Avant Garde Hairstyles for a Vintage Christmas

I do hair and makeup in the photo industry and send a card to all the photographers, clients, etc. that I have each holiday season. I normally just purchase a card that has something to do with the industry on the front. One year was a cartoon of a beauty shop, with Santa, Mrs. and the reindeer getting primped and sitting under hairdryers. Last year I bought a card that had this image on the front.And it inspired me to style my own image for the holidays this year.

But before I get into that, I wanted to share this image from http://rosescarlett.blogspot.com/

Nikki, a fellow hairstylist with a passion for the past, did this hairstyle on herself for a holiday party. She explains that she used a styrofoam cone and formed her own hair around it.

Thanks for sharing Nikki! I think I know what my card next year will be.

And now onto my card this year. Let me preface by saying that working with wigs is not my expertise and I was on a budget to collect all the props and wardrobe and styling stuff. I am use to working with hair that is attached and curling iron friendly. Extensions, I can handle. Minor styling of wigs…no problem. What I did here was my first attempt at actually creating a wig.

It was so much fun and I am looking forward to doing more of this kind of stuff in the future! A little more practice and trial and error and I think I will be able to create some pretty outrageous stuff. And I will of course share it with you!

This is the card image for this year.

And on to the how it all happened. My supplies were a cheap long synthetic white wig from a costume shop and red extensions I got online, InnerFuse, which is an iron in stabilizing material at any sewing shop, white fabric to cover the InnerFuse, a couple pieces of elastic, various pomades and hairsprays to keep everything together, a stapler and hairpins.

To save money on extensions, I actually cut out some of the wefts at the back of the white wig. This wig is only going to be seen from the front in the picture, so I was not concerned about what it would look from from the back. Because of this, this was the perfect project for me who is just learning to craft this stuff. It would have cost me twice as much and taken twice the time to create something seen from all angles. But because of what I went through, I now have a lot of ideas on how to create something that can be seen from all angles.

I used the InnerFuse to create a base for the beehive/fez top. I like the InnerFuse because it is soft enough to get a sewing needle or staple thru it.

This is the mess I created in the back. Again, thank goodness it is just for a picture! The ends of the hair are actually stapled to the base. In a perfect world I would have hair pieces long enough to get all the way around and camouflage the back side. But my world is not always perfect, just good enough sometimes.

The rest of the white wig is cut to a cute length and wet rolled in velcro rollers for a couple days to get some bend. Yeah!