1950′s hair – ‘The Roll’

Last night I got out my fake lashes, red lippy, big hair and went all movie themed to Rockabilly Rebels at The Bathhouse. Every time I put my hair up like this I get asked at least once ‘How do you do that’? (or in the case of last night 3 times) So I’ve decided to do a little ‘how to’ for everyone who has ever wanted to try it because its actually super easy. That is its super easy as long as you get one of these:

Don’t what you actually call this but basically its a foam roll with a snap on the end. You can buy one from Boots for around £5. They are super useful and can be used to create all kinds of fun hairstyles, including a 50′s roll. Traditionalists call this cheating as there is a way to do a 50s roll without one but I’m not a traditionalist and I don’t have that kind of time!

First off a few things to note. This will be a lot easier with slightly dirty hair. I realize that sounds kind of gross but fresh washed hair just slides around to much. So ‘day old’ hair is best. Also you don’t need to have a super long fringe to do this either, it just needs to be long enough to go around the foam roll once really. Ok? Great, here we go:

Separate the front section of your hair. Go fairly far back on your head. Brush this part forward and tie the rest of your hair back in a low ponytail. Spray the front section with dry shampoo if your worried your ‘day old’ hair will look greasy.

Next hold up the front section, spray with hairspray, and back comb a little. Only do a little, its just to give your hair a bit of thickness and volume so it looks fuller in the roll. Now hold your hair out in front bringing the ends together. Take your foam roll and twist the ends of your hair around the roll once as shown.

Next using your fingers to tightly tuck the hair as you go roll the foam roll up to your forehead. Make sure you tilt your head forward as you do this otherwise you will gent a weird bump in the top of your fake fringe.

Once your at the top you should have a tight roll with the ends of the foam roll sticking out the sides. Now use your fingers to gently pull the hair along the outside edges of the roll as you pull the roll back into a ‘U’ shape. Then take Bobby pins aka Kurby grips and pin the sides. The roll is foam so you can put the pins straight into it.

Then put a few pins across the top to keep the shape. After that it will just take a few more pins and some fiddling to make sure the whole foam roll is hidden by your hair. Now you can do what ever you like with the rest of your hair. Add flowers, bows, a Rosie the Riveter style hair scarf, anything you can think of!

You can this work look a number of other ways. Copying Racheal the Replicant from Blade Runner would look very modern if you paired the look with the exaggerated shoulders showing up on all the catwalks/high streets. In fact think I might have to try that next.