Regency curls for 5 minute hair!

It's no secret that I like quick ways to dress my hair for living history.  Regency is tricky for me though as I have bone straight hair and all of the period images show glorious ringlets and curls.  I've discovered the best solution to be clip in curls.   Once you take the trouble to make a few, you can easily style your hair in 5 minutes.

I had made a few clip in curls which a described in this post.  Those curls tend to hand to the side and get in my eyes so I thought I'd make some shorter ones.

You will need:

• hair pieces of your choice
• end papers
• sponge rollers

I found these clip in bangs on Amazon for cheap in my color so I ordered two sets.  These are short enough where the curls won't hang down in my eyes plus I'll be able to wear them on each side with a center part for other 19th century styles.   I was pleasantly surprised that they matched my hair as well as they did.  Here is one set clipped in.  Usually #33 Dark Auburn works well for me.

I used the smallest sponge rollers I could find--labelled size small and about 1/2 inch in diameter or so.  I started sectioning off little sections--planning on about 8 per hair piece.  One thing to note about synthetic hair--it's extremely curl resistant.  I've learned with my own hair that I just can't curl straight hair without end papers--even with a curling iron.  Wrap an end paper around the ends and roll it up all the way.  The rollers are perpendicular with the clips and I just followed the natural wave of the hair to determine the direction of the curl.  One of the sets has the curls going in the same direction and one doesn't.  It doesn't matter.  Here you can see what the back of these little pieces look like.

Once both sets are curled, fill up a tea kettle and heat the water to boiling.  When it boils, remove it from the heat for 30 seconds - 1 minute.  Place your hair pieces, rollers up, in a metal colander in the sink and pour the hot water over them, making sure to thoroughly saturate them.  Allow them to drain for a few minutes.

Place the hair pieces on a towel and blot with another towel.  Leave them there until cool--probaby a half hour or more.

Once they feel cool, gently remove the curlers.  If a curl gets messy, just wrap it around your finger to reshape it.  The curl is burned into the hair and it won't fall out.

Place the hair pieces somewhere to dry.  This will take several hours.  I dried mine overnight.

Once dry, your hair pieces are ready to use.  You may choose to make the curls neater by combing each one around a dowel or you may wish to shake them out to make them a bit fluffier.

I will use these hair pieces along with an extension strip with 4 longer curls which I detailed in the post linked above:

And I use a clip on hair piece that goes on top of the head.  This one can be worn over your bun.  I may be curling it into tighter curls eventually.  Right now I just wear it as I bought it.

It's just a bundle of curls that has 2 combs and stretches in the middle:

Now to do your 5 minute Regency hair:

Step 1:  Twist your hair up into a tight bun and secure with hair pins.  If your hair isn't long enough, pull it all up and secure with bobby pins as best you can.

Step 2:  Clip your curly bangs close to the front to obscure your hairline.

Step 3:  Take the strip with the 4 curls and clip it behind the bangs so the curls fall to the sides.

Step 4:  Take the curly bun and stretch it so you can stick the combs into both sides of your little bun.

That's it!  You can wear this under caps, poke bonnets and turbans.  I chose to use a dupatta shawl to wrap around my hair.  I love them as they are quite large but tend to be really light airy textiles so you can make small or large wraps. I had these silk chiffon ones to choose from:

I decided on the black one since it's not as fancy.  I folded it in quarters lengthwise and wrapped it around my head so that the top curls were not covered.  I tucked the first end in and pinned it then I wrapped the second end and secured it with several pins so it would hang down.

You can see the back here.  You can also choose to stick a decorative brooch or a plume in the wrap as well. The entire hair style including the wrap took 5 minutes.

Here is the finished product:

These little hair pieces are a life saver.  Living in the Mid Atlantic heat and humidity means no curls for my stick straight hair.  They last about 10 minutes.  This is sooooo much easier!