Authentic 18th Century Style, Part 2

This is the hairstyle I wear for my colonial persona, Thomas Jefferson’s daughter Martha “Patsy” Jefferson.

When I was doing research for this style, it took me a while to figure out how it was done. My mom looked at some of the images and said “Honey, it’s a wig. Not even that, it’s a painting of a wig. It isn’t possible in real life.” After many failed attempts, I finally figured out how to replicate what I was seeing in those old paintings. The first time I wore this style, several people commented with “Nice wig!” I guess I did something right!

If you want to use pin rolls to curl your hair, and you don’t mind how they look while drying, I would do the same basic technique as this style. I would, however, roll all the curls down and not bother clipping the front, just do another 2-ish rolls.

Authentic 18th Century Style, Part 1

18th century hair styles are fascinating and extremely complicated. During some periods, wigs became almost universal for both gentlemen and ladies. For what it’s worth, here’s my mini outline of 18th century hair.

piled high–>minimal–>big, but orderly–>big and messy.

There’s not a lot of pictures of the back of 18th century styles. Almost every picture has a cap/covering of some sort. What I have been able to find in almost all pictures are the following elements.

Pirates of the Caribbean Style, Part 2

This tutorial is for the beautiful hairstyle from the finale of the Prates of the Caribbean. I didn’t have time to wash hairspray out of my hair after I did this style, so I didn’t use any. Please excuse my frizzies.

Pirates of the Caribbean Style, Part 1

This week, I will be doing two 18th century styles. Later this week, I will do an authentic, historical version, but first, let’s do an “easier,” Hollywood version. Tomorrow, I will be doing a step-by step recreation of this style from Pirates of the Caribbean. Here’s a 360 (ok, 270) view of the style. I think there’s at least 3 versions, but I’ll mention what’s in common.

Pictures from Costumer’s Guide to Movie Costumes.