Historical Hair: The Little Dorrit Wedding Hairstyle Tutorial!!

Dear Bloggeresses Who Have Hair and Love Period Dramas and Have Been Waiting An Age For Another Tutorial:

Here is the moment you've been waiting for!!! Yes, I know I did a whole big "There will be lots of new tutorials on this blog and which ones do you want?!" You may have been wondering if all my sisters-who-act-as-my-models-and-victims had contracted Scarlet Fever and lost all their hair. ;) But truly, I have had no time to dabble in fun historical-hair styling this summer. Until today.

Eeep! I had to let that out because this style turned out so amazingly more beautiful than I imagined, and that's a bit of an exciting event to a girl who loves to succeed in her hair-ventures. :D So with great pleasure I introduce: "The Little Dorrit Wedding Hairstyle Tutorial". As usual I will illustrate the direction with pictures that I hope are pretty clear. :)

We begin.

Step One:

Curl the hair. Usually I would set the hair in bandana waves (which I explained how to do here) but in interest of time I used a curling iron. Ahem. :P The front of this hairstyle is supposed to be loose and a little wavy, so I just curled a bit of Sarah's front hair to get some volume and wave going. After you curl the hair, or take it out of the bandanas, finger through the curls.

Step Two:

Gently French-braid the hair on one side of the head, until you get to the back. Clip in place temporarily while you work on the other side. :)

Sarah's hair on the left side, and below you will see it on the right side. And look at those lovely sun-kissed streaks! That, dear ladies, is not something that you can get with a chemical dye! That's called one of the bonuses of spending your life out in the garden! :D

Step Three:Finger through the French-braids, loosening the pieces of it and making it pouf a little. :) See? At this point both sides are clipped back temporarily so you can arrange the front. :)

Another shot where she was playing dramatic "hair-model"... :D

Step Four:

This may be the trickiest part of the style, merely because it would be nice to have an extra hand holding all this hair. :) But all you have to do is unclip the French-braids, gather them into your hand with the left-over hair, and make a short, regular braid. Pull the braid a little bit toward the left side so that it falls a bit over your shoulder.

You can see it more from the left side below...

Step Five:

As hair-bands are entirely *un*historic, you may take a section of the hair beneath the band and wrap the strand around the hair-band, and pin it in place, or tie it in a loose knot, if that's more convenient. :)

Step Six:

Using small pieces, curl the ends of the hair with a curling iron. I alternated curling the hair under and over so that the curls would look interesting. :) If your hair doesn't take kindly to staying curled, spray some hair-goo over it. :)

Step Seven:

Add some flowers down the left side, and a couple near the bottom of the braid. :) I used the sweetest little red rosebuds with charming effect. :)

And voila! You have completed the not-so-complicated Little Dorrit Wedding Hairstyle!! :) Here are some of the "Victory-shots" ;)

(Next time I would like the hair a little wavier, and perhaps a bit more French in the French-braid, but it's still lovely. :)

*GAH!* Isn't it simply beautiful?!? I was surprised at how gorgeous it turned out! Especially with the red roses. :) This style is perfect for a 1800's ball, a wedding, or any other special occasion when some timeless elegance is required! :) I hope you enjoyed this hair-tutorial, and that you found the directions clear enough. Tell me what you think? Do you have any suggestions for following historical-hair tutorials? And as always, would you like me to do more of these how-tos?

~Rachel

Then and Now

I always find it terribly funny to compare things in our generation, to things in the 1800's. There are some very amusing differences if you stop to think about it. Some people have the impression that things were so much more moderate back then, but alot of things are more moderate still now! :) Here are some of the things that have made me laugh:

In the eighteen hundreds, you scandalized folks if you were climbing into your carriage and showed an ankle. (Now? Well, I am sorry to say it, but "people" aren't scandalized by much.)

The regular dinner hour for fashionable society was not till 8 or 9 o'clock p.m. (Now? 5-6 p.m.)

There were "Cinderella balls" that went till midnight for young ladies, and then grown-up balls often stopped dancing only at 4 a.m.! (Now? Well, in our circles, we just about turn into pumpkins or shrivel up and die if we aren't home from something by 10:30 or 11:00!)

If someone died, the women in the house wore mourning clothes for at least a year or two. i.e. dark blues, blacks, and purples at the brightest. (Now? Well....people try to wear black on the day of the funereal! :)

A women, during the last month or so of her pregnancy went into "confinement", in which she never went out, and very seldom received visitors. (Now? Well, Mama was in the mall a few hours before Daniel was born! :)

Rich people in America spent the summers up North and the winters down South, and chose leisurely where they went. (Now? Well, I can't tell you the last time we went on a family vacation that was anywhere close to even "out of state". Actually, I think it was CA 8 years ago.... but then...we aren't rich so that evens out.)

Very few people were homeschooled- public school was the mania. (Now? It is sort of the same but thankfully I now dare to say: "Move over yellow school-bus! The fifteen-passenger is barging through!" ;)

There were two very, very distinct "classes" as many of you already know. (Now? Well, let's just say that I don't think any young man shall inquire how much my annuity is worth, and whether I come from "gentry" before he'll ask to court me, or whether my father made his "fortune" in trade, or did he "come by it honestly", which after all, simply means that he inherited it? ;)

Women prized long, flowing hair and wore fake hair to achieve the idea. (Now? Um....how many of you have seen women with spikes and buzz-cuts?)

The idea of a "beauty" in the eighteen hundreds was a young lady with a round face, creamy skin, little hands and feet, and a bit plump, so that they perfectly achieved the classic "hourglass" shape with only the help of a whale-bone and steel-reinforced corset. (Now? Grrr.... super tall, super skinny, super blond, super tanned.....very coarse and unfeminine. I despise the modern look I see all over the place!!! It angers me to see women so mistaking the natural beauty the Lord has blessed them with! I totally missed my era as far as this topic goes! :)

The new "moter-car" was reputed to fly along at the dizzying rate of 8 miles an hour! (Now? Hee-hee. Anyone ever heard of Daytona 500? Wait. That is racing right? I've never been into that, but it seemed a good analogy! :)

See what I mean? I love the 1800's!!!! But I also love my life today, at least in the family I have been blessed with! :) Yay for history! -Rachel

In Which I Nanny a Calf and Sing to a Captive Audience ;)

Hello to Everyone out there whose hands are as cold as mine right now! (And even those of you who are warm! :) Do any of you people have New Year's Eve plans? We are going to have a family over and they shall most probably stay till midnight! Daniel and I just got back from buying feed. I sound very important. Go ahead and grin all you Alexanders and Wilsons and Graham Donahue when I tell you all that we made the trip for a solitary bag of layer pellets for our hens! On the way Daniel and I stopped to try to herd a calf back into a fence area as it was out and near the road a bit. We didn't want to "pull an Anne Shirley" as Abigail stated, so Daniel went to the house down the road to alert the people, and I stood there: the sole object of interest to 30 big black cows. The calf ignored me entirely, though it was a bit nervous it seemed. As the beasties moved ever nearer the fence,I started singing a song half to myself, half to the cows if they were listening, all the while musing whether they would charge the fence. All the tales of stampedes and gorings I ever heard knocked on the door of my mind but I didn't let them in! So like I said I began singing since I didn't have anything better to do! I assure you, after standing in the cold air for 15 minutes with an enraptured audience listening to my renditions of "Cockles And Mussels", "Danny Boy" and "Scarborough Fair", (and yes, in the cold air, trying to keep from shivering, my voice cracked on a high note in case you were wondering!) I was ready to get back in the warm car. While singing I hoped no hunters were hidden in the woods listening to me standing there with only a shawl to keep me warm, my hands clasped behind my back, rocking back and forth on my toes while I sang to cows.... I think they'd have labled me "eccentric". Daniel told me that the poeple weren't home in either of the houses to which the calf might belong, and the woman in the third house said the cows didn't belong to those people anyhow, so she called the guy who it really belongs to. We continued onto the feed store.
So now we are home and I am writing this to entertain you all. I really need a way to have a reliable income of money so Mama has challenged me to make a business plan. Please pray that I would have inspiration in my business endeavors! Have a very happy new year everyone! Oooo! I realized that if I keep saying "two thousand and ten" as I have been practicing, it will sound every bit as old-fashioned as the people who used to say, "eighteen-hundred and sixty-four"!! Isn't that cool? I hope I don't offend anyone by stating that I think "20-ten" falls in the category with "dude", "Sweet", "Yo!" and every other manner of slang. I abhor it! ;)
Almost in the year of our Lord two-thousand and ten!
-Rachel