Evaluation

From the first lesson to the last, I have loved every wig lesson I have been to. Over the past year, and up until now, I have really gained a love for hair and everything about it. When I first started uni, my passion was special effects but I have grown and with that, my tastes and preferences have changed too. I'm truly over the moon that I got a place on this course this year. 

 I believe I have gained a lot of new skills from doing this sub-section course as it's something that's become a passion to me. I've learnt how to knot a moustache and how to create other facial features such as eyebrows, beards and sideburns. When signing up for this course, I was lead to believe that we would be making a full wig, so obviously I was naturally disappointed when we were told otherwise. However, after knotting, cutting, curling and styling one moustache, I've so glad and really understand as to why we didn't! Other skills I have gained include era hair techniques, how to work with synthetic and lace wigs, and also how to do a basic hair trim cut.  

Obviously there is always going to be room for improvements. However, I really believe that hair has been my strong point this year and I don't think I made many mistakes, without sounding big headed! I have learnt how to manipulate hair in a better way, to work quicker, and to also achieve a better outcome. The areas that I'm lacking in I think the most is learning to be firmer with the hair. I have been told I have gentle hands. 

Overall, I have enjoyed every aspect of this course. There has been nothing that I've not liked! Which is a first! I really feel comfortable working with hair and I can see myself following a career path in this area of work. Although I'm still not sure what I want to do with hair yet, this course has really helped me to decided. 

Contemporary Evaluation

Friday just gone, I completed my contemporary part of my unit. Overall, I believe it actually went really well. I think that doing the styling of the wig straight before placing it on my models hair helped with keeping the height, shape and volume of the mohawk at the desired way that I wanted it. Because it wasn't as elaborate as my historical wig, it didn't need as much product so the hair looked softer. 

I'm so pleased with how well my hair help up with the height over a wider base, going into a slight point at the top. The curls came out so close to perfect and I believe I created the plait neatly. Although you couldn't see them, the pin curls were tight against the head and anchored well for the grips when holding the wig in place. Here is a short video of my wig when on the head stand. 

Assessment - Contemporary

Today was the contemporary part of my assessment for the wig unit. So I decided to incorporate curls and plaits into my hair, as you can see from the prep work that I did. Obviously this time for the assessment, I created the look in the lesson instead of doing the styling out of lesson. So I found that I gave myself a lot less time to get the wig on my models head and sort it all out to also have time to fit in make-up too. 

Here are a few images of the process of putting the wig on the model and last minute styling bits;

Like you always do when placing a wig on someone's head, you put the whole head in pin curls and then place a wig cap over top and then secure that in place with grips. Unfortunately, I forgot to get pictures of this, but I can assure you that it was as tight as what I normally do. With this look, I was able to create it all on my head stand so I could put it straight on my model and then shoot, unlike my historical where I had to leave some down so I could measure it up properly when it was on my models head. This made it all a quicker process for me. I then went on to do my models make-up with dark lips and slightly pale face. I found that I didn't have enough time to spend trying to get the eye liner on point and the same as eachother so I decided not to do it at all to save me some stress. 

Overall, I'm so happy with how this look came out. It had volume and height in the front, just like I wanted it to and it curled perfectly. Like always, there were a few time where I started to get frustrated when styling the wig but whatever came in my way, I managed to tackle it and sort it out. Here are the final outcome look of my contemporary wig assessment;

Contemporary Punk Prep

For the contemporary aspect of this assessment, I chose to create a mohawk-plait hybrid hairstyle. Again, like my historical hairstyle, I had to do all the prep work before the actual lesson. I was able to style the wig in lesson, but the steaming and rollers had to be done before so I had enough time for it to set and dry completely before lesson.  

I started setting my wig by placing in the rollers to the hair. I sectioned off the hair with a pin tail comb, so you could see where the mohawk was going to go. Unlike my historical style, I used more than just one roller going down the middle. I actually split it in to two next to eachother so it could have a larger and fuller front. I also used two different sized rollers in the mohawk section to make it fuller in random areas so it wasn't neat. This was also due to the fact that I want to incorporate curls more into this look, and this will help to get the curls. 

As I wanted only the mohawk part of the hair in rollers, I needed to straighten the rest of the hair. Obviously a wig can only take up to a certain degree of heat, and most straighteners, you can't adjust the heat. This meant that I had to straighten the hair on the sides of my wig with a brush and the steamer. As you can guess, this was a long and repetitive process but it think it worked well. 

Once everything was dry, I was able to take the rollers out. This is what I did in lesson. I started on my wig by sectioning away the side parts of the wig so I could concentrate on just the mohawk section of the hair. 

Mohawks are all about height, obviously, so this is what I worked on next. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures when doing this, as I was concentrating so much! So I can't show my process of this part of the hair. However, I can still tell you. I started by removing all the rollers from the wig and backcombing at the roots to get a good strong hold for the mohawk. Where there were two rollers at the front of the wig, I grouped them together and backcombed them as one so it blended better. I only did this with the top section so it could hold the height to resemble a mohawk. For the back section of the mohawk, I entwined the bottom half and also the straight side sections of the hair. I started this by pulling the side hair tight inwards towards the mohawk and pinned it in place. I then went on to French plait the rest of the hair into it at the bottom. 

When I looked at the work that I created, I thought there was something that wasn't just right with this hairstyle. I think it was because you could see the hair band and end of the hair at the bottom of the French plait. So I decided to take it up and turn it on itself, and I much preferred the outcome of it. 

Contemporary Hair Chart

As I said before, I was unsure as to which hair chart idea to create for my contemporary assessment for this unit. After talking to Lottie about which out of the three before that I wanted to create, we decided that none were really suitable. My first idea, like I previously said, wouldn't look good on a wig as you would see all the connections. My second and third idea looked good and would work, however, Lottie and myself both believed that they look more like contemporary Victory Rolls compared to contemporary Punk. So I was back to square one.

After looking around on the internet a bit, I happened to come across this picture...

This was exactly what I wanted to create! So I made my own hair chart with this image as the inspiration, there were a few things I wanted to change..

This is my hair chart for my contemporary Punk hair chart. I really like it as you can see the modern aspects in it. I Can't wait to make this creation and see how it turns out.


Encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com,. N.p., 2015. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.

Historical Evaluation

On Friday, I had my historical assessment part of my unit. Overall, I think it went well and I managed to do everything in the time that I needed. I believe that my pin curls, and wig cap looked professional and neat. They also worked well for the anchoring section, so they must have been in well and tight. I only had a slight problem with my wig, and that was that it didn't 100% fit my model properly. Obviously, it's not made for her, so it wont fit properly but with the hair being up, you were able to see a slight bit of the wig cap underneath it all. This did annoy me and made me a little frustrated.

 

I'm so pleased with how well I prepped the hair for this assessment because I was so scared that if I left it over night, it wouldn't hold it's height and shape leaving it to all just drop out! Thankfully, this didn't happen at all! Apart from a little right at the very end and underneath. I tackled these by added hair grips into the head to make it hold it's up in the loose bits and also to get the hair to link and flow more naturally. Just to show how well my wig held it's shape, here the video my model took of the moving around.

 

 

Assessment - Historical

Today we had to create our historical hair look in lesson. This was with our synthetic wigs that we chose ourselves. Due to my historical idea being very time consuming, I started creating my look out of lesson in my free time so when it came to the actual lesson, I could do the last minute bits.

 

I chose PUNK for my look and for the historical side to it, I decided to create a straight up mohawk. This was so much harder than I thought it would be! There was alot of hair on my wigs head, so that means that it would all need to mould into an upwards motion. Most mohawks that were created in the 70s/80s would have shaved sides of the head so the hair in the middle would be a lot sleeker and straight up. This was not possible at all with a wig.

 

As I did majority of the work out of lesson, there wasn't much to do in lesson other than place my partners hair into pin curls, put on a wig cap and also finish off the wig itself, just the finishing touches and making it neater.  Here are a few photos of how it went;

 

 

As you can see, I did the pin curls & wig cap tightly against the head to secure steady anchors of hair. I had to leave hair down at the sides by the temples until I placed the wig onto the models head. I could then see how much slack I needed so it wouldn't show the wig as obviously. I then had to remove all the grips that were securing my hair in place over night. Once taking them out, I then sprayed the whole head with hairspray and smoothed it up with my hands to get a sleeker finish. Although I found out this wasn't too easy as it's hard to create a smooth finish with so much backcombing in the hair to keep it up. I then did the model with pale skin, dark liner & dark lips to resemble a punk like look.

 

Overall, I'm really pleased with how this look came out. It's held up it's shape well and didn't slack much at all. I did get slightly frustrated as the wig doesn't fit my model 100% and you can slightly see the cap but it looked good in the end. The white background photos came out clearer to see the full aspect of the hair along with volume and height, but the black background images gave an all over better quality image.

 



Historical Punk Prep

For the historical aspect of this assessment, I chose to do a typical, central full head mohawk. Obviously with there being a lot of hair, I had to do some before prep so I had enough time in lesson. Back in the 70s, people would shave the sides of their heads off so it would just be a line in the middle of the head. Working with a wig, you can't really do that for obvious reasons.

 

I started creating this by placing 3 different sized plastic rollers on to the head in the desired position to create the right roll and then steam them with a whole pot of steam until wet. You then need to leave it to dry and set for a couple of days. I placed the orange rollers, the smallest, down the centre of the head in a line and it was rolled away from the face to create an uplift momentum. This is be the main height of the mohawk. The pink rollers were going horizontally down the line of orange and are rolled in towards the orange rollers. The red rollers are the largest and I didn't want to use too many as them bits of the hair didn't need to be rolled, but I needed the momentum of the curl to get the hair to lift in the right way.

 

 

Once everything was dry, I had to take out all the rollers. I was so happy to see that my wig actually curled properly! I was so scared it wasn't going to! Once all the hair was out, it looked like this;

 

 

I loved these curls and didn't want to brush them out, but I had to. Once brushing it, you could see that the hair took well to the curls and manipulated in the right manner. You could also see the cut that I did on my wig too. I was proud of this because it's something I've never done before, I picked it up quickly and really enjoyed doing it. After this, I noticed that the hair created a shape similar to the Marcel Wave, 1920/1930. So within this, I learnt how to create another technique.

 

 

After all that, I had to create the main height to the hair, this was done with a lot of backcombing and nearly a whole tin of hairspray! Here the process of how it looked;

 

 

As you can see as it goes on, it's going more from a square point shape to a straighter fan shape. I then had to gradually add more hair to the point in the middle by backcombing and hairspray again whilst using my hands in an upwards motion. This started to get really hard as gravity kicked in and started to way down the hair the more I added into it.

 

 

I supported the hair in place with grips at the ends to hold together the smaller side parts. Looking at the hair now, I can see that the bottom section of the hair is dropping too much, but I believe this is something that I sorted out in the actual assessment.