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.

Wig Application

There are three main steps to applying a wig to a model’s head:

1)    PREPARE the hair

2)    SECURE the wig

3)    INCORPORATE the wig into the hair

Different types of hair preparation:

- Hair wraps: good for very smooth, flat wigs, with the hair gelled or wet and sculpted around the head and secured

- Flat plaits: for smooth wigs with less movement involved

- Flat pin curls: used for voluminous wigs as they are very secure and they are easy to anchor pins into because they create an extra surface on top of the head.  However they are not good for films

- Inverted chunky plaits: used for large sculpted wigs because they are very secure

Tips:

- Grips must be hidden or removed to avoid bumps on the surface of the wig

-  The preparation of the hair should represent the style of the wig, i.e. for a 1930’s bob styled wig the prep of the hair would be flat on top with pin curls around the nape of the neck

- Create hair charts for the wig application

- Adapt the hair preparation according to the wig style, hair type, seecurity and quick changes

- Avoid using shiny grips, matte hair grips are best for when applying a wig

- Always use a stocking cap that matches the root colour of the wig

Pins, Grips and Geishas:

- Always use matte grips under the wig to avoid slipping

- When you put the wig on, use fine wig pins to secure it at the edges

- Use wiggly pins to anchor the wig into the hair

- Use geisha pins to apply the wig into thick plaited preparation

- Avoid using pins with bobbly ends and putting thick pins around the edges of the wig

Different hairlines:

- Tailor made wigs: will fully cover the head with the wig and the hairline will have been knotted for the specific model.

-  Half wigs: these will use the model’s own hair at the front of the head and their own natural hairline, as the wig will not have been tailor made for the model.

- If the model has a different colour hairline to the wig that you have, use coloured chalks to blend it in

Hair Wrapping

Equipment needed:

- Hair grips

- Wig pins

- Stocking cap

- Pintail comb

How to:

- Create a parting in your model’s natural hair to match the parting in the wig

- Section the front of the hair by the ears

- Take a section from one side at the back and bring it round to the other side of the head, pinning it at the ends and along the section that you have brought across and round in a circle shape

- Repeat on the other side

- Keep sectioning the hair and bringing it round to the opposite side of the head until the back section is all pinned up

- With the front sections of hair, split them into two and take them in the same direction as the hairstyle

- Bring the sections round and pin

- Do not let the front hairs sit over the hairline, be sure to bring it back off of the face so that it will not show through the wig

- Take a wire toothbrush, spray a bit of hairspray on it and brush back the fine hairs that might be sticking up

- Make sure the hair is not bumpy anywhere

REMEMBER: always use a stocking cap as putting the wig straight onto the hair might cause it to catch on the grips in the hair

- Use a pintail comb to go around the edges of the cap and make sure all the hairs are in

- Where the stocking cap is placed depends on the style of the wig, e.g. for a half wig the cap would be placed further back with the front section of hair left out of the preparation

- If any pins are sticking up in the stocking cap they can be pulled out through it

- Pin the stocking cap to the scalp using wig pins at the back, to the sides and at the front

- Then when you pin the wig into place, pin under the grips that are already there for an anchor point

My Wig Designs

When designing my wigs, I kept in consideration my character and what I imagined them to be doing for the three different shoots:

Extreme - Going to a British festival.

Moderate - Styled for her everyday life in London.

Simple - Back in Kenya to visit her parents and the rest of the tribe that she came from.

Extreme Design

This design, like all of my designs, incorporates a lot of plaits.  The main feature in my designs, and that will continue through each, will be the plaited fringe that you can see on the forehead.  This is a design that the Maasai tribe use themselves, plaiting the hair forward over the face and then either tying with a leather strap or leaving them to hang loose.  I have chosen to use this element in my designs, because my character is originally from the tribe but has moved to London to live by herself, and the fringe is something that means she will always be a part of the Maasai people, no matter where she is in the world.

The rest of the design sees a top knot in the middle of the head with two thick plaits wrapped around it. The rest of the hair is loose down, apart from two other thick plaits that begin at the front of the head and are raised from the scalp.

Moderate Design

My moderate wig design includes the plaited fringe as well, with the rest of the hair being pulled back into a high bun.  For the moderate design, I have chosen to use the bun, as I think that they are quite a contemporary element of hairstyle, and I want to incorporate both contemporary ideas and traditional Maasai ideas into one hair design.

I have opted for some plaits, of different sizes, to go around the bun up to about halfway.  I have designed it in this way because I relate plaits to be quite tribal, as well and contemporary, so I thought that it would be good to use these to decorate the bun so that it isn't so plain for a moderate design.

Simple Design

Finally, for my simple design I have chosen to keep the plaited fringe but just leave the rest of the hair straight down.  This is because she is going back home to see her family and friends from the tribe who are all still quite traditional.  Therefore, my character keeps the plait incorporated to feel closer to them when she is back, and the rest of the hair straight down, so as not to stand out too much from the crowd when she is back with them.

Creating Fringe Pieces

In class this week we had to bring in different accessories, such as ribbons, feathers, etc, to create fringes to add as an element to a hairstyle.  Fringes can change the shape of a person’s face and the hairstyle completely, and the materials that you use affect the overall look too.

Some fringe designs I created:

The first design was influenced by the 1920s, using the lace at the front of the head to create a finger wave style.  We then tucked the rest of the hair underneath and pinned with hairgrips to gain a bobbed style of hair.  I liked the way in which we incorporated our materials, however I think that the lace could have been brought onto the face a bit more.

The second was inspired by the 1960s, with a beehive in the top part of the hair, a plait with ribbon going around the beehive and the rest loose at the back.  We used feathers for this design, to give the style a soft fringe.  I like the way that this has worked, but it would look better if the feather had been flatter to the head.

It was interesting to use different types of materials to incorporate a fringe within a hairstyle and I enjoyed working with the different materials.  To attach the items I used hairgrips and for some I also plaited them into the hairstyle.  From this exercise, I have been inspired to possibly use some different materials within my wig designs, and it gave me the idea that anything can be used to create and add to a design.