Where'd she get that hair??

I decided I don't really like wearing a day cap, so I bought myself a clip on pony tail this year.  It works surprisingly well!

Ohhh, nice hair!  Wish I had this kind of body all the time! 

Short Hair

My new fb friend Jennifer L. shared at The Civilian Civil War Closet a picture of her ancestor who had sold her hair during the early 1860s in Michigan while her husband was a soldier and she was trying to run the farm.  Now, this isn't to say re-enactors with short hair can now all go around with exposed short hair, but it did happen, uncommonly.

Mary and William Ripley with son, David, 1863/4

6/18/14 addition: Someone posted this on the Civilian Civil War Closet from The Barrington House web site (which I cannot find the original pic there), but it's a great example of not very common short hair:

I wonder what happened to her hair?

To Snood or Not to Snood?

Since joining The Civilian Civil War Closet Facebook group, I've learned some more information about snoods/hair nets with ribbons.  Rather than writing a new post, I'm just updating this old one.

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2011: I'm trying to figure out what to do with my very short hair this year for This Is the Place.  I wondered if a snood might be my answer.  I wanted to be sure, though, before I did anything dumb, so I sent Liz Clark my question.

Of course she replied in very good time; and not only that, she put a full post regarding snoods on her site!!

http://www.thesewingacademy.com/2011/03/getting-snoody/

Basically -- in a very brief nutshell, the "snood" part is really the ribbon, not the net, and a snood is something that would really be worn by the upper classes, not the working classes.  So, a snood may not be the thing for me.

2013 update: According to some new Facebook friends from the Civilian Civil War Closet group, the net should be very close in color to one's own hair.

Here is a good picture of a hair net with ribbon from my new Facebook friend Isabella G. (used with permission).

Also, here's one from Ashley Goldsmith's Etsy shop.

I hear you can also find them at Sally Beauty or the Maddhatter or Victorian Lace on Facebook for around $1.00.

How should I fix my little girls' hair?

Well, from what I can tell, it's actually easier than you think!  I've always tried little braids and pigtails for my daughter, but since we're not endowed with much hair in this family, it doesn't work so well.

I believe it was in one of Liz Clark's many documents on dressing children that she mentioned just parting the hair down the middle and slicking it down, cut short.

I was looking through Earthly Angels for some new toddler dress ideas and noticed so many of the girls wear their hair this way.

An example from the site:

Now wait a second...  is that three little girls or two little girls and a boy on the left?  Well, I'm beginning to notice that all the little girls' hair is parted in the center (or no part at all -- just combed back); whereas, the little boys' hair is parted on the side, even though they may be in dresses!  The little boys in dresses just signifies that they are not yet potty-trained!  Getting pants must have been a rite of passage!

My Bun

So I had fun on e-bay a bit ago and ordered this awesome bun from China (yeah, it's a little big for my head). It was only $3.99, I think. I specified "light brown" in my message, but received "dark brown" I'm sure. I finally figured out how to make the bun stay in my fine, thin hair (used a butterfly clip), but the color is just too dark for my coloring. We'll see if it will work in Amy's short, fine hair!

So if you need a bun, give e-bay a try!

Rag-tied hair

So the other night, for some reason, I thought it would be fun to rag tie my hair.  I should have been going to bed, but I had to find out how to do it.

I shower at night, (I exercise and shower after the kids go to bed; it's too hard to do it before they get up; or heaven forbid, do it while they are awake) so I thought rag tying might work out nicely with my wet bed head.

I found a tutorial from Vixen Vintage that gave me the general idea.

My hair is really straight and short, so I couldn't wait to see what it would do.

Boing!

It was too hard to tie the under layer because it is so short and slippery, so I just curled that under with my curling iron in the morning.  The top curls relaxed enough that it looked good.  I should get a picture of it actually fixed.

I found that if I wound my hair with the rag tie around my tube of mascara (like it was a curler) that it didn't make the curls too tight. Of course I didn't leave the tube of mascara tied in my hair!  I pulled it out before tying the rag.

Now I can reproduce some of those 1850s looks.  I want to go buy a hairpiece, too!  Why did I make that day cap anyway, now that I can have fake long hair?!