothecary and Cosmetics' lavender pomatum (a birthday gift from my parents) I combed my fingers through the wig. Then using a powder brush and hair powder from the same place (also a birthday gift) I brushed the wig with a fine layer of white hair powder. In retrospect I should have used more as it wore off qhite a bit throughout the day.
So, without further ado, have some 'still in my pajamas at three o-clock in the afternoon
but wearing a fabulous wig selfies'.
Here I tied the wig back with a silk sash in a lazy imitation of some of the fanciful ribbon dos ladies seem to sport in some portraits. I really adore this wig, I feel like it flatters my face shape and I felt incredibly beautiful whilst wearing it, even in my pajamas with no make up on.
No comments:
Post a Comment