My mother went to cosmetology school.  Do people even say ‘cosmetology’ anymore?  I don’t think so.  Anyway, my mom was a Beautician.  Do people say ‘Beautician’ anymore?  I don’t think so.  Okay, so my mom went to Hair Stylist school back in the day of Aqua Net and pin curls.  We had all the hair stuff in our house, the huge dryer you sit under, the curlers, the drapes, the bobby pins and sprays and hair rinses, we had all of it.

I have to tell you that some of my terminology for fixing hair is probably old school.  So bear with me.

To fix Ellen’s hair I put the base in a French Roll.  To do this I ‘teased’ or ‘ratted’ her hair that I wanted to pull to the side.

She’s not in pain…she IS a PAIN!

Teasing or ratting hair means you pull it out then comb it in short strokes back to the scalp, making it look like a matted mess.  What this does is gives the hair more ’stay’ power.  Since the hair is all locked in a mess it’s less likely to slip out when pinned.

So I pinned one side over and  gently smoothed the top layer of hair with a comb , the hair under the smooth part is all ratted, but you can’t tell.

Then I took the other side and rolled it back toward the pinned side and pinned it over top of the other side.  Does that make sense?  One layer of pinning goes over the other layer.  I used lots and lots of pins.

I know the photographer did not do a very good job of documenting what the heck I was doing.  I fired him.  If you really want to learn how to do this…this post is useless.  Please send letters of complaint to, Clay the former photographer.

So now the back and sides are pinned up and there is a huge mass of hair loose at the top.

This is when I decided my curling strategy.  The client is questioning if this was the right thing to do.

All the hair should be going forward, into the client’s eyes, that way I didn’t have to look at her.  Working from back to front I started making little curls with the curling iron I’ve owned since 1986.

Curl, curl, curl.

After each curl I sprayed it with maximum strength holding power hair spray.

Once the curling was done I started pinning up the curls.

This was the fun part because it’s like sculpting.  I took the curls and draped/folded/bended eache into the place I wanted them and then pinned it in place.  All the fine loose hair around her neck and ears I used a tiny bit of wax to bring together and then curled them.

I ignored the client as she began to get bored, I was working on a masterpiece!  Her boredom means nothing to me!

But, then the client started singing…

awful lyrics to encourage me to get this hair thing done…

But, I wouldn’t be distracted, I was still sculpting and pinning.

So she stopped singing and asked if I wanted to have a staring contest.  I told her sure if it would get her to stop singing.

Yeah, that didn’t work.

The client started to get impatient and feared she will be late to the party.

So, I jabbed her with a pin.

Which was all she needed to submit to my powerful hair authority.  I finished the last pinning, used an ungodly amount of hairspray and twisted in little sparkly thingies.  Hair done!!

That gave me about three minutes to throw on my dress, smear on some make-up and comb my hair.  Yeah, no up-do for me, the client totally trumped my getting ready time.

Later, I learned this is the only photo that the former photographer took of her all dressed up with her hair done.  It was drizzling rain.

Thankfully, I have a friend that does know how to document her children’s big events and she kindly took a few photos of my kid too.

Thank you for joining us today, there will be a test next week on this cosmetological post.  Please practice your French rolls.