Project Evaluation

Overall I have really enjoyed this unit and I am very pleased that I chose it as my option for this year.  I feel that the project has been very well organized, and that I have always had a clear idea of the direction that I was heading in next.  I feel that I have learnt a lot of new useful techniques and skills during this project, and ones that I knew nothing about before beginning the unit, for example; knotting and steaming a wig.

At the beginning of the project, I found the research to start me off was very interesting and I enjoyed learning about the different cultures and era’s of hairstyles and which ones were best known for wearing wigs themselves.  I liked learning about what hair means to different people around the world, and how it can have such significance in some religions in India.  For example, in Hinduism your hair is seen as a polluted substance of your body that can let spirits in if you do not shave your head when someone you know has died.

I also found it interesting to see how various cultures have had an influence on hair, make-up and fashion today.  Oppositely, I found it equally as interesting as the fact that the Maasai tribe have kept their traditions strong, despite the Western influences that have been creeping up on them and trying to create an impact on their culture.

The final photo shoots I was happy with as well, and the turned out a lot better than I could have hoped actually.  I found it really useful to use the idea of a story with the character I was creating, and I felt that this helped me a lot to think more about why I was designing each look the way I was, rather than just because I liked it.

On a whole I have really enjoyed the project and am a little upset that it is coming to an end.  I will definitely be taking forward the new skills and techniques that I have learnt within this unit, and I look forward to actually completing a knotted hairline, which is what I set out to do at the beginning, but unfortunately ran out of time to finish it before the photo shoots began to take place.

Simple Style Wig

Overall, I am pleased with how my simple photo shoot turned out.

I began by parting a section of hair all around the crown of the head.  Then with the hair in the middle I created a French plait that circled around the crown and pinned it.  After that I then took my stocking cap and placed it over the plait and pinned it into the hair.  I then took the front part of my model's hair and scraped it back off of her face and pinned it behind her ears.

I then placed the wig over my model's head and adjusted the plaited fringe and began to shoot...

I was really pleased with this final shoot and I feel that it sums up my character's journey quite well.  I steamed my wig completely straight again after the moderate photo shoot, and I think that doing that made the wig hairs look more natural and it made it less matted overall.

For this shoot I kept the plaited fringe in again, however it appears to be more spacious and with more gaps between the plaits than in the other two shoots.  I think that this is because there is less hair within the fringe this time, and possibly because there is nothing else going on at the front of the style with it.

However I am really happy with the overall outcome of the three photo shoots.

Moderate Style Wig

Overall I am pleased with how this photo shoot went.

I began by parting a section of hair all around the crown of the head.  Then with the hair in the middle I created a French plait that circled around the crown and pinned it.  After that I took my stocking cap and placed it over the plait and pinned it into the hair.

I then placed the wig over the stocking cap, and brought the section of my model's real hair over the wig to hide the hard edges of it.  Then the shooting began...

When I first put the wig on my model's head for this shoot, I found that I hadn't set the bun completely central to the head, so I had to adjust it a bit and make it less wonky.  The final outcome was still not completely straight, and I am disappointed with that.

However, apart from that I am really happy with these photos and with how the shoot went.

Extreme Style Wig

Overall I feel that the extreme style shoot worked really well.

I began by parting a section of hair all around the crown of the head.  Then with the hair in the middle I created a French plait that circled around the crown and pinned it.  After that I then took my stocking cap and placed it over the plait and pinned it into the hair.  I then combed the front bits of hair off of the face and pinned at the side by the ears.

I placed the wig over my model's head and pulled down at the back to make it fit.  I then adjusted any parts of the wig that had fallen apart.  Then the shooting began...

I felt that the shoot went really well and I was very pleased with the outcomes.  I think that I have captured the hairstyle with good lighting, so that it shows up well, and with a make-up look that complimented it nicely.
I chose to use red in the make-up design because Maasai warriors usually where red robes, and it is a colour that is recognised with the tribe.  I also made the beaded necklaces for my model to wear, because Maasai people where beads around their necks and arms.
Overall I am really happy with the results from my extreme photo shoot.

Steaming and Setting a Nylon Wig

To style a nylon wig you need to steam it and leave it to set for a few days.  This is because the hair is not real, meaning that usual heated equipment cannot be used on the hair as it is fake and will ruin it.  Steaming a nylon wig also makes the hair easier to work with, and it helps to get the hair going in the direction that you want it to.

Equipment needed:

- Nylon wig

- Wig block

- Rollers

- T pins

- Steamer

How to:

- Begin by securing your wig to your wig block and deciding where you want the hair to go for your final design

- Section the hair, always thinking about placement and direction, and place the rollers in the sections that you create

- Wrap the ends of the hair section around the roller and then roll it down onto the head, keeping the tension and making sure that the hair is tight around the roller

- Secure the roller with a T pin, pushing it into the wig block to hold it securely

- When all the rollers are in place, you can steam the hair

- Fill the steamer up with water, turn it on and wait for it to heat up

- Once the steamer has heated up, hold it close to the hair without touching it and follow the hair in the rollers with it

- Keep going over the hair in the rollers until it is damp all the way through

NOTE: If the hair is not damp through then it will not set properly

- Leave the wig to set and dry for 2-3 days before removing the rollers and styling the wig

Steaming a wig straight again:

- Work in sections starting from the bottom, as if you were blowdrying someone's hair

- Keep the sections fairly small and not too thick, because if the section is really thick it will not steam as well

- Brush the section through and holding it tight at the ends with your hairbrush, move the steamer over the hair

- Make sure that the hair is completely straight and damp through, in order for it to set properly

Evaluation:

I think that steaming the wig was a useful technique to learn and I think that my wig ended up steaming quite well.  The only problem that I had, is that I ran out of T pins when steaming my wig with the rollers, so I could not fully steam my wig.  I found that steaming a wig straight was a lot easier than with the rollers, as when I was steaming the rollered wig I found that as I tried to move around the rollers I couldn’t quite get to all of the hair well enough.

Testing Elements of my Designs

These two elements are from my extreme style design.  On the left is a plaited bun and on the right is a raised plait on the head.  These elements were quite easy to create and I think that they will look good as part of my final extreme design.  Within my actual design, however, I will be plaiting in extra hair, some of it being a matching colour to my wig, and the other a reddy colour to enhance the plaits a bit more.

 This element is from my moderate wig design; a bun with a plait around the bottom of the bun.  I like this idea, but I have decided to use extra hair pieces to create more plaits to go around the bun and cover half of it.

This final element that I have practiced will be incorporated within all of my wig designs, as it is a key feature to the Maasai tribes warriors hair design.  This trial did not work so well on my dolls head, as her hair is quite sparse but I am keeping the feature because I think that it will work well with the wig designs.

Studio: Hammer Horror Inspired Hair

When creating Hammer Horror inspired hair in class we used heated rollers.  Below are instructions on how to use heated rollers and how I used them to create my chosen Hammer Horror style.

Equipment needed:

- Pintail comb

- Heated rollers

- ‘Grabbies’ (roller clips)

How to:

- Firstly turn on the roller pack to 2

REMEMBER: Think of the direction that you want to curls to go in, and set the rollers in that direction

- Keeping your sections clean, take a section at a time and wrap the ends of the hair around the roller

- Roll the roller down towards the scalp, ensuring that you keep the hair tight around the roller

- Make sure that there is no overhang of hair, and then secure the roller to the head with a grabbie

When I was creating my Hammer Horror inspired hair, I began by sectioning the top of the hair in a horseshoe shape.  To curl this section, I used heated rollers and worked from the back of the head toward the front.  I didn’t want a parting for this hairstyle, so I rolled all the hair in this section in a backwards direction.  Then for the rest of the hair I used medium sized curling tongs.  I curled the hair with the tongs so that the curls would sit down from the scalp and I curled the sections of hair by the face away from the face to make it appear bigger.  To hold these curls, I used hairgrips to pin them close to the scalp until they cooled down.  Once all the hair had cooled down I took out the curls, beginning with the tonged sections and then the rollered section.  I then pulled the curls out a bit using my pintail comb and backcombed the roots of the hair to make it more volumised.

Evaluation:

I enjoyed this task, and feel that it helped me to improve my roller techniques a bit.  During this task I felt more confident when using the rollers and found that I managed to keep the hair tighter on the roller.  However my problem this week was the sectioning.  I think that this was partly because I was working on a dolls head, which is quite small and with less hair than should have been used for the bigger rollers.  I think that the final outcome of my Hammer Horror was quite good and I am happy with how it looked.