Hello darlings!
This is the third and final part to my Georgian hairstyling series. I've already made up the supplies and pre-styled some buckle rolls- now I'm going to try out the Coiffure Française!
As with the previous posts, I'm going to skim over the details. If you would like to try out the Coiffure Française yourself, please purchase American Duchess' book!
Before I get to hairstyling, I need to make some papillote papers (it will become obvious what they're used for later). Luckily, I already had some plain tissue paper in my stash.
I made a rectangle, then cut it into triangles.
And that's papillote papers already prepped (say that three times fast!). Before I get into the hairstyle itself, I'll show you my hair and what I'm working with.
I currently have very long hair that's very straight (the kinks in it are from plaiting it to get it out of the way!). I've been told by various hairdressers over the years that I have very fine hair but a lot of it.
I separated my hair into sections in preparation for pomading.
AD recommends scraping a 'nickel- to quarter- size amount of pomatum'; as a Brit, not 100% sure what that means, but I can make an educated guess!
I found that with my hair, a tiny amount of pomatum went a long way!
I continued through each section until all of my hair was pomaded.
AD says that the hair should look 'towel-dried... but not dripping wet.'
With all of your hair thoroughly pomaded, now the hair powder can be added!
In the list of supplies, AD suggests using a kabuki brush or swansdown puff to apply the powder. As you can see, I'm using a kabuki brush.
In this image you can see the difference between the left and the right; the left is just pomaded and the right is pomaded and powdered.
Continue powdering the rest of the hair, making sure to get every spot; as AD says, 'you don't want a 'damp' spot on the back of your head- it doesn't look cute.'
Now my hair is fully prepped for styling!
It was an interesting experiment. My hair definitely had a different texture to it, and that was quite exciting- my hair is generally very resistant to styling, it's so straight and untextured that any attempt at pinning or curling tends to fall out over time. But after prepping my hair like this I got quite hopeful that my hair might actually take to it; I'll definitely have to try some other styles after prepping my hair in this manner!
Continuing with the tutorial, now is the time for the papillote papers to make their appearance.
For this hairstyle, AD recommends 'bangs or face-framing layers'. Part of the reason why I picked this hairstyle was because I have a fringe (I hate the term 'bangs'). Taking a small section of your fringe or layers, twist it until it curls in on itself.
Then wrap the papillote papers around it.
There's a skill to folding papillote papers, and in their book AD has a very clear illustration on how to do this.
Once the papillote paper is secured, press it with a flat iron.
Then continue to do this with the rest of the fringe.
By the fourth or fifth time it felt as though I was just getting the hang of folding the papillote papers!
AD suggests pressing each papillote with the flat iron a couple of times before releasing the paper.
Voila! I feel a little like an extra on Grease or some other 80s-pseudo-50s film!
(I can actually see this working quite nicely on a Victorian style with curly bangs.)
Now we can move on to the rest of the hair. Separate the hair into a top and bottom section.
Tie away the bottom section and keep it out of the way for now. Divide the top part into 1" sections. Take the first section and backcomb it a little.
Using a curling tong, curl the first section upwards. I'm using a 19mm curler (the same curler I used to make my buckles).
Once the bottom is curled, use something to roll the hair up; AD suggests a large knitting needle, I'm using a foam wet-set roller.
(A little victory-roll-esque?)
Weave a U-shaped hairpin through the roll, threading it up and down to secure it thoroughly in place. In doing this, also use the hairpin to catch some of the front curls so they'll 'blend' into the rolls.
Several attempts later, one half done!
Continue around the whole top head of hair.
The finished front hairstyle is super cute!
Now to deal with the back.
I pulled the hair up and pinned it.
Separate the leftover tail into sections (I'm doing three).
Using the tail, make some more rolls.
You can use these rolls to cover the pins used to pin the tail upwards.
Now that I'm looking at the pictures, I can see that I didn't 100% cover the pins- if I were to take this hairstyle outside, I could use some of my pre-made buckle rolls to cover the pins properly!
And voila! The finished Coiffure Française!
This hairstyle took me around two and a half hours to complete, with several breaks included in that time. I usually find hairstyling a massively frustrating experience, but after pomading and powdering my hair and following the very clear instructions from the AD book, I actually rather liked doing this!
Have you got the American Duchess book? Have you tried out any of the hairstyles? Let me know in the comments below!
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I hope you've enjoyed my three-part Georgian hairstyle series! If you would like me to do something similar in the future do let me know!
Until next time,
Aisha x