Having A Ball With Hair!!

As promised, I'm going to give y'all some tips on creating a Civil War hairstyle for a ball. If your hair is shoulder-length or longer, you can use many variations of the following style.

First, follow the steps in my previous blog to part off front sections of the hair. Then create the bun, but this time, leave the ends of the hair draping down on one side. You can use a curling iron to make little sausage curls - we didn't have time to do this but you get the idea of where the hair goes from the photo. Twist or braid the front sections as before, but you can curl the ends if you want to add to the ringlets draping down. Or you can tuck the ends under the bun.



A comb looks lovely with this hairstyle. Combs were very popular in that era and were made of many materials such as tortoise shell, gutta percha, horn or gilded metals. This is a faux tortoise shell comb.



Next you can add flowers and ribbons! Victorian ball hair pieces were often circlets or half-circles that you pinned into your hair. We used a half-circle hair piece with colors that looked gorgeous with Merri's hair! (Psst, you can check my mom's Etsy shopwww.southernserendipity.etsy.com for other ball hair pieces!)



You can have fun adding extra sprays of flowers besides the main hair piece too.



This is my sis with the same general hairstyle - a bun with curls coming off the side.



Here are some period images of hairstyles from the late 1850s-early 1860s. Note the combs and the placement of the flowers.







Once again, thanks to our awesome model, Merrianna!!