18.11.14 Use of electrical equipment- curling tongs, straighteners, conical wands.

18.11.14

Use of electrical equipment- curling tongs, straighteners, conical wands.

Tools used

• Barrel tongs
• Pin clips
• Pin tail comb
• Postiche brush

This lesson concentrated on applying different techniques that can be used to create different types of curls. Curls can be created in many different ways including Carmen rollers, hot sticks, hair straighteners, curling tongs and conical wands as well as pinning the hair to create pin curls. In this lesson we practiced with different types of wands and tongs.

It is important to assess your clients hair before styling to decide which heat setting should be applied. If the hair is quite thick and already has a natural wave, a higher heat setting is required. If the hair is thin and wispy, a lower heat setting is required to avoid burning the hair. If I were creating curls whilst on set, a setting spray would be apt to hold the curls shape longer.

Once I had decided which hair style I wanted to create, I picked the size tong I thought would be most appropriate. I opted for a classic Hollywood hairstyle and chose large barrel tongs to create the large soft curls. I plugged the tongs in, making sure the safety clip was on and wires were kept out of the way. I sectioned the hair no thicker or wider than the barrel tongs and directionally wound the hair inwards as the hair would be worn swept to the side, with the soft curls draping over the shoulder. Before moving onto the next section, I applied a pin clip to hold the curl in while I curled the rest of the hair. Doing this allows the hair to cool and set in this shape. If I had not applied the pin grips to hold the hair, the hair would have dropped and set like this. When curling the final front sections, I curled the hair inwards to frame the face and achieve a Hollywood glam look, ensuring to protect the face by placing the tail comb between the scalp and tong. When the hair was completely cooled, I carefully removed the grips one by one and styled the hair using my postiche brush to smooth out curls and create lift where it was needed.

Problem solving

Once I had dressed out the hair, I noticed my dolly’s hair was too short to achieve the style i had in mind. If I had to fit this brief on a client and their hair was too short, I would have used clip in extensions to add length and volume. 

Overall, although the finished result wasn’t quite what I envisioned, I still produced a neat and wearable hairstyle and I can see I was along the right lines of achieving a Hollywood glam hairstyle, as could my tutor Emma.