Pin curls are one of the easiest most fuss free ways to get curls and they are a personal favorite of mine.
They take very little time to put in and can be styled in many different ways. There have already been a whole lot of tutorials on the subject, Super Kawaii Mama did a great pin curl video here: http://www.superkawaiimama.com.au/hair-parlour/perfect-pin-curls/but after a lot of requests I thought it was about time I did one too ^_^ *edit* I have added a video which includes me taking them out at the bottom too.
What you will need for this particular pin curls tutorial:
Pins
Curl spray or hair spray
Scarf (optional)
Hair ties (optional)
Brush
So start with clean hair and make sure that there are no knots or tangles. Give it a general spray with the curl enhancer, I’m using a Tresemme one which works really well in my hair.
Section your hair in half so it’s easier to work with. I tie the other side off into a pig tail ^_^
Start from the top and grab a small section of hair. The size of the section you take will effect the side of the curl you end up with eg. little section = small corkscrew curls while big section = waves. Keep in mind that it’s better to over curl than do all this work and end up with straight hair! XD If the curls are too tight in the end you can always brush them out looser but re-curling is a pain in the butt!
Spray your section with the curl enhancer:
Starting a little way from the end, twist the hair back on itself to form a loop:
Again the bigger the loops the bigger the curls. You should have this:
Get the end which is sticking out and curve it around the inside of the loop so it stays there.
Start rolling the whole thing up to your scalp…
This is where you want to be in the end:
Take the loop and flattern it on your head. Whether you go towards the front or back will determine whether the curls end up going towards your face or away from it. I chose backwards:
Have a whole lot of pins ready ^_^
Now slide a pin in to the curl attaching it to the hair near the scalp. You might need to use 2 pins if you have a lot of hair.
Repeat this all over your head! Leave no space behind ^_^ You’ll end up with something like this:
The gradient in my hair makes it really easy to see the curls ^_^ This is what it looks like from the side…
Spray the hell out of the whole thing with either more curl enhancer or hair spray… I use both XD
Now you need to decide how long you want to keep them in. My hair doesn’t like holding a curl so I find the easiest way to do it is to sleep with them in. It was odd the first time I did it but now I don’t even notice anymore. I’ve also found that having a hot steamy shower with them in (but not getting them actually wet) before bed helps too. Other girls I know will just leave them in for a few hours during the day if they’re going out at night so it all depends on your hair.
Like most people, the way I keep them all in at night is to use a big scarf ^_^ This is a technique that’s been around for ages and I certainly didn’t come up with it! Again if you want a video version you should check out Super Kawaii Mama’s because it’s very informative.
I fold the scarf into a triangle and place it over my head like this:
Pull the two side corners up and the ones on your forehead down like this:
Tie the side ones in a knot together. Pull the forehead one back towards your hair and tie the side ones in another knot over it.
You get this ^_^ It’s like sleeping on a big cushy pillow!
In the morning when you take it all it will look something like this:
Unless you were going for ringlets it’s probably not looking exactly how you want, so all you need to do is brush it out and add more hair spray and you get this:
Hopefully that helped answer all of the questions I’ve gotten about this, let me know if you have any more! ^_^
*edit* I know a lot of people were wondering how much I brush them out etc so here’s a video that includes what I do the morning after wearing them. Let me know if you have any other questions!
Thanks so much for reading, I hope it was easy enough to follow and good luck with your own pin curls! Let me know how it goes!
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The lovely Celina asked me for a hair tutorial for something that could be worn to a wedding. It needed to be cute but not bride-thunder-stealing-cute XD
I’ve been really enjoying casual looks with plaits and braids lately so I figured I would incorporate that into the style again ^_^
This is the finished product, a plaited headband with a plaited heart and flower!
What you need:
Brush
Hair Spray
Pins
Clip to hold other hair out of the way.
Start with clean hair and brush out any knots.
Using your finger or a pin start sectioning a piece of hair starting from the top of your ear and moving backwards.
Clip it up and out of the way:
Underneath that and just behind the ear take a small section of hair:
Plait that section ^_^
Use a pin or a hair tie to keep it from coming loose for the moment.
Now on the other side of your head take a section near the top and pin it out of the way:
Plait another section under that and secure the end ^_^
Now with the first plait you made pull it over the top of your head like so:
Pin it on place like this:
Using the second plait make a loop:
Continue with the loop so it turns into a figure 8. Here you can either make it really tight so it looks like a bow or looser so it looks like a heart when it’s finished:
Pin it in place and cover the pins using a flower or another decoration:
Now you can unclip all of the sections you pulled back and fluff them up. You should have something like this:
Finished!
From one side:
And the other:
From here you could curl the rest of your hair for a more dressy look or leave it straight or wavy ^_^
Depending on what else you’re wearing at the time this can either be a really dressed up style or nice and casual!
Hope you enjoyed the tutorial, lots more to come ^_^
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With the whole new hair thing I’ve got new inspiration to start doing hair and beauty tutorials again ^_^
I’ve had a lot of requests for styles involving braids and plaits which I suppose makes sense considering that mori styles are becoming more and more popular and coming in to Summer they keep hair off the neck!
So this is one of my favorite Summer styles, mostly because it’s cool but it also looks like it took a lot more time than it actually did XD
What you need:
Hair ties
Bobby pins
Brush
Hair spray
Flower pins or decorations
Start off by sectioning your hair into 2 even pig tails.
Plait each section like this and tie the ends. You might need to experiment with plaiting overhand and underhand to see what looks best in the finished product because it can affect the way the plait sits on your head. I find that overhand works best on me.
Now take one plait and pull it upwards.
And over the side of your head:
Hold it very securely with your fingers and remove the hair tie.
Roughly pin it in place using the bobby pins. It doesn’t need to be perfect because this is just to hold it while we work with the rest ^_^
Now grab your other plait and pull it upwards too:
Hold it over the top so it crossed over and covers the end of the first plait. You probably won’t be able to get this one as far over your head as the first one because it has to go over a lump. As long as it reaches the half way point it’s fine though.
Hold it in place and remove the hair tie.
Now using a pin catch a small amount of the first plait:
Pull the pin over the end of the second plait (still holding the little bit of the first one) and push it back the way it came but underneath. Kind of like you’re following the line of a “U”. This is the most secure way to use bobby pins and they won’t just slide back out!
So when you’re done it will look a little like this and most of the ends of the plait will be hidden.
You should repeat this in a couple of the bumps of the plaits on both sides and front and back. If you do that then the ends will all be incased and nothing will be going anywhere 😀
Decoration is the key to not looking like a milk maid so I generally choose flowers and cover the back ^_^ The extra pins always help keep everything in place too. If you don’t want to use flowers then I also like pining pearls or little diamantes etc. Very cute!
Lastly it’s time to straighten your fringe or whatever you want to do with it!
From the side it looks a little messy because I didn’t push the flower pins in far enough but you get the general idea!
Finished!
Nice and cool for Summer and very versatile for different styles!
Hope you enjoyed and found it useful ^_^
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As promised here is a tutorial on how to do the big poufy curly style up-do thingy that I’ve been wearing a lot lately ^_^
Apologies for how tired I look in these photos, I really wasn’t feeling well but I wanted to get the tutorial finished for you guys >_< I’ve been quite stressed lately so I haven’t been sleeping much!So what you need:
Bobby pins
Hair straightener/curler/hot rollers
Heat protector spray
Decorations eg. Bow and hair flowers
Brush
Hair Spray
First thing’s first, pin your fringe to the side to keep it out of the way.
Brush out your remaining hair so there are no knots.
Apply heat protector spray. Very important step so you don’t damage your hair at all ^_^
Heat up your straightener or whatever you are planning to use to curl your hair.
Btw I’m wearing my new blue lenses from E-Circlelens.netin these photos, the full review is coming soon but I’m excited because I haven’t used blue ones before 😀
So anyway! Curl the bottom 1/3rd of your hair. You don’t need to make the the curls perfectly even or very good because they are all going to get mushed up anyway.
Like this is fine:
Continue until you’ve done all of your hair like this…
Add a little bit of hair spray:
Get all of your bobby pins ready so you can easily access them.
Lightly tease/back comb the front section of your hair at the roots. You don’t need to tease very much at all.
Flip your head upside down! Gently brush the back section of your hair up and forward. Don’t brush the curly ends!
Grab the hair loosely in one hand like you are making a pony tail.
Twist it clockwise once.
Using your other hand grab the ends of one side of the curls. Scrunch upwards to your head.
As you bring it to your head continue to grab hair around it. Once you actually reach the base of the twisted big, grab hold of it.
Turn your head up the right way again and you should have something like this…
See how it’s long on one side and shorter on the side that I did the grabby thing on? Now it’s time for pins!
Start by pinning around the twist. Don’t just slide pins in, slide them half way then twist and push them in the other direction, this is how you get them to stay in really well!
Pin it enough to keep it in place by itself:
Now tidy it up with more pins ^_^ You can create the bubbly waved effect by adding a pin every 5cm or so across the top of your head. This is basically using the curls you made earlier and forcing them into place.
If you’ve curled it well, you shouldn’t have to do too much work, the curls naturally want to sit like this. The back looks like this:
Now time for decoration… I added a big bow!
And I used a bunch of flower pins too 😀 I just put them randomly all over the place, you can use them to add to the bubbliness on top too because when you add them close to the scalp you will squish the puffier bits down.
It’s also a good time to touch up any of the major curls ^_^
Un-clip your fringe and give it a quick go over to ^_^
Extra hair spray!
And you’re all finished 😀
This is a really versatile hair style, you can change it completely just by scrunching the hair up in a different position. In this next photo I had it all on one side rather than a couple of curls hanging down, it just depends on your technique. You probably won’t be able to get it to look exactly the same twice but having it slightly different every time is kind of fun XD
Hope that was easy to follow and you enjoyed it, let me know if you have any questions!
Cancan hats are another trend that seems to be everywhere right now so here’s a cancan hat tutorial ^_^
Of course they’ve been around for practically forever with various names… straw boater, basher, skimmer, katie, senni etc. Here in Aus they are actually part of a lot of private school uniforms. I’ve always loved them because the remind me of picnics in the park with a nice cup of tea!
Anyway whatever you call it what I’m talking about is this:
Image found via google, full credit to the owner. I make no claims of ownership and am happy to remove if asked.
Because they’re popular now they are quite expensive. So I decided to DIY my own ^_^
What you need for this particular cancan hat tutorial:
Round top straw sun hat
Scissors
Needle and thread
Glue Gun
Ribbon and lace for decoration if your hat isn’t decorated already.
You can easily pick up a big wide brim rounded straw sun hat for $2 from a thrift store and if you check out junk stores you can probably find one new for not much more than that! I happened to have one from back in my Country Lolita days that I had decorated with ribbon and lace but I’ve never actually worn it because the shape looked silly on me… time to make it all flat and pretty 😀
Ok let’s get started!
At the top of the hat you will notice that the whole thing is made of a big spiral of straw which it stitches together. Carefully wedge your scissors into the top of the spiral and cut a few of the stitches.
Gently pull it apart, continue cutting stitches if you need to.
Start unraveling the spiral and cutting the stitches as you go ^_^
Keep going until you get to around this point:
When you get to here there are two options depending on the type of hat you started with. Some of these sun hats have very straight sides and some of them are basically a gigantic dome.
If you’re lucky enough to have one with straight sides then you can skip the next few steps.
If you have one with curved sides (like me) you will need to continue unraveling the hat until you to get to a point where the part that’s left is completely straight. This point might be different for you hat but mine was just above the ribbon band here:
Now you should get your needle ready and thread it.
Ok now it’s time to put it back together so the sides are straight and the top is flat!
Because the straw has been in a curved position for so long you will most likely need to bend it straight before you put it back together. Make sure to be gentle when you do this so you don’t damage it. I straightened it by putting it flat on the floor and gently bending it the other way.
Now you need to start winding the straw back into place. You can either do it the right way and stitch it in place or the quick way and hot glue it in place. Either way secure it as you go around.
You can see that the way I’ve put it back in place is much more vertical than the original pattern.
Keep going until you think your hat is tall enough and then do one more rotation around the top to make sure it is flat enough for the top of the hat not to be on an angle!
When you’re finished you should cut the excess straw off and secure the ends. I am going to cover the straw end with more decoration at the end so it doesn’t show.
Now let’s make the top! Get your left over straw and arrange it on a flat surface in a spiral.
You should measure the spiral to make sure it fits the top of your hat exactly and pin it in place.
Now stitch or glue your top in place.
Continue until it is the right shape and diameter. You should stitch the end of the straw around so it forms a circle like this:
Cut off the excess and this is what you get:
Do make sure that it fits the top of the hat before you cut the ends so you don’t have a gaping hole in your hat!
At this point I cut off the elastic string which holds the hat on your head because it was pointless and in the way.
Now on the inside of your hat, glue/stitch the top in place 😀
You should get something like this:
Hurray it has a flat top!!
Now we’ve made the top shorter and flatter the large brim looks a bit silly! So let’s make it shorter 😀
Find the edge and snip the stitches. It should come apart very easily.
I pulled out maybe 3 or 4 rows of it. Now secure the edge back in place.
And you get this…
Last step is decoration! I wanted a nice big rosette style thing on my hat so I cut off the long tulle tail…
And added another one of top. This also covers the join around the hat. Again hot glue or sewing is fine here.
TAADAA!
And there you have it, an adorable cancan hat that cost me nothing 😀 And I have another cute hat to add to my arsenal of bad-hair-day-hiding-tools 😉
What do you guys think? Are any of you going to give the cancan hat tutorial a try?
Illustrator. Strong tea, knitting, watercolours, and making a video game called Moonlight in Garland. Living with her adorable husband Jimmy, fluffy puppy Miss Lottie and Bergamot Bunny in Melbourne, Australia.
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