late victorian hair

In helen's lesson today we were taught how to do some hairstyles from the late victorian period- from around 1860-1870. Hair styles had changed a lot from the beginning of victorias reign. Women still liked to wear their hair off their face, but in a more elaborate design- curled with plaits and buns and softly pulled off the face, very pretty and feminine. Women were a lot more confident and playful with hair now and hair pieces were a lot more common amongst upper class women. Most women had long hair, so these hair pieces were mainly used to create thickness so that they were able to create these more elaborate styles. As well as hair pieces, they would accessorise with feathers, jewels and dried flowers.

Helen did a demo of this late victorian style;

• Brush through the katy doll's hair, getting rid of any knots. Heat rollers.
• Using a pintail comb, create a centre parting and section hair into three sections.
• Place and secure two rollers vertically on the side of the head(repeat on other side).
• Then place two rollers horizontally above the other rollers. (repeat on other side).
• Put the middle section into a ponytail and curl.
• Curl the remaining hair.
• pin the curled ponytail back into a sort of loose flower bun. Remove hair from rollers and add to the other hair that you just pinned back. 

I still feel that hair isnt my strong point and i need a lot more practice, but i am happy with my progress and the look that I created today. I definitely find victorian hair a lot easier to style than elizabethan!