My Vintage Hair Diary - Part 3b: Taking Advice and The Next Step...

Well, what can I say? You, my dear readers, completely rock my world. Thanks so much to all of you who commented on my wet set post, I'm so grateful that so many of you were generous enough to take the time to share you advice and/or your own techniques. Clearly some of you are very well versed in the ways of vintage hair, and for this I salute you!

Now, I would have hated all your help and hints to have been lost in the comments section of my previous post, so I have decided to dedicate this post to taking your advice. This means that the whole of the blogging world can enjoy your words of wisdom, which I'm sure they'd love to do! So let's take a look at what some of you said about my first ever wet set...

What seems to be the general consensus is if in doubt just keep brushing! It seems that my exploding hair disaster may not have been a disaster at all, but rather a simple case of not enough brushing! Tasha made me feel much better about my mistake, as it seems she had a similar experience when she first started setting her hair:

"The poofiness is exactly what you get when you start to brush out your set. When I start brushing mine I look like a clown. It was the major deterrent for me when I first started to set my hair because I just didn't get how to work through it. Now I know to expect that stage and keep on going." 

I can't tell you how much better this made me feel! And she wasn't the only one to offer some helpful hints. Isis gave me this advice:

"When you feel you have brushed your hair into disaster, then you have to go with the brushing... It helps to smooths the hair downwards with your other hand as you brush... with a small amount of pomade on your fingers."

So what I probably need are some better brushing techniques! And time also seems to be a factor, insofar as longer is definitely better in this case. Debi says:

"If I want a 40's look I will brush it out...but when I brush it out, I have to spend like 30 minutes just brushing."

 Toni Jo also backed up this idea:

"Continue brushing your hair beyond all reasonable time limits. It does slowly shape itself into something lovely but it really takes a lot of brush strokes to get there!"

And you lovely people have even suggested some online sources for brushing out tips. Several of you mentioned Lisa Freemont (I have watched a few of her videos before, but I'm definitely giving her brushing out one another look!) and Casey also post a link for Lolita Haze (who has beautiful hair so she must know what she's doing!). From these videos I can really see the benefits of the "brushing against the hand" method, it really seems to work!

Another thing that several of you have suggested is a different kind of roller to help control my curls. Now this seems to be a bit mixed as some of you swear by the foam rollers, whilst other of you won't touch them with a barge pole, but a large majority of you think that I would benefit from using bigger rollers whatever kind of roller I choose to use. Angela also send me a brilliant link about homemade fabric rollers which seem to work fantastically for her:

"The curls come out very smooth, and honestly I don't do much but run my fingers through it. I use the lottabody too 5parts water to 1part setting lotion. Put it in a spray bottle and then sleep on it. Because the curlers are simply cotton and fabric, its like sleeping on a pillow!"

That sounds good to me Angela! I think I may try making a few of the fabric rollers myself, hopefully the bigger rollers will mean less of a Shirley Temple look and therefore more manageable curls! Plus anything that will help me sleep better is fine with me :)

Finally many of you kindly offered me personal technique that work well for you, and I'm eager to give them a go asap! Natalia suggested using hair serum to tame the hair beast, Isis know some people who don't brush their hair out at all and instead try finger combing (something I will definitely consider if I never master all this brushing out!) and Casey suggested that my problems may come from rolling my rollers up too far:

"Don't roll the rollers to quite so close to your head; this helps keep the crown area smooth (as was popular in the 40s). I usually roll mine to about ear height and just let them dangle. I'll usually cover them in a scarf when I sleep. Not glamorous, but it keeps things from frizzing!"

Now aren't you all amazing to offer me such pearls of wisdom? :) You have all helped me so much, I can't wait to try out a set again soon and put your advice to good use! This is my plan of action for taking the next steps in my vintage hair adventure:

1. Brush, brush and brush again! If in doubt I will keep brushing. If I feel I have ruined my hair I will keep brushing and hope for the best!
2. I will study some online tutorials to perfect my brushing out technique.
3. I will make some larger fabric rollers and see if they give me more manageable curls.
4. I will get some pomade and hair serum - mighty tamers of unruly hair!
5. I will not over roll my hair
6. Finger combing alone be the way forward if brushing out continues to be unsuccessful

There you have it my friends, my way forward is set and I can't wait to get going :) Again thank you so much for all your help so far and hopefully I'll be giving you another update of my Vintage Hair Diary very soon!

Bye for now :)