Taming the Beast: Lolita Hair Tutorial Review Part 3- An annoying hair bow

Oh dear... I had a few problems with the latest tutorial in my series. My head has a double crown and to do this tutorial I had to try to brush my hair backwards. But my hair kept falling forwards and back into its parting! >_<

Today I am reviewing this tutorial-

http://www.ebeautyblog.com/2009/12/lady-gaga-hair-bow-tutorial.html

Here is a photo of part of the progress

My hair was pinging out all over the place and as you can see the visible hair band has fallen out of place. Believe it or not, I did finally manage to complete this look and the bow looked okay. I reached for my camera and I realise I had moved it. I managed to find the camera about 10 minutes later but the style had already fallen out! I guess I suit styles which sit on the side more. So I have reviewed this tutorial as best as I can here.

How easy was the tutorial to follow?

I think you can already see how successful my attempt was! If you are able to brush your hair back into a high ponytail without any problems, then you will probably do a better than I did! The girl in the video makes it look so easy and it probably is easy. It just doesn't suit my hair. At first I thought the tutorial was only in the Asian girl's language but there is a translation running along the top. It would be helpful if the text was a bit bigger. The video makes it easy to see exactly what is going on and the translation is not too fast. It wouldn't be too hard to do this bow on the side of your head if you have the same problems as me. I may have a go at doing it on the side to see if the end result is better.

How Long did it take?

When you first do this tutorial, you will probably need to pause the video in places. It is a bit fiddly. I managed to finish my bow after spending about half an hour of trying to fix my mistakes.

How long did it stay in place?

10 MEASLY MINUTES! That was with lots of extra strength hair spray, pins and a little wax. I really hope you can do better than me.

Was the end result as expected?

Short answer- no. This style will vary a lot from person to person.

How to cheat

I came up with the idea of using extra hair bands so the hair is forced to split in to the two bow pieces you need. So after putting in the first hair tie and taking the piece out for the bow middle, I would add in an extra 2 hair bands close to the first band before putting the second hair band in. Or you could totally boycott this tutorial completely and buy a ready made hair bow. Lady Gaga has made these popular and you can find ready made ones in lots of different places. By just searching "lady gaga hair bow" on Ebay, I managed to find lots of bows. Some wig shops will have these and some large chain shops have them too. Or you could buy a hair extension and make your own.

Would you try this tutorial again?

No. I think this tutorial is perhaps a bit too much hassle when it is so easy to cheat (see above). Even Lady Gaga uses wigs! Even if Lady Gaga didn't use a wig to make her hair bow, the end result is very different which suggests that she used a different method. Whilst the tutorial's end result looks very sophisticated, I will be sticking to fake hair.

Rating out of 10- 4/10

It got a 4 because this tutorial will work better on some girls more than others.

I hope this review was helpful and I wish everybody success in following this style!

Taming the Beast: Lolita Hair Tutorial Review Part 2- Sloppy Buns

I promised I would do this today and here it is! Part 2 of my hair tutorial review series! Today's hair is sloppy buns. There are so many different places where this hair tutorial has been done so I am just going to include a link to this one-

http://herlumpiness.blogspot.com/2010/03/rapunzel-rapunzel.html

I really like Miss Lumpy! This post has some other great ideas for long hair.

The main reason why this post took longer is because I have had my hair cut. I only had 2 inches off but those 2 inches were enough to stop me doing another tutorial which suits longer hair.

No face shots today because my skin looks dreadful! I have not added any bows or accessories so you can see what it looked like underneath.

How easy was the tutorial to follow?

Well, this is pretty straight forward. The style is quite casual and it doesn't really matter how neat you are which makes things even easier. It would be quite hard to get this wrong. The problem? I never realised quite how bouncy my hair was! It was determined to ping out of place so if you have heavier hair will require strong hair ties. You will also notice I have some loose strands which you can see clearly in the first picture. For this sort of style, a few loose strands wont matter unless you like your hair to look tidy.

How long did it take?

A few minutes maximum. I got one of my buns around the wrong way the first time so I redid it.

How long did it stay in place?

When I had finished the styling I knew right away this would not last. More and more loose strands came out. About 45 minutes afterwards, so much hair had come loose that I had to redo it. To combat this problem, add some bobby pins. Try to keep the pins hidden or attach an accessory over the top to cover them up.

Was the end result as expected?

My hair looked a bit too smooth in my opinion. It would probably look good if you curl or backbrush your hair before putting it in buns. Another problem was that my freshly cut ends were sticking out and they look really obvious. Again, I would suggest using bobby pins to hide the ends. Also, my hair was determined to form a stiff loop shape instead of looking floppy. I suppose it doesn't look too bad but I would have loved my hair to look more like Miss Lumpy's hair.

Would I try it again?

I think I would. Although heavy hair will not last long with this style, which is disappointing. This look would be something I would wear around the house. If I went out wearing this I would be constantly checking and fixing it.

Rating out of 10- 6/10 It would be higher but it simply doesn't suit my thick heavy hair. I am sure all my readers can do better! :)

Taming the Beast: Lolita Hair Tutorial Review Part 1- Puffy Pigtails

So, here I go with my first entry for my hair experiment. I am starting with a hairstyle I have seen on a lot of girls. I thought a tutorial on Violet LeBeaux looked the easiest to follow. This is not the only place where you can find this sort of tutorial.

http://violetlebeaux.com/2010/04/hair-tutorial-hime-pigtails/

Note- I left out the hime pouf part because it was not to my personal taste.

Here is how it turned out (with pictures taken in the bathroom because it has better lighting!)

It doesn't quite look the same without the pouf but I think that for a beginner the result was not too bad.

How easy was the tutorial to follow?

It certainly looked easy when Violet did it. Violet's tutorials are quite straight-forward and I did find the instructions to be very clear. My main concern is the part where you use bobby pins to pin the pigtails higher up on your head. It looks as though Violet used less pins than me but I had to use extra to support the weight. Whilst I could have left out this stage, I decided I would put the effort in and pin up my hair. It took me a while to get the pigtails looking even and I had to start over a few times to get a better shape.

How long did it take?

After curling my hair and taking a few attempts to give my pigtails a desirable shape, about 50 minutes had passed. This time will probably get shorter with more practice. A majority of the time was spent re-pinning my pigtails.

How long did it stay in place?

I was not expecting this hairstyle to stay in place for very long but with all the pins and hairspray I used, I was proved wrong. My hair stayed in the same shape for 5 and a half hours which would have been longer, but I needed to take it out to go to bed.

Was the end result as expected?

I don't think my pigtails look as cute as Violet's. Even after a bit of restyling, the pigtails were not exactly even and I should have curled my hair a bit better. I am confident this style gets better with practice.

Would I try it again?

Yes but this is not a style I would do if I was in a hurry just in case I needed to re-do some steps.

How to cheat

If you pin your hair up into 2 buns then you could use some hair extensions/falls and clip them over the buns. This would give a thicker and more exaggerated appearance. The main issue would be getting extensions which are similar in colour to your natural hair. If you wanted, you could use a different colour to your natural hair for different results. Check to see if your extensions can be curled and backbrush them to make them look like the style shown in the tutorial. You may find some extensions wont work as well with this style and thicker styles would probably work better. Please note this is only a suggestion and I have not tried this on myself!

Rating out of 10- 7.5/10

Announcing a new series- Taming the Beast: Lolita Hair Tutorial Review

I totally forgot to announce I was doing this series! I decided to start posting about lolita hair but I wanted to do it in a way that looked fresh and was suitable for my skills. Instead of making my own tutorials I will be reviewing tutorials made by other people. I am currently wearing my first style for this project which I will try to post before the end of the week. My interest is seeing just how easy these tutorials are to follow. If you are new to lolita or the thought of all that styling terrifies you, then I hope to help you! I plan to show everybody my progress and hopefully my hair will improve in the process.

So why do I make such a good guinea pig to test these tutorials on? Because my hair is really unruly and I will test these tutorials to the max! Any style that can stay in place on my head is a winner.

Here are some things that make my hair the perfect challenge-

1. My hair is incredibly thick and heavy. Gravity always ends up ruining my hair.

2. It has a life of its own and refuses to be styled unless I have a bottle of maximum hold hairspray to hand

3. It tangles easily and looks messy

4. Growing up, I was never interested in hair and make-up. I was not a tomboy but at the same time I was never girly. So I am a total novice at doing my hair. This will help to test how easy tutorial instructions are.

5. I love fidgeting

6. Living in England means that I have lovely strong wind and rain to compete with, especially now Winter is coming

So I am really interested to see how my hair turns out. All of the styles will be done by me without any help and I will be going about my daily life as normal. I plan to have a lot of fun.