Foam can
be used to create lightweight and gravity-defying hairdos fairly easily. Sheets
of thin craft foam are available in loads of colours and can be bought from
craft and haberdashery shops for less than £1/$1 per sheet. London people
can find this stuff in that little sewing shop behind Camden tube station, and
I gather that it's sold in the US at places like Michael's.
You cut the foam up into strips and braid this into your hair - fold a foam strip
in half, and braid one side of it into your hair, (leaving the other side free),
then fix with an elastic band at the end of your real hair.
Sheets of craft foam aren't very big, so if you want longer foam strips, you can
just glue several strips together at their ends using a hot glue gun. For really
big hair, just rubberband extra pieces of foam in at the base of the foam you've
braided in.
As well as thin sheets of craft foam, you can also use foam tubes and cylinders,
and foam hair looks excellent when mixed with wide-bore plastic tubing (as RobotikNoizes
has done, on the right).
Tubular crin/"cyberlocks"
Tubular
crin is stretchy, synthetic mesh tubing which resembles chinese fingers
traps, is very lightweight and which can be used to make very interesting hairdos.
It seems to have a few different names (crin, tubular crin, tubular horsehair,
cyberlox, cyberlocks, stretchy ribbon) and there are two types of it;
The first type is quite rigid and narrow bore (about 1cm diameter), and is used
in millinery - you can buy this online from haberdashery shops such as Farthingales
(CA) and McCulloch
and Wallis (UK). This first type only comes in basic black and white.
The second type is much larger bore (close to an inch in diameter), is much
more flexible and squashy, and comes in a much larger range of colours. This
can be bought online from BL
Trimmings (UK) for about £17 for 33 metres (it comes in a large bag),
or as "Swiss stretchy ribbon" from Tatum
Ribbon Designs (US) .
Tubular crin can be used to make hairpieces, as an accent amongst other textures,
or even as extensions. It's quite bulky, so you'll probably only need about
25 metres for a pair of falls, and slightly more if you want to use it as extensions
- click the pictures below for two different ways to attach crin as extensions.
Fake
fringes/bangs
I feel stupid saying 'bangs' because I'm British. Therefore, I will say 'fringe
instead' :)
If you don't want to take the plunge and cut a fringe into your own hair, they're
very easy to make. You'll need to get hold of some weft hair (hair on a track,
which comes as one long continuous 'fringe' of hair), cut a length the width
of the fringe you want to make, and attach some wig/weave
clips to either end (plus one in the centre). Trim the hair to the length
you want.. and that's it! You can then just clip your fake fringe to the front
of your hair, and cover the back of the fringe with a headband or hairwrap to
disguise the area where it meets your hair. The weft hair doesn't need to be
very long and that means it'll usually be quite cheap to buy, since the price
of weft hair is directly related to its length - you can buy weft hair and weave
clips from Doc Locks, and
lots of other online shops sell weft/weave hair fairly cheaply too. For a few
quid/bucks you can make your own fringes to go with hairpieces of all colours,
but if you don't feel like making your own, then several of the places listed
in the shops and links section sell fake fringes.
Ceri's fake fringe
Ceri fancied having
a fringe, but only had an inch or so of hair at the front of her head, and quite
a narrow, pointy strip of hair at that.
The solution? Human hair on a weft. She cut three small sections of the weft
hair, and glued it close to the roots of her real hair using latex hair glue
(you can see this on the picture to the right). She then brushed her own hair
forwards and to the sides to cover the roots of the glued-in weft hair.
To finish off, she trimmed the hair to give herself a blunt fringe.
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Misscelestia's
Fake fringe
Miss
Celestia devised a good way to make a temporary fringe/bangs for those who
don't have access to weft hair, by using tiny sections of silky hair strung
along a piece of cord. She wrote a comprehensive 'how-to' for this which you
can find here.
You can also see how the wig clips are arranged on a fake fringe in the picture
on the right.
Electrical tape
| Wrapping
braids or dreads in electrical tape is a nice way to give a more futuristic
edge to these hairstyles. A few people have tried this technique, and the
overall opinion seems to be that it looks great, but the sticky stuff from
the tape will stick to your hair and make removal difficult, unless you
do something about it. Nhvek's suggestions
is to give your dreads or braids a very liberal dousing with talcum or baby
powder before you begin - this way, you can wrap the tape round your hair
-and- get it all out relatively painlessly afterwards. You still have to
spend a while shampooing the powder out of your hair, but this is quicker
and easier than getting rid of the sticky goo from tape! |
|
Wire-head!
Krushvia says:
My
friend Phil came over with some heavy-duty wire in his hair one night before
we were headed out to the club. It was just too thick and not really staying
in. I had purchased this 26 gauge wire at the craft store a few weeks earlier
and decided to use it. It worked great. This picture is the second time we tried
it. The two sections of hair in the front have 26 gauge magenta wire wrapped
around them. In the back, the wire is coated, (like a paperclip) instead of
painted. The coated ran about $1.00 US for 40feet... the painted wire was about
$6.00 for 13feet and wasn't as durable. The painted wire stands out much more
and looks great but just isn't worth the cost. I also attached small amounts
of lime green synthetic hair to the purple coated wire in the back. The really
great thing about this look is that everyone was coming up to him and bending
the wire forms into different shapes through the night.
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Individuals with consistently fabulous hair...
Well, as I started to expand this section, it occurred to me that there are other
sites out there which also 'showcase' people and their hair creations - for example
visit Haute Coiffure,
it's fab! I don't want to tread on any toes though, so I'll explain the reason
for this bit: The people I've featured here are those who have hair which is hard
to define into any one category, and they keep coming up with very inventive ways
to do their hair - so I've tried to do a gallery and an explanation of their hairdos
for each person. Lana's are a work in progress, 'cos there are so many of them!
Ceri
Ceri keeps
coming up with fabulous ways to do hair. She
runs her own hair extension service, where she will make you any hairpiece
you like with the promise that no two pieces will be the same. If you'd
like her to make something for you, email
her! She can lay her hands of pretty much anything to make a hairpiece,
not just hair...
Three of her styles are shown here - Dreads, tape, and foam tubes. Click
on each thumbnail for a larger view, and details of how each style was done. |
|
Another hair star. Frankly I couldn't decide what category this all came under,
so I gave her her own section. Her website is well worth a visit for a ton of
fabulous pictures.
All
Dethany - Click for descriptions.
Dethany says:
I am all DIY. hair is naturally dreaded 2 feet long and currently bleached white
and then dyed various shades of green-blue, razor-shaved back and sides. I did
DIY human dread extensions on the ends to make it a total length of 3 feet as
the natural dreads shrunk up and broke over the years.
link #1 natural hair w/ added 12" human to each end. temporary faux ivy and wire
added for fashion show. about 1 hour to do.
#2 same style w/o ivy. identical 'do on mannequin that i made from all human hair,
bleached, dyed and dreaded. me - 5 min. mannequin - 25 hours.
#3 same, but more yellow green. (b/w infrared shot) 5 min.
#4 spec. fx blue velvet and red w/ human loose ex. in lavendar and blue. w/ a
few synthetic braided/dreaded in red and neon green. a lot of spray. 1 hr.
#5 spec. fx blue velvet and temporary red w/ silver and blue gitter vinyl laces.
#6 LOTS of lavendar loose human falls teased over blue and magenta dreads.
Dethany is based in the Detroit area and is available to do extension work - just
e-mail to enquire!
Lana
Lana is another creative bunny - as an extensions stylist, she comes up with some
great ideas for her own hair, as well as creating fabulous hairdos on other people.
If you're near NY and would like to arrange an appointment, these are her contact
details:
Lana Guerra, "Hopkins & Thomas" salon, NY city 212-529-6565 ---(work
phone), lanaland2@hotmail.com
These are all Lana's styles, done on herself:
..And these are the great things she's done for other people:
You see? Genius! More to be added as she keeps on creating...
