Before you can do any eighteenth-century hairstyle, you have to prep your hair with pomade and powder. Over the years, we’ve found that people often get confused about how much pomade and powder they should apply, and while there isn’t a straight answer to that, because it totally depends on your hair type and texture, we want to show you an example of well pomaded and powdered hair.
• Comb
• Hair clips
• Common Pomatum or Mareschal Pomatum
• Powder applicator (kabuki brush or swansdown puff)
1. Comb the hair to free it of any knots or tangles, and then part the hair into easy-to-manage sections. Clip the sections to hold them out of the way.
2. Scrape the back of your thumb to get about a nickel- to quarter-size amount of pomatum on your hands. Rub your hands together to melt the pomade, and begin working it from roots to ends of your first section. You’ll want the hair to look like it’s been towel-dried from a shower, but not dripping wet.
3. Take your powder applicator and dunk it into your hair powder, and as with the pomade, apply it from root to end of the hair section. Make sure that you’ve gotten everything covered in hair powder. Trust us, you don’t want a ‘damp’ spot on the back of the head—it doesn’t look cute. Keep applying powder until the section is powdered to your satisfaction.
4. Comb the section to make sure that everything is well blended, and add some more pomade and powder if you have any dry ends, missed spots, etc.
5. Continue steps 1 through 4 on the rest of the hair until you have a gorgeous lion’s mane of pomaded and powdered hair. Run a wide-tooth comb through the hair one more time to make sure everything is blended and tangle-free.