Nailed it! Vintage manicures - history and a little bit of technique

So, as some of you will have seen, I recently posted a picture of a vintage manicure as done by the wonderful Kay at The Chapel.  I decided to have my nails done as a treat and also in an attempt to spur me on into taking more care of my talons, as I do tend to neglect them and I'd like to look more polished...pardon the pun.  Anyway, I think they turned out great!

It has traditionally been pretty difficult to get a good vintage manicure at a salon, as the modern (and in my honest opinion, ugly) trend for squared off nails has meant that most manicurists look at you with bafflement when you request almond or, heaven forbid, pointy nails!  Personally I aspire to razor sharp talons a la Joan Crawford!

Thankfully though, following the popularisation of the vintage manicure (otherwise known as the moonicure, half moon manicure or reverse French manicure) by celebrities such as the impeccably groomed Dita von Teese, it is now becoming much easier to get the vintage nails you want from a salon. 

 

So, lets have a little look at this history of nail prettification.

A brief history of nail decoration:

It seems that, as with most things, those wonderful Ancient Egyptians invented nail art; using henna in various shades to denote social standing; the darker and redder your talons the higher your caste, it is surmised.  It seems nail colour was also an indicator of social standing in China (around 600BC) with silver and gold nails being used to denote Royalty.  I cannot imagine how this was done - gold leaf perhaps?

While different methods of keeping the nails tidy were used throughout history it wasn’t really until the 1900’s that we started taking our manicuring seriously – the early part of the century apparently saw both the invention of the emery board and cuticle remover, with nails being polished with either cake, paste or powder formulations and a chamois leather to add shine and a little rosy colour.

However, the real invention of nail varnish, as we would recognise it now, came with the start of the automobile age.  The product was based on car paint! It didn’t take off however, it was seen as something tacky and  there was a strong belief that people who used it were trying to hide something - for example dirty fingernails from manual work.

Following serious promotion in salons, magazines and on the cinema screen in the 30's, this look finally started to filter down from Hollywood into everyday use, and after Revlon released the first easily available nail paint into salons and department stores across America in 1932  it wasn't long until many other cosmetics companies such as Cutex had followed suit.

Magazines held wonderful ads for these innovative products showing the wide range of colours available  – there were far more options than just red, though of course that is the vintage classic.

In fact, by the end of the 30’s a landmark film for us vintage girls showed just how important the manicure and the beauty salon had become, at least to society women.  The Women (1939) centres around salon gossip – where a woman discovers her husbands infidelity whilst having a manicure with the latest colour “Jungle Red.”

By the 1940’s it became fairly commonplace to paint the nails and nail polish was used to give a bit of much longed for glamour to our wartime sisters.

So, here endeth the history lesson – now for a little on style and colour.

Styles and colours:  

most info blatantly gleaned from Return2Style (links included below) - the site is so fabulous that there is no point me reinventing the wheel, so to speak!

30’s:

Long and pointy in shape, as in the pic of Joan Crawford, above.  The moons and a sliver of the tip kept clear of polish.

Colours - red, black, silver, gold, emerald green, coral

Pictures and more info at Return2Style

40s:Nails not as long and the point slightly less vicious looking, more almond in shape.  Similar polish style with moons kept free, polish more likely to go to tips with some ladies painting the whole nail (less likely for manual workers who risked their polish chipping more easily)

Colours - every red you can imagine, navy, dark green, plum,

 Pictures and more info at Return2Style

 

50s:Nails more almond to oval in shape - the entire nail being painted.  

Colours - More pinks, corals and pastels with pearl finish polishes beginning to appear.

My polish recommendations:

Barry M - a great bright red, a beautiful navy, a very rich black and a very 30's looking grey can all be found at Barry M.  In my experience (and the recommendation of my manicurist) the Barry M range is the best budget range out there.  Applied properly it really doesn't chip as quickly as many other brands.

Leighton Denny - Glamour Puss, and Pillow Talk are great 50's pinks, there is also a range of classic reds.

Revlon - Still make some classic reds, corals and pinks and a great colour - Emerald City - yes it has sparkle but I love it, so there!  ;-)

Basic vintage manicure steps.

It is possible to do this freehand but I personally can't do it that way, so this is my own method...

• File your nails into an oval or almond shape (or a vicious point if you so wish - mwahahaha).  I would strongly recommend the glass nail file from Leighton Denny for this – available on the internet
  
• Soak the nails for around 5 mins in a warm bowl of water and then remove cuticles in any way you see fit (I personally don’t do this bit as I don’t think I have cuticles really, I certainly have never noticed any difference between when they have been done and when they haven’t...)
  
• Ensure you remove any dust or traces of product on the nails by wiping with nail polish remover
  
• If you wish, cover the whole nail with with a base coat, I’d go for something matte as it helps the polish cling to your nail later.  Allow it to dry completely.
  
•  Then apply....wait or it....hole reinforcers like you used at school!  You know, the things you put over the holes in whole punched document so the pages didn't fall out of your folder.  No?  These I mean.
  I find the paper ones best.  Make sure they are stuck HARD!
  
• Apply two coats of your favourite colour, slightly overlapping the strips
  
• Peel off the strips just before the final coat is completely dry, I use tweezers for this.
  
• Once dry either remove the varnish at the tip with a cotton bud soaked in polish remover VERY carefully or say to hell with it and leave it, topping it all off with a coat of clear polish.
  
•  I then like to use Leighton Denny miracle drops to set the polish – this stuff dramatically reduces drying time!

Tada – lovely vintage nails

Useful tutorials:

Blogger is being a pain in the buttocks and won't let me imbed a video so -clicky here.

There are plenty of great tutorials out there on YouTube but I had trouble finding any I really liked as they almost all had contrasting base coats and the whole point of this look is that the tips and moons are without colour - this look was designed to make a manicure last longer as the moon and tip are prime chipping areas.  Anyway - that's my personal bugbear, so if you like that two colour look there are loads of  tutorials on there for you!

That's all folks - let me know if you have any comments or questions!

My everyday hair set - peach perm rods

Hello and a happy weekend to everyone!

I just thought I'd share my everyday set with you.  This is a really basic but versatile set and I'll show a different look with the same set in the upcoming weeks

So, last night I washed my hair and let it air dry to about 70-80%.  I then ran some settling lotion through it, any will do, following the instructions on the bottle.

I then rolled it using my peach perm rods (bought from eBay).

 (excuse the tired face, I had absolute ZERO makeup on here, how brave am I posting this!  Hah!)

I always part on the left, just at the point where my eyebrow peaks.  On the left side I placed two rollers, rolling the hair over the roller(i.e. toward the face).  These were fastened slightly off base (i.e. I didn't roll right to the root, to get a 40's look.  I did the exact same on the right.

At the top I placed three rollers, rolled over again and away from my parting.

At the back a total of 6 rollers in a brick formation, and only rolled up as far as my ears to prevent the hair on the crown area curling.

I then stuck a glamorous blue hairnet over it all and went to bed.  Believe it or not they aren't that hard to sleep in, especially after half a bottle of Rioja!

In the morning I took out all the rollers as gently as possible to keep the curl.  In the picture below you can see how much tighter the curl is than with the Caruso curlers used earlier this week (see earlier blog post).

I had partially brushed out the back here.

  Once all the curlers were out I brushed gently but thoroughly with a natural bristle brush, pinned back the left side and pushed a wave into the front  with my fingers and sprayed it all firmly into place.

Of course, I then had to take the cat to the vets, a 10 minute walk in the drizzle, so now my hair is almost poker straight again.  Annoying Autumn weather!

Vintage manicure - quick pic

Just a quick picture of my vintage manicure - I was rather pleased with it.

Note the glamorous setting, on the No. 56 bus back to Hackney.

I didn't do this myself I admit, I had a manicure to spur me on to take better care of my nails.  They really do let me down, I'm just lazy!

That being said, I do manicure myself every now and then.  I'll be posting a full how-to, some polish recommendations and some vintage nail history in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out!

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?

Suicide blonde - or how to survive severe hair damage.

I'm off to the salon tomorrow for my regular monthly root touch up (if I don't go every 4 weeks my hairdresser gets vicious!) and that put me in mind of putting together a blog on hair care for stressed out hair.

For a barnet that gets so much battering mine is holding together very well - my hairdresser is always surprised at how soft it is given the endless vintage styling - so here are my tips for taking care of damaged hair (whether blonde or not).

A good shampoo and conditioner:

This really is an essential - my recommendations are:

Goldwell Kerasilk:  This stuff really has been a revelation, especially the Ultra Rich Care shampoo and treatment conditioner.  I was introduced to this by the Nina of Nina’s Hair Parlour   and have been a convert ever since.  It smells wonderful and is the only shampoo that really makes my stressed locks smooth and silky.  I can’t see me changing products for a long time and, though pricey, as I only wash my hair once a week it lasts AGES!  I get mine at Sally’s.

Kerastase:  Also pricey but VERY, VERY good.  They also do a great range to protect your hair from the sun. This saved me on holiday. It comes highly recommended.

Tresemme:  Yes, Tresemme.   I have always been a big fan of Tresemme products (I suspect I’ll be raving about their Freeze Hold hairspray in a later blog post) and their range for coloured hair is excellent.  Also these products are SUPER affordable and VERY easily available – as they are stocked in most chemists including good old Boots and Superdrug.

Setting without tears

Hair setting and styling can be a damaging old business; heated tools, teasing the hair, tons of product...my tips are:

Avoid heat styling where possible – it really is much healthier and not that much harder to achieve a vintage look with traditional methods.  Personally I adore pin curls and perm rods (I get mine from the US via eBay - on the advice of fellow blonde Miss Lolita Haze at Vintage Starlet)  It did take me a while to get to grips (pardon the pun) with setting my hair cold but now t really is my preferred method.

Setting lotions – I’ve tried a few setting lotions in the past and my favourite is Lottabody – the classic purple kind, diluted 4:1 or so. It actually seems to do my hair good!  You can usually find this in ethnic hair shops or or eBay.

Maintaining your colour:

This bit really is for the blondes but a lot of ranges have similar products for other hair colours - I'm fairly sure Redken make a great shampoo for the redheads amongst us.

Blue shampoo – Personally I have the fear regarding brassy yellow hair (even though it suits me quite well – its my working class roots doncha-know!) and so finding something to tone it out is essential.  My favourite product for avoiding the brassies is Proclere Blue Frosting , again available from Sally's, but I have also heard great things about Lee Stafford's range at Boots.   I’ve already tried the hotshots which warm the scalp and these are fantastic for boosting the blue.

Rinses:  You can also buy products called "rinses" which last only one wash, for example La Roux – Fancifull.  Another recommendation from the wonderful Miss Lolita Haze.  This can be hard to get hold of in the UK and so I tend to rely on eBay.

Other advice and products:
And some final tips that work for me:

Silk pillowcase – this is the one thing I do not think I will ever change!  It has been positively miraculous!  As recommended to me by Billie, my colourist, a silk pillowcase really is a godsend for any kind of damaged hair.  Buying a pair of these has considerably slowed hair breakage at my temples and, as an added benefit, I wake up without pillow creases on my face.  Apparently in the long run sleeping on silk helps prevent wrinkles as their isn't so much "drag" against the skin.  We shall see!  I get mine from eBay but their are companies which specialise such as SilkSkin.  These babies seem pricey but they are 100% worth it and they last for ever!

Oh, and sleeping on silk makes me feel like a princess.  ;-)

Protein treatment – no matter how moisturising your conditioner is you should still regularly give your hair a protein treatment.  This helps prevent breakage, strengthening the protein in your hair ready for all that setting, teasing and brushing out that vintage sets require.

Don’t wash too often - dry and damaged hair needs gentle care and daily washing does it no good.

Trim regularly, even if you do it yourself!

 I hope I've given you some ideas for taking care of your ravaged barnet.  Let me know if you have any other hints and tips - I'm always glad for more ways to treat my hair.

xxx

Shame about the shoes

OK - so this is a slightly different blog post to the one I was intending to do tonight for a couple of reasons, firstly I decided to do an outfit post instead and secondly, I can't find my darn camera so am stuck using iPhone pics which won't do for the other piece I wanted to write.  Meh, where is that camera?

Anyhoo - I had one of those days where it all goes together. My hair worked out. My makeup looked good as my skin seems to finally be settling down following the change of seasons and I wore a new outfit.  All in all I felt good about myself today.

I set my hair in a similar fashion to the "Glamorous Casual" setting in the post just previous.  This time however I used one finger pin curls on a dry set with a couple of wave clamps in the front.  It worked really well, though as usual the wave didn't really take.

Look at my massive mouth - I look like a cartoon fish.  Heh.

Outfit wise, I had a burst of organisation last night and have laid out my outfits for the entire week.  Today was a jumper I knit from the "Two Hour Sweater" pattern as detailed in good ole Livejournal (I never did get that site but it is full of useful info).

This was my first real knitting project and I foolishly used some genuine vintage 50's wool to make it up.  It turned out OK.  I just wish I'd know about only joining at the ends of rows when making this up.

I really like the patterns at the sleeves and neck and the wide ribbing.

Anyway, I put it with a vintage 40's black crepe 'A' line skirt (its a cat fur magnet this thing, but lovely) and a wide belt and pinned one of my favourite reverse carved lucite brooches on it.  I think the whole thing worked well.  It could have used a hat but I was going to work and that's just too much, even for my workplace.

It was really good to go out wearing something I'd made.  I got a lot of compliments on it, despite its somewhat primitive appearance.  It has inspire me to sew the rest of my knits together so I can wear them out too, instead of them just slowly building up in the craft cupboard.


The only low point of the outfit was that I had to wear silver ballet flats with it as I have no comfortably, non-vintage buy vintage style black shoes.  I am hunting for something with a low-mid heel, that can work with 40's outfits, that is comfy enough to wear for long periods and that doesn't cost of GBP 50.  If you have any ideas please, point me in their direction!

Toodlepip.

x

Hair set - "Glamorous Casual" pin curls

Hello dearies

Well, as mentioned yesterday I have a new, professionally done, middy hair cut and last night I set it for the first time.  I decided to choose the "Glamorous Casual" pin curl set that you can find all over the Internet (a great example of this set can bee seen on Screen Siren's blog) as this was the first pin curl set I tried when getting into vintage and I know its a fairly simple set to put in and brush out.

So, I put Eastenders on the telly, got the mirror off the wall and sat down with a glass of wine to set my hair.

As my hair is fine and prone to frizz I used fewer, larger pin curls than the diagram suggests, so three rows of standing pin curls on top, two rows of two on the side and three rows at the back.

I put these in on dry hair using a rat tail comb wet with a 4:1 water and Lottabody setting lotion mix.  You can buy Lottabody online or it can usually be found in ethnic hair and beauty shops.

I'm not good at rolling pin curls, as you can see from my messy pic, so I tend to roll them around something - usually a mascara tube, or, if I want tight 30's frizzy curls I have an original "Hold Bob" pin curl roller.  I'm planning  blog on weird and wonderful vintage hair tools so you'll see that later.

So, I put all the curls in and slept on them to let them dry and I've just brushed them out.  They didn't turn out frizzy but I do wish I'd done slightly tighter curls at the back.  Still, not bad for a first attempt on a new cut, I hope you'll agree.  I arranged small curls at the front rather than a wave, I got a bit overexcited.

Just look at that MASSIVE wave in the front I'm rather pleased with her.


Happy hair day one and all.