Adventures in Vintage Hair Styling-Happy Birthday to The Queen of The Bob-Louise Brooks

November 14 will mark the 131st anniversary of the birth of one of the most stylish women of all time, Louise Brooks.  The queen of the bob, Louise was known not just for her brilliant acting, but her rebellious flapper spirit and her gorgeous, shiny Bob.

Louise's hair was so striking that she was known as "the girl in the black helmet." Perhaps, her look was a little too iconic because she never transitioned out of her flapper image and her film career evaporated in the 1930s.

Louise appeared in just 12   films, yet nearly 100 years later she remains one of the most recognizable stars of the silent era, particularly for the 1929 German film Pandora's Box.

Louise will never be my favorite silent female star, my heart forever belongs to Clara Bow, but I do adore her and I think that in the flapper hair contest she passes the finish line before the others even get out of the opening.  No one has ever looked as fabulous in a Bob as Louise did.  I'm no Louise Brooks, and I'm constantly changing my hair, but for the past 15 years I keep returning to one particular style, the close cropped Brook's style Bob. 

 

 While I'm no Louise, I really think this is my all time favorite hair style and for now at least I've decided to keep it.  Do you have a favorite iconic hair style?

On another note if you read this blog you know we have had some pet health problems this month, though thankfully none too serious yet.   First Fry had a biopsy (benign yeah!), then our cat Ernie had a seizure or cardiac arythmia attack we don't really know which, and now 13 year old Ping has bronchitis.  She started honking and coughing on Election night, perhaps sickened as I was by the turn of events, and I was really afraid that she had pneumonia.  Thankfully, it's just bronchitis, but respiratory issues are always serious in pugs, particularly older pugs, and we are a little concerned.  Thankfully, so far she seems to be coughing a bit less and responding to the antibiotics, but any well wishes are appreciated.

Adventures in Vintage Hairstyling-Sometimes Simple is Best

I really love my hair stylist.  She's right in my neighborhood and is the first stylist I've ever been loyal too, before I went to super cuts in the mall, but now I'd never go anywhere else.  Sharon is kind and totally supportive of my vintage hair thing.  She's also  a bit of a miracle worker.  She managed to magic the green  out of my hair this weekend.  Best of all she's a dog lover and her salon, Artistic Hair, is very dog friendly.  Mr. Tuvok accompanied me to my Saturday appointment.

He was very calm sitting in my lap throughout the appointment and like me he was pleased with the results: a brunette bob.

Sometime's I think we don't know whats best for ourselves.  I love short curly vintage styles and dream of 40s victory  rolls, but I think the bob suits me best.  I think I'll keep it, for awhile.

Adventures in Vintage Hair Styling: Fun with Snoods for Snoodtember

There are many wonderful vintage blogs on the web, but one of my favorites is Tanith Rowan's.  Tanith is a brilliant milliner and I adore all of her work.  I interviewed her here, and she made my 1950s coolie hat.  Tanith's blog is devoted to all kinds of vintage head gear, not just her own designs.  There are posts on historical hats and instructional posts for the crafty to make hats of their own, (sadly I am  not among the crafty).  This September Tanith is celebrating the snood:

She has created an instragram hashtag #snoodtember and posted photos of beautiful snoods and tips on how to wear them.   

I'm right alongside Tanith in her love of snoods.   A snood is any sort of net or bag that is designed to hold a woman's hair.  They where particularly popular during the 1940s when women working in factories needed to contain their hair for safety's reasons.

However, snoods where not only for casual wear. They could be dressed up too, like this gorgeous beaded version on Ginger Rogers.

For myself, the appeal of the snood is  the simplicity.  A snood gives you a vintage hair do with basically zero effort, no rollers or pin curls required.   Plenty of vintage fans create elaborate styles to go with their snoods, but as I have zero hair styling talent I just pull my locks into the snood and perhaps curl my bangs.  Easy, peasy, and takes less then two minutes.   I found this post from Vavoom Vintage very helpful when I first started wearing snoods.  

It took me about 30 second to put on this snood

All of my snoods are from Arthelia's Attic, and she makes a beautiful snood.  I am sure you can find them for cheaper but her quality can't be beat and her snoods are beautiful, sturdy, and stay put.  I have four of  them and love them to pieces.   I have gotten plenty of compliments on them, including one lovely lady who told me I brought her right back to her youth in the 1940s.




I love to wear snoods to work since they are so quick to put on:

  But they are great fun for weekends too.   
                                            

Snoods are traditionally more of a 1940s accessory, but I like to pair them with 50s looks too.  Like my Bernie Dexter  kitten print dress:

What do you think of snoods?  Do you have a favorite hair accessory?

A Day at The Lake And a Casual Vintage Outfit From Swell Dame and Freddies of Pinewood

The last days of summer are a great time to visit a lake
 

My favorite lake in NJ is Wawayanda.  Its in a lovely big park and there is canoeing, row boating, kayaking and swimming.  Its even dog friendly, though they are not allowed on the beach.  Since we wanted to try kayaking we decided to leave the dogs at home as kayaking doesn't seem a canine friendly activity.  

The lake is very pretty and peaceful and you really feel far from the city even though its only an hour and 15 minute drive from Jersey City where we live and maybe an hour and forty five minutes from Manhattan.

As I've said many times before on this blog vintage style can definitely be casual and I wore one of my favorite casual summer outfits for our trip to the lake.  I've definitely worn parts of this outfit on the blog before, but its so cute I think it deserved its own post.

The red gingham top is from Swell Dame and is a perfect 1950s style casual top.  The jeans are clam diggers from Freddie's of Pinewood and would probably be longer on a person of normal height, on me their pedal pushers. My shoes are the remix canvas pennies and are super comfortable.  The belt  I borrowed from one of my Bernie Dexter dresses.  I feel very 50s casual in this outfit!

 

 The purse is really something special, its a 1950s novelty purse with a horse on it!  I love anything with an animal on it and this is my first vintage horse accessory.

Incidentally is 38 too old for pig tails?  Obviously I don't think so.  This whole outfit makes me feel very young and carefree.

We had a good time walking around the lake:

        

 

We also waded a bit of course and tried the kayaking.  I really enjoyed kayaking, but didn't take any pictures.

It was a perfect end of summer day.  How do you like to celebrate the end of summer?

Outfit Details

Gingham top-Swell Dame 

 Clam Digger Jeans-Freddies of Pinewood

Red Canvas Sandals-Remix

Bakelite-Thrifted

1950s Novelty Purse- Annacatetsy

Vintage Outfit Post-1950s Pool Side Style

I've always dreamed of a mid century beach side  (or poolside) vacation.  The hotels, the clothes, the bright colors, it was all so beautiful. 

Of course lacking a time machine the vacation of my dreams is a little beyond me, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy my summer staycation in classic mid century style.    

This weekend I got to attend a family pool party and I put together an outfit that made me feel like I stepped out of a 50s beach side motor lodge.   The dress and bolero was made for me by the Etsy shop Vintage Rags and Digs.  This is a really great shop due entirely to my own measurement error the dress top didn't fit right when I first got it and the shop owner fixed it for me free of charge and added ties so the halter would fit my body type better, very nice of her and the end result is just what I wanted.

 I love that the halter ties keep it up and I love that it has a bolero, since I like a little bit of extra coverage:

 The print is also really fun its a little hard to see in the pictures but its a wave print with salmon colored swordfish on it.   I paired it with some bakelite and bamboo bangles, my beloved 1940s coconut purse, some 1950s cats eye shades, and my green remix sandals.   

To carry on the swordfish theme I added a pink swordfish novelty brooch from Mrs. Polly's Lucite that looks like it was made for the set.

 I was also super pleased with how my hair turned out and it was very easy to do.  I've been struggling for months with foam rollers, a bonnet dryer and pin curl clips in an effort to get a 50s style curly bob, with little success.  For this look I styled my hair by creating pin curls with a curling iron (first I sprayed it liberally with heat protectant), pinning them with clips, spraying with hair spray and then unpinning about half an hour later.  It was super easy to do.  I used this video as a guide, but be warned this women must have asbestos fingers because she touches the iron.  I didn't do that I just slid the curl of the iron, rerolled it, and pinned it.  Her look is definitely more polished but I'm still pleased with mine.  

 It was a really fun look for a fun day which is what vacation, or staycation, clothing should be all about.  Do you have a dream vacation?

Outfit Details

Halter Dress and Bolero Set-Vintage Rags and Digs
Bamboo and Bakelite Bangles-Thrifted
1940s Coconut Purse-Etsy, but I forgot the seller
1950s Cat's Eye Sunglasses-Etsy, I forgot the seller
1940s Style Sandals-Remix
1950s Style Novelty Brooch and Earings-Mrs. Polly's Lucite

 
 

Adventures in Vintage Hair Styling-Bright Blue Hair for Once In a Blue Moon

Technically this isn't really a vintage hair adventure, as blue hair isn't vintage unless you count old lady blue rinses (which I love),

 but I've noticed that plenty of people in the vintage community rock crazy hair colors, the sort of tones that would never grow out of anyones head.  Probably when your clothing ceases to be conventional your comfortable  with your hair going the same way.   I admired many of these tresses before trying pink hair this Spring and for my three week summer break from teaching I decided to try something a little crazier, blue hair.  

I'm no hair expert but I read everything I could online, there is a lot of information, before I took the plunge.  First off your hair needs to be a light blonde, at least a platinum color and if you want pastel colors you need Daenyrs Targaryen style ice blonde:

I was afraid that my own light blonde hair, which I get professionally blonded at the best salon ever, Artistic Hair in Jersey City, was to yellow and would make the blue dye turn green on my locks.   So to counteract this potential pitfall I used Manic Panic Virgin Snow toner.   I had washed my hair with clarifying shampoo the day before so it was clean and free of any products.  Then I applied the toner, which is not a bleach but a blue based product meant to remove yellow tones from blonde hair.  I saturated my hair with it and covered it with a shower cap and left it on for an hour.

This was the result.

Not a dramatic difference but it was a bit lighter.   

Next I applied the blue.  I used Manic Panic Voodoo Blue.  I choose Manic Panic expressly because their colors fade quickly.   I've since read you can add a bit of purple to the blue to counteract green tones, if I ever do this again I'm going to try that, but for this go I used Voodoo Blue only.  This is what it looks like straight out of the jar.

  It took one jar to cover my hair  so anyone with longer hair will need at least two jars.  I used a tint brush to cover my hair completely and even with gloves and vaseline at my hair line there was blue everywhere!  Seriously my bathroom looked like an alien murder scene.  Luckily the dye came off my skin pretty easily and most of it came off the tile.  

I covered my hair in another plastic shower cap and left it on for four hours.  

That is 8 times as long as the jar says but everything I read online said the longer the better.  I also applied heat a few times for a minute or so using the low setting on the dryer.  

After the wait time I rinsed it with cold water in the kitchen sink, cold water is a must, and don't get in the shower unless you want your whole body blue.   I also rinsed with a 50/50 mix of white vinegar and cold water since I read that helps set the color.   

The next morning my hair looked like this:

It is basically the color of a blue raspberry tootsie roll pop.  Here is a side view a few days later after I washed and pin curled it, excuse the frizz!

To maintain the color I will wash it only about twice a week in COLD water with a mix of Clairol Shimmering Lights shampoo, white conditioner, and a dab of the voodoo blue hair dye.  Note: you need to wear gloves while you shampoo this dye comes out easily and your hands will be blue.

This hair is definitely a love it or hate it kind of thing.  I've gotten plenty of compliments, as well as odd stares, my father in law was horrified and my husband isn't crazy about it, though he doesn't hate it.  I have mixed feelings myself and realize its probably a color more suited to a teen or a women in her early twenties (though I never would have had the confidence at those ages), then a 38 year old, but I certainly don't regret doing it.  It's fun and I do feel a bit like a land locked mermaid.  I'm removing it in September for the start of school though, so this is a brief vacation fling.   

Once in a blue moon crazy colored hair is a blast and I'm not  ready to stop experimenting yet.  I'm already thinking about trying a purple or pink on my roots for my next hair adventure.  Even though I am fond of unnatural hair colors I hate brown roots with blonde hair and bright colors seem a fun way to disguise them and stretch out the time between professional dye jobs.

Have you ever dyed, or wanted to dye, your hair a crazy color?