A girly-girl day of hair styling!

This morning was a very girly-girl morning.  My husband fled quickly to "escape the estrogen" (these are his words), because the Jane Austen Sewing Society, as we call it, met at my house this morning.  But, instead of doing any sewing, we decided to have a "dress rehearsal" of sorts.  You see, in July, when we went to the Jane Austen Festival, we found that it took two or three times longer to get dress in 1790's garb than it did in our modern get-ups.  Resulting in not a few of us running late for the festival.  Maybe we just aren't practiced enough, or maybe it really did take take ladies and gentlemen of the era hours to get ready....we don't know, but we are betting it is a little bit of both.

So, this morning, we decided to practice.  From 10am until nearly 2pm, we snacked on junk food like Oreo's and Combos, drank coffee and Tab.  And played dress up!

The funny thing is (or maybe it's not so funny), during all of those hours, we didn't even get close to trying on any clothing....the entire time we were submerged in styling our hair!

Maybe we need another dress rehearsal!

Oh, well, it was a blast anyway....and I would like to share with you the fruits of our labor.

Kathleen was the only one of us that has the perfect, naturally curly hair required for the 1790's hair style.  All we really had to do was add a ribbon and pin a few locks up.

First we sectioned off the hair, letting some hang forward around the face, and some temporarily piled on top of the head out of the way.  We tied some silk ribbon around her head, and then knotted it at the base of the head, and pinned it in place.

We pulled some of the front-side hair over the ribbon, and pinned it in the back.  Then, took a little of the back-top hair and created a small bun-like roll at the crown of her head.  This was to give her hair some height.

Finally, we pulled up more pieces of hair and draped them over the little bun we put up earlier, creating a lovely "puffy" effect. 

We made sure to leave some "love-locks" hanging down in the back.

Here's the lovely result of Kathleen's hair-style.

Next....we move on to me.  I've done my hair in a 1790's fashion before, using pin curls HERE.  So, I did it a bit different this time.

This time, I used rats to give my hair some volume.  I pinned them to the crown of my head, parted my hair and added a ribbon just like Kathleen's hair.

Then, with the help of a few of the ladies, they covered the rats with some of my real hair.

They used a curling iron to make my hair a twisted mess.

They added another band of silk ribbon....

...and started pinning little curls back over the ribbon and up from the back.

Here are the results of my hair-style.  (It feels kind of weird to me to be wearing modern clothing with this hair-do.)

Next, we moved on to my friend Laura.  She has naturally straight hair, and it's cut short in a bob.  So we thought we had our work cut out for us with her...but it wasn't as hard as it seemed.

We just added fake hair.

One of us bought some strips of fake hair, but it was straight.  So, to make it curly, Laura wrapped a section of the hair around a dowel rod, and boiled it in water for 30 seconds.  Then, she took the hair off the dowel rod and dried it with a blow dryer.

The next step was to put a section of her hair up into a small pony tail, and attach a piece of fake hair already sewn into a clip.

Here it is attached to her hair.

Then, we wrapped a scarf around her hair twice, pinned it in place... 

and used a curling iron to curl the short front and back bits of Laura's hair.

Finally, we pinned some of the short bits of Laura's hair over the scarf....as well as pinning some of the fake hair up and over the top and sides of her hair.

Here is the final result of Laura's hair-style.

Last, but certainly not least, we moved on to Natalie.  She has short hair just like Laura, so she used artificial hair locks and hair clips too.

We added a ribbon, and used a curling iron... (At times it felt as if an octopus was working on our hair!)

Pinned some of the front pieces in a drapery fashion over the sides...

...added another ribbon and pinned up the back.  The second ribbon was really important, because it held-up the short back bottom pieces of hair.

Finally, Natalie added a couple of "love-lock" from the artificial hair and her look was complete!

And, here we are, after a day of girly fun!  No outfits on, but hair done and ready for the next ball! (I'm playing around with Natalie's hat!)  It was a ton of fun!

There really isn't a method to all of this 1790's hair madness.  Basically, you need lots of curly hair, and some way to get volume to the top of your hair.  Other than that....lots of bobby-pins and hairspray....and you're good to go!

*I'm sorry if some of the pictures are small and grainy looking.....I didn't have time to upload them the good way.  There are over 60 pictures of our fun morning!  If you want a clearer look at them, please visit my photo bucket file!* http://s942.photobucket.com/albums/ad262/oriane0654/1790s%20Hair%20Styles/