Carol Writes:
“My hero is Dita Von Teese and I love her hair style picture here. I’ve never been able to master it though. Can you help me?”
The style Carol is asking about is often referred to as Dita rolls, or victory rolls. These can be pretty tricky to master, but with a little practice, you’ll be able to do all sorts of great styles with these skills!
To help explain the process, I took my camera into my bathroom so I could show you a step-by-step on myself of how to get these looks. So please overlook my speckled shower curtain and various drag-queen accoutrement that may pop up in the background!
Now people with all sorts of hair textures and styles can pull this look off. Here’s what I have to work with; medium length layered hair:
From here, start by making a triangular part to separate the hair that you will use to create the faux bangs of this hairstyle. Now technically these bangs are more of an upside down victory roll, and the sides will be the true victory rolls. Here’s what your part should look like:
To make things easier, I went ahead and pinned back the rest of my hair while I worked on this section. Now you want to lift up this section, spray hairspray on the roots, and gently back-comb it to give it body. Another alternative is using a rat (wad of bunched up fake hair, or other object pinned in to give body), but I prefer to just get a little back-combing and product because I don’t want my look to be quite that huge 🙂
Next, smooth out the other side of your faux bangs, so that the side we see will be clean looking.
Now for the hard part! Don’t be afraid to practice this until you’re comfortable with it! You’re going to take the ends of your hair, and wrap it loosely around the width of two fingers in a curl shape. Next, grab that curl and roll it down to the base of your hair where you will pin it into place. Put in two pins, one from either side, and make sure that they cross in order to lock the pins in place. Now you can grab the edges of this curl and begin lightly pulling and fanning out the width of the barrel.
Whew! you’ve made it past the hardest part! Once you master this, it’s all easy as pie 🙂 Now go ahead and use your hands to shape these faux bangs and curve the ends up a little more if you like. Don’t be afraid to stick more pins in the barrel if you need to! From here, you can use this as a style without the side rolls. You can wear is straight to look like Bettie bangs, or up in a ponytail for a more 50s look. You can take that ponytail one step further, put it into a loose bun at the top of your head, add a bow, and voila! You have retro barbie hair!
OK, now on to our side rolls, our true victory rolls! You’ll basically go through the same steps you did for the front, just now it’ll be to the side! Back-comb the inside of the hair section, smooth the outer part of the section, roll the ends around your fingers, and pin into place.
Now, go ahead and stretch out that hair section to your desired width. Set with a good dose of hairspray!
I like to make mine nice and tall! Repeat on the other side, and you’ll end up with this:
Now, if you want to go more dita with it, just pull the ends f the vistory rolls down, and the ends f the front barrel up, and spray to shape. If you want to make it that more even-leveled shape that you’ll sometimes see in various retro pics, you can just lower the placement of those side barrels, and then gently pull the ends of the side barrels and bang barrel into each other, spray, and set. It’s like a hair hat, but in an ever-so-pin-up-y way!
From here you can do all sorts of fun alternatives with it; like throw in a big hair flower, or if you’re in the sweltering summer heat like me, braid the bottom half for greater comfort!
Allright! you’ve reached the end! Hopefully you’re not too intimidated yet…just remember that practice makes perfect, and nothing is stopping you from taking out those pins and trying it again! Good luck and happy styling!!!
***If you have a minute, I’d appreciate it if you could go check out my business profile for Austin Fashion Week! I’m participating in the competition for the Austin Fashion Awards, so if you’re feeling so inclined, I could use your vote to bring exposure to my business. Thanks! Here’s the link: Wendy Sanders Austin Fashion Awards***
Wendy Sanders is a freelance hair and makeup artist in Austin, TX. You can see her work and get info on workshops at her website, www.wendymichellesanders.com. Please send your pin-up hair and makeup questions to bloodandglittermakeup@gmail.com
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