Edwardian Hair Lessons: Tutorials On How To Create Fashionable Hairstyles Through Pictures in 1911

Overall, women’s Edwardian hairstyles had a soft, fluffy and loose fluidity about them, despite being large and often padded to create the bulk and size fashionable during this era. The hair could even be quite fuzzy, especially if Marcel tongs were used regularly. Hair was dressed up and away from the face, with the exception of a curled fringe which sat on the forehead.

Below are some amazing Edwardian hairstyle lessons and advices from Girls Own Paper magazine in 1911:

1. The New Classic Coiffure

The first step in making the Classic Coiffure is to brush all the hair toward the back, taking care that every tangle is removed. After the hair is smooth, a parting is made just a little to the left of the centre front. It commences at the forehead and continues to the top of the head.

Another part is made, beginning on the line of the first parting, two inches back from the forehead. This second parting runs down the side of the head and terminates just behind the left ear. then the hair is again divided, the parting beginning at this side parting and running parallel with the first.

First the lower division on the left side is combed and made into a pompadour. It is held in place with a side comb. Then the front portion is put up. The second illustration shows how this is done. The illustration above shows how to fasten the right side of the pompadour. Only one parting is made on the right side however.

This picture shows how to make the puffs. the ends of the pompadour only are used for this purpose. These long ends are divided into several small strands. Each strand is then rolled over the two forefingers, toward the head, until the full length of the hair is used. The puff is held in place with two hair pins, one at each end.

Each strand makes one puff, and care should be taken when fastening these puffs to arrange them in a soft graceful cluster. The shape of the cluster should be very like the psyche knot to be quite modish. The illustration above shows the hair after all the puffs are made and before the back hair is divided in two for the coils.

The back hair should be divided in two equal parts. The right division is twisted just enough to make it coil shape. It is then brought over to the left side, wound around the pompadour two inches from the cluster of puffs on that side, but close to the puffs on the right side, where it is securely fastened with an invisible hair pin.

If the back hair is long enough to completely encircle the circle of puffs, the left division may also start on the left side. If the hair is short, the coil should cross the back and start from the right side. This second coil should be outside the first coil on the right side, and inside on the left, the coils crossing in the front.

This view shows the completed Classic Coiffure ornamented only with a large handsome barrette which fastens through the coils and holds the hair firm.

One of the new coiffure bands of brilliantly coloured sequins mounted on gold braid and decorated with a buckle of the same makes a charming ornament.

Grecian bands as hair ornaments are modish.

2. The Coiffure Lesson

A Picture Story which tells how to make the New Recamier Coiffure

The woman with a well dressed coiffure is like a woman who dresses well. She avoids extremes. To have her hair dressed in the fashionable way she no longer has a huge pompadour and an exaggerated swirl, but, instead, a soft low pompadour, a few pretty puffs and perhaps a coil or a cluster of curls made from the ends of her own hair. her aim is to have her coiffure look natural, and for this reason she will be interested in the now fashionable Recamier style.

This fashionable Coiffure can be made with little or much Hair

Although the Recamier is the smartest coiffure of the hour, unlike many other styles, it is one that every woman can arrange herself and with only her own hair. Whether a woman has much or a little hair, she can always develop it in a graceful way, if only she knows how. In this lesson is explained how the Recamier coiffure can be made making the most of little hair and disposing of what seems like almost too much hair in an equally satisfactory manner.

To make the Recamier coiffure, first brush all the hair carefully. Then divide it by making a parting from the crown of the head to the forehead, and again by parting on both sides which runs from the centre parting two inches back of the forehead to an inch back of either ear.

Next brush all the hair forward. Comb it smooth and divide into three equal strands. Each strand is then drawn back and fastened at the crown of the head with a large hair pin. Do first one side strand, then the other, and, lastly, the front one. Pin each one seperately.

To secure a soft fluffy pompadour, like the one shown in this illustration, avoid the use of a pompadour roll where the hair is thick enough to stay in position. After the pompadour is all pinned securely in place, the next step in arranging the Recamier coiffure is making the puffs.

Each puff is made by rolling a strand of hair over the two forefingers, beginning at the end of the strand and rolling toward the head. When all the strand is used up, the puff is pinned at the crown of the head with two hair-pins at both ends on the under side.

Care should be taken not to place the puffs in stiff positions. The woman with little hair can only have the puffs, and for these she should use both the front and back hair. But the woman with much hair should use only the front portion in making them. The back division she uses for the soft coil shown in this illustration.

To make this coil, the back hair should be divided in two. the left division is twisted backward and brought over to the right side and pinned in place around the cluster of puffs. The same should be done with the right half, only bring it over the left side around the puffs. After the coils are in place pin in the fancy coil pins.

3. The Soft Pompadour and Psyche Knot

After all the tangles have been removed, a parting is made, beginning at the forehead and running backward through the centre to the top of the head, but not down the back.

A second and third parting are now made. The second begins on the line of the first parting about two and one-half inches from the forehead. It runs down the left side of the head and terminates an inch behind the ear. The third parting is like the second, beginning at the same point, finishing an inch behind the right ear.

The hair is now in three divisions, the two front ones and the back portion. Before making the pompadour, all the back hair should be carefully combed and tied back so as not to be in the way. The pompadour may then be put up. First smooth the left side, brushing it foreward, then up and finally back into pompadour shape. Fasten it at the top of the head with a hair-pin.

Next the right side of the hair is smoothed out, brushed up into a pompadour and pinned securely at the top of the head, close to the place where the left side is fastened. This illustration shows the right side of the hair being pinned into place. After the pompadour is made, the hair should be carefully pulled out withthe hands so as to cover all three partings.

Now the hair is ready to make the psyche knot. Comb out the ends of the pompadour, untie the back hair and comb both it and the ends of the pompadour together. Brush the long hair up so it can be tied with a narrow black ribbon, close to the head, but about two inches above the nape of the neck. After the hair is tied in place, begin to twist the coil into shape.

Bring the twisted coil up toward the top of the head, shaping it into a psyche effect. Fasten it securely with two or three hair-pins as shown in the fifth illustration. Then continue to twist the hair until it is all used, coiling it at the same time, loosely around the first part of the psyche knot. Fasten the completed psyche knot with hair pins.

To complete the coiffure, fasten a wide slide just under the psyche knot. two plain tortoiseshell pins, as shown in the illustration, may also be worn.

An attractive hair-ornament for evening wear is a band of gold braid mounted on a velvet band, which is trimmed with narrow ribbon velvet and gold braid.

(From Girls Own Paper magazine; scanned by Michaela de Bruce)