Don't tell anyone!

Selfies after Taylor's assessment. Absolutely love how my design turned up! It exceeded my expectations and I felt so royal with that hair! 

Don't tell anyone!

Assessment selfies?! Yes, please!
Why not have a bit of fun after all this stress (or during it)?! :))

I am so happy that the first assessment is now over! I was so stressed about it those days, I thought I couldn't make it perfect but in the end it was all good. Now I can finally relax  prepare for the next assessment which is Wednesday! YEY!

Taylor practising my design - Week 7

It was a hard day for us because we were at the Uni from 9.00 AM to 18.30 PM but it was really satisfying. We both practiced our hair designs and we both did well.
Taylor improved her padding skills really well and this time I've got the right accessories to achieve this look. I have made a new hair rat which was bigger and in the appropiate shade for my hair colour. My partner struggled at first to handle it and to hide it because it was really big but then she managed to bend it a bit with some bobby pins and to hide it with a few hair pieces from my extensions. So once the hair rat was ready, everything went well when creating the front part of my design. We realised that it takes really long to curl the hair and, because we are allowed to add texture to the hair prior to the assesment, we decided that it's better to curl the hair in Helen's class and to unpin it when everything else is finished.
I am really pleased by Taylor's improvement and I can clearly see that she gave her interest in doing my design. Everything looks exactly how I wanted, and I am surprised by how nice it looks with the curled extensions aswell.

Practicing Taylor's design - Week 7

This time it was better. I have practiced plaiting at home and I felt more confident in what I was doing, plus that I knew what's going to happen. Taylor gave me the step by step instructions and it was easier than first time. Unless like last week, today I've crimped the whole head first and it was better. I have also timed myself to see how much it will take at the assessment and I need about 50 minutes before to crimp the back section of the head and to section everything, leaving the front part crimping and plaiting for the exam. I have also added the spiral-pin pearls and I found adding them difficult at the beginning because they needed to be a bit loosen, but I've managed to stretch them a bit and now they're prepared for the assessment.  I feel confident about the assessment!
I just looove today's result!

Taylor practising my design - Week 6

We haven't got much time today to practice my full design because It took me long to practice her design. We didn't finish curling the hair and adding the extensions, even if we remained in the studio after the lesson about 1 hour and a half. But assuming that she has three weeks until her hair assessment, that's perfectly fine.

Taylor's first attempt was pretty good. I could see that she's struggling to do the best, and I really appreciated this. That means that she is motivated to practice and improve her skills to do a masterpiece. I didn't expect to look perfect from the first attempt because we haven't got the proper accessories needed to create it and neither the time. And, as I said in a previous post, this design in not one of the easiest. I really like how she modeled the plaits at the back and that she is really ambitious and willing to try several times to do something perfect.

The hair rat wasn't the good size. I have to make my own hair rat.

I think that we'll have to add extensions to cover the hair rat better, because my hair is really thin and there are patches of the hair rat showing. 

Practicing Taylor's design - Week 6

After Helen's lesson we exchanged our designs and to achieve the final hairstyle and we discussed them. We also wrote consultation notes, because we found this very important in order to maintain health and safety. We decided that I will go first in the assessments, which meant that I only had 2 weeks to practice the hair and the make-up designs that Taylor gave me. I thought that it's better to start practising today and it was a good idea because I realised that I still needed to improve my plaiting skills and my hair skills in general.
At the beginning, I didn't even know how to start, but Taylor's instructions helped me. After I've sectioned the hair, I tried to simple french plait, but it didn't work, because we couldn't achieve the volume wanted, to create something like a "crown effect" from those braids.
Another failed attepmt to give volume to the plaits from the front was to try the rick-racking technique. It worked to add volume indeed, but when I plaited it it just looked messy and we didn't like this finish either.
After failing these braids, I tried to crimp the braid that wasn't frizzed, to achieve volume just like in my design. This worked and it gave us a wonderful effect. To finish the french plait, I just plaited in in a simple three strand braid and rolled it above the ears, covering the rest of the hair, in something like a snail shell.
After finishing the braids, I've just crimped the whole hair in sections and backcombed a bit at the roots to give more volume.
I have to bear in mind that next time when I practise Taylor's design, to crimp the whole head first, to save time.

Here are Taylor's consultation notes:

Here is Taylor's design:

Step by step pictures:

First attempt to plait. Failed the "volume test".

Second attempt to plait. Rick-racking technique. Failed the "looks pretty test".

Third attempt to plait and "the chosen one". Crimping technique.

Another photo with the final result. Love it!

Although I love how it looked like in the end, I still feel like it needs more improvement, but that will come with practice.

Modern Elizabethan hairstyle - Week 5

For this design, again, I didn't draw the hairchart before. I was confident enough that for the modern hair task I will be inspired on the moment. But I've been so wrong, because I feel like I actually was so uninspired. In the end, I kinda liked the overall result, but I can't say that I was completely satisfied about it because I think that it somehow lost it's Elizabethan feel. I think that it turned up to be more like Geisha style rather than Elizabethan which is not what I desired. But as Sharon said at the beginning of this semester: "failure is a part of success". I wouldn't say that is a failure, but it's not what I really wanted and that's because I didn't design a haichart before so I can actually know exactly what I want to do. Now I really understand the importance of planning the designs and doing the haircharts. At least I've learned from my mistakes and in the future I'll know exactly what and why I have to plan ahead properly, rather than relying on the moment's inspiration. 

I have to start managing my time and priorities better, and to stop complaining in my head that I am unefficient sometimes just because I moved into another country. It is hard indeed, all these changes, from the school system to the way people are thinking (talking, eating, working, doing whatever), being away from my family and friends, sometimes get me so confused. But I have to be strong and face those so I can become better.

If I were to do this hairstyle again, I think I would add more texture and more volume to the hair. Maybe some crimping in the front and some curls at the back... but certainly I'd draw haircharts for it so I can be fully prepared.

Steps for creating this look:

1. Section the hair in 4 pieces. Leave the back pieces unpinned;
2. Add padding in two of the sections: the second and the third (you can know which is which if you count from the front to back). To make the hair rats more stable and to add volume, backcomb the hair and then roll it on the hair rat. Try to achieve a nice, round shape;
3. Style the front piece of hair in some sort of visor, just so the hair doesn't cover the forehead;
4. Section again the last piece of hair, the fourth one, in 4 sections. French plait the two sections in the middle and then roll the ones on the sides between the padded sections, so you can finish the look;
5. Pin everything that was not pinned before and add hairspray to set the hairstyle.

Thank you, lovely Lia, for being my gorgeous model. 

After the session I've drawn the design, just in case I'll need it in the future:

Historical Elizabethan hairstyle - Week 4

Today was a big day for me because it was the first time when I got to work on a real person's hair rather than on Kate head. My model was Fatima, who was brave enough to let me do her hair, even if I have warned her that it's my first time. Our theme was recreating an Elizabethan hairstyle using the techniques we have learnt last week (padding, frizzing, curling, backcombing etc).

 I wasn't so conscientious and I didn't do my design at home (I wanted to be but I had so much work to do this weekend) but I have improvised something considering Fatima's beautiful, long hair and that's what happened:

I am pretty pleased by my last-minute design, except the fact that I should have covered the holes I have created in her hair with something. I actually wanted to do so but I haven't got any idea of how could I do this so I just left it like that. 

Working on person felt quite uncomfortable at the beginning, but as I got used to it, it felt way better than I expected. I was surprised that, even if I'm a slow person, I have finished everything in just about 1 hour... maybe that's because I was really inspired by the pictures and portraits I have researched so far.

Our tutor, Helen, told me that she hasn't seen so many Elizabethan portraits where the sitter had plaits on the edges and this looks more modern than classic and that the hair color of the model helps me to achieve this look, but that's also fine and I shouldn't worry.

I think that next time I'll try to change a bit my design or draw it at home so I'll avoid any mistakes that can appear because I didn't think properly about the construction of the look.
Overall, everything went good today, even if I couldn't attend Sharon's seminar. In the morning I was feeling really bad because I have worked all the weekend and I couldn't get out of bed... I was upsed that I didn't attend even if I wanted to, but I will ask my colleagues and I hope I will catch up.

When I got home after the session I drew the historical design, so my work could be complete.

Padding and backcombing - Week 3

At today's technical lesson we were taught by Lottie how to pad the hair, how to make and insert hair rats, how to crimp using the hair crimper and how to backcomb the hair correctly. Also, we were familiarized with securing correctly the padded hair/the hair rat into a french plait using bobby pins. These techniques are ideal for creating the Elizabethan hairstyles or the modern inspired ones, but also to add volume to any hairstyle we want to create.
Photos of my work from the studio:

1. Crimping;

2. Setioning and backcombing the hair:

3. Creating a heart-shaped look using only backcombing to give volume or padding (hair rats). The bigger part was made just by backcombing, but it wasn't that stable as the smaller one in which I added a hair rat and I've french plaited the hair to set the hair rat in it.

Frizzing/rick-racking - Week 3

Today at we looked at images with Elizabethan and modern hairstyles and we discussed about them, about the technique that the hairstylists used to do the models hair that way, about what products and tools did they use and what we can use to achieve that look too. Helen showed us how to frizz and crimp the hair with a straightener and some hair pins and then we had to do the same on our Kate heads. This technique is called rick-racking and requires a lot of time and patience.
Here are just two photos of my finished look (Kate had her head tight back) because I forgot to take photos with the hair still in the pins:

Fortunately, I've found a whole story about the process of rick-racking and I thought that it could be useful to add some of the photos here, especially because I didn't take photos of my own process.

http://beautyblitz.com/little-art-history-little-stevie-nicks-oscar-de-la-renta