DIFFICULTY: MEDIUM TO HARD
HAIR LENGTH: SHOULDER-LENGTH OR LONGER IN THE BACK BUT YOU CAN HAVE LONG BANGS AND LAYERS FOR THE FRONT
Because our model, Jenny, is Chinese, we’ve done some things differently to accommodate her hair type. While her hair is gorgeous and shiny, it also has a lot of breakage and flyaways. We researched the traditional tools and products used to create the similarly sculptural hair of the geiko and maiko in Japan, and used a comb made of tsuge wood (boxwood) because of how it helps keep the hair smooth. [4] While we did powder and pomade Jenny’s hair, we opted for a light powder application, knowing that we were going to add more pomade later. This is a style best suited to long hair, particularly in the back. The ski slope cushion is quite large, so be sure to size it according to your hair length. Additionally, this is a great project with which to use a profusion of false buckles.
• Large powder brush
• Rattail comb
• Tsuge wood (boxwood) comb
• Alligator hair clips
• Hairpins (short & long)
• 1 small hair elastic
• 6–9 fake buckles
• Bobby or roller pins (optional)
• Pouf
• Feathers
DRESSING THE HAIR OVER THE MOUNTAIN
1. Pomade and powder the hair per, until it is the desired texture. For Jenny’s hair, we opted to use the Mareschal Pomatum instead of the Common Pomatum because of the additional beeswax in it. The extra beeswax helped “stick” her hair together and prevent even more flyaways.
2. Find the apex of the scalp and comb your hair forward. You’ll temporarily look like Cousin Itt. [5]
3. Pin the cushion onto the scalp as shown (see here for more instructions) with small hairpins until the cushion is secured to the scalp. It doesn’t have to be super tight, as pinning the hair to and around the cushion will help keep it in place.
4. Starting with the front, comb the hair smooth into your hands, keeping tension between your fingers. You might want to run hard pomatum over the hair and comb it through a few times to help keep the hair smooth and together. Keeping the hair taut between the fingers, bring the hair up and over the cushion, into the hole of the ski slope. Pin the hair into place inside the cushion. Don’t worry if there is extra hair at the end, we’re going to hide that with the pouf.
5. Continue combing, smoothing and pinning around the front half of the cushion. Pin the hair securely so the cushion does not wander around the head. You can pin into the cushion and underneath it, to make sure it is secure and comfortable.
6. Separate the back of the hair out into two sections: the part that goes into the ski slope and the chignon. Part the hair as shown, so you have enough to do both sections of the hairstyle, and clip the chignon out of the way using alligator hair clips. If you have very fine, thin hair, and are worried your chignon is going to look scrawny, this would be a good time to use your false chignon from here.
7. Finish covering the ski slope per the previous steps, making sure that the hair covers the cushion evenly and that you have no gaps or holes.
8. At the top of the cushion, coil up the excess hair and tuck it down into the hole, pinning to secure.
9. For Jenny’s hair we decided to do a simple braid, but you can do different options (for examples, see here and here). Once braided, pull the chignon up to where you like it, and pin it into place. We pulled ours up fairly high, so we could hide the ends of the chignon under the pouf.
10. Buckles are next, and for this hairstyle, you definitely need fake ones (see here). This makes life so much easier, and you just can’t achieve buckles in this configuration unless you’re using fake ones. Pin the lowest buckles in first, using hairpins, roller pins or bobby pins—whatever works best for your hair. Next, arrange the other 2 to 3 buckles on the cushion in your desired arrangement. Pin the buckles directly into the cushion using a couple hairpins. See how easy that was? Hooray!
11. Alright, now it’s time for the final smoothing. Warm up some mareschal pomatum between your hands and very lightly smooth the hair. This is just to get any flyaways to stick to the hair. If you have any particular unruly bits, do your best to carefully pin them in place to the cushion.
12. Now, let’s powder the hair. With Jenny’s hair type, brushing or fluffing the hair with powder caused her flyaways to break as free as from a Lynyrd Skynyrd song. [6] So, we took a salon-grade dry shampoo product with a jazzy pump applicator, dumped out the dry shampoo and filled it with our eighteenth-century hair powder. Then we used it as a modern bellows and lightly puffed powder all over Jenny’s finished ’do. The result was powdered finish with minimal flyaways.
That wasn’t so bad, was it? Now it’s time to decorate the Coiffure Ski Alpin hair! The flat top of this style makes a perfect stage for the pouf. Also feel free to stack on your ostrich plumes. There is no limit to the creativity and fun to be had with this fantastical late 1770s hairstyle.
