Leading lady hair: The Lady Eve (1941)

As mentioned yesterday I was rather taken with Barbara Stanwyck's hair in "The Lady Eve" and wanted to give it a whirl myself.

It is a fairly simple do that looks a lot more elaborate than it really is:  a curled back hanging loose, two small side rolls, and a tumble of rolls at the top.

I started by cutting my bangs, which were about 8 inches long, to about 5 inches - though shorter would work too.  You could do with longer hair but it would need a lot more grips to hold.

I then wet set my hair, without setting lotion as I didn't want any crispiness, and separated it into four sections with a rat tail comb: a rectangular top section, the sides and back.

I set the back in pink perm rods, only rolled to the nape of the neck and rolled under.  I then placed two upward and forward facing pin curls on each side section and the top was set in as many pink perm rods as I could fit on the top of my head.

(Look at my glaring eyes.  Mwahahahahahaaa)

I then stuck a hairnet over the back and went to bed.  I woke up next to a kitten - say hello to Baby Gene:

The key to this hairdo is in the brush out - it needs to be done section by section.  I started by brushing out the back section and lightly brushing it under.

I then took out each side, brushing out lightly in an upwards direction and then I teased the section before smoothing the top and rolling (I always roll over an old mascara tube) and fixing with a bobby pin.

Side section before brush out - not very promising looking eh?:

Once both sides were rolled I very carefully removed the rollers at the top.  It is essential to try and keep as much curl in this section as possible, so just sliding the rollers out so the hair stays in little sausage shapes is best.

Sides rolled with top section rollers removed:

And now I was almost done - for the final stage I split each top curl into two, re-rolled each half over the good old mascara tube and sat the curl on the head.  (You would want to pin each one of you were going out dancing but I didn't bother as I'm just staying in).  I also took a little from each front roll and arranged slightly onto the forehead, these were fixed with pins hidden in the hair.

I then gave it all a good hairspray and tada!

I'm rather pleased with it, though of course it looks more detailed on my hair as blonde shows every little curl.  Now to find somewhere to go so that I can show this off.  Ah, the supermarket, oh, the glamour!