The Pin Curl Project: Part 1 - rolled bangs without a rat

Well hello there all, I hope everyone is feeling positive and ready for the New Year.  I certainly am - I started early last night with a few drinks after work at 1pm (champagne, £39 a bottle, ouch to me and each of us that bought one!) and then popped over to a friends to see some of the Vintage Mafia getting ready to go to White Mischief.  I wasn't up for a big night out myself and so was tucked up in bed sleeping by 10pm.

Anyway - despite not having big plans for New Years I did want big hair and so started my new pin curl project a day early.

I'm starting with bang/fringe styles and for my first set I tried a simple rolled fringe.  I need to do this without the usual hair rat as my hair is so fine I have trouble hiding them.

The setting pattern I have for this shows a rectangular section up from the temples set in two rows of forward facing standing pin curls.  As my hair is very fine I set three pin curls at the back and two at the front - any more would make my hair frizz.  I then set the remainder in perm rods and slept on it.

This was a wet set with just a little setting lotion.

Sorry for the scary no make up pics!

In the morning I brushed out the sides into soft curls and pinned them back.  I then brushed all the standing pin curls out and forward over my hand until they formed a large soft roll.  I backcombed the hair nearest my face to create a foundation and then rolled the whole fringe around a mascara tube, slid the tube out and pinned into the tube of hair at each side.  I then set it with hairspray and tied a scarf round.

Thnis is quite an easy style, the set took about 10 minutes and the brush out and pinning about 5 minutes the following morning.  It held pretty well, only starting to droop at about 7pm after several champagnes and so I think with a little more hairspray and a few more pins it would hold well on a night out.  Definitely a good one for work days.

Caruso Steam curlers - thoughts so far

Well hello there my dearios,

Yesterday my Caruso Molecular Steam curlers arrived, these curlers have great reviews all over the interwebz and after a personal recommendation from a very glamorous vintage loving friend I decided to take the plunge and just grab myself some.

The company making them are US based but also have a factory in Germany, so I managed to snag some German ones from UK eBay from this seller.  They arrived very quickly, were well packaged and, as the instructions were in German, the seller had gone to the trouble of writing their own guide on how to use them.  (Though I'm trying to get hold of a proper set of instructions anyway, I'm a stickler or stuff like that.)

This set comes with the base, and 6 each of the following roller sizes - mini, small, medium, large and extra large, as well as a selection of other clips and bits that I have no idea how to use yet!

Its a nifty little idea this, the curlers are made of a dense sponge with a plastic core and a plastic case holds the hair to the roller.  To set them up you fill the tub with water or a water / setting lotion combo and just plug it in - it heats in about 5 seconds!  You then place the curlers over the steamer to heat.

You can only heat one curler at a time, but as they only take 3-5 seconds to heat that isn't a problem.  You then roll your hair and secure the curler with the plastic case/grip (which you can also heat if so inclined - I've tried with and without and it hasn't made any difference so far.)

Once you have rolled the whole head you are recommended to leave the curlers in for around 15 minutes - though the instructions state that you can speed this up by blasting your head with a hairdryer.  You then take the rollers out and style as normal.

The idea is that as the rollers do not get very hot, then damage to your hair is limited.  Always a good thing when you put your hair through as much stress as I do.

So, my first set.

I added a little setting lotion the the water and plugged the set in, it really was a matter of seconds before it started chugging out steam and I had to evict two intensely curious cats from the vicinity for fear they would burn their noses!

I curled my hair in the mini, small and medium rollers, heating each roller for 4 seconds:

I then left the curlers in for 15 minutes before taking them out and giving my head a good shake:

Attractive huh?


I then brushed the curls out very gently to achieve the below.

I'm not 100% sold on it, its a much softer look than I'm used to and I keep seeing the late 1950's, but perhaps I should have combed it out more gently for my preferred, slightly stronger, 40's look.

I'm definitely going to keep using it and might try to get hold of more of the smaller sized rollers for a tighter curl.

All in all I'm happy with the product so far, its certainly more effective than normal hot rollers or curling irons on my stubborn hair.  It will definitely be useful for those days when I haven't set my hair the night before.

Have you tried these?  Do you have any hints and tips?