Studio: Volumised Hair

Creating volumised hair is important within fashion and beauty, as the key technique behind creating it is blowdrying.  Blowdrying is an important technique to perfect because it is used a lot in this area of industry and is sometimes used before specifically creating a hairstyle.

Equipment needed:

- Water Spray

- Mousse

- Pintal Comb

- Sectioning Clips

- Hairdryer

- Rounded Hairbrush

- Curling tongs

How to create Volumised Hair:

- Begin by blasting the hair until the last amount of water is left in the hair.

REMEMBER: It is only the last 10% of water left in the hair that makes a difference.

- Wet down the roots of the hair with a water spray, and working mousse into the roots will help to give lift too.

- Section off the bottom section of hair and work from the bottom of the head up.

NOTE: Wet and warm hair will be easy to manipulate.

REMEMBER: Use a nozzle on the hairdryer, as this directs the flow of heat and use a rounded hairbrush for blow drying.

- Lift the hair high with the hairbrush and dry the root underneath to get lift, moving the hairdryer back and forth.

- Dry the root on top, and then move onto the mid-length of hair.

NOTE: Keep the hair pulled up at all times to get maximum volume.

- Move the brush through the hair towards you with the hairdryer on it (the hairbrush has holes in it, so this will not damage the hair on the brush), making small turns as you go.

- Hold the hairdryer in the same direction as the hair, otherwise you will end up with fly-away hairs on the surface.

- Towards the end of the hair section, shape the ends how you want them; into the face, away from the face, or straight down.

- Before the next section, you can use a cool setting on the hairdryer to cool and set the hair.

NOTE: When working on sections above the ones you have already blow-dried, be careful not to comb it into the sections that you have already worked on.

- There will be a break between sections, so to get rid of these you can gather together sections and go over it once more.

- Once you have blow-dried the hair, use a pair of tongs to curl the ends to create a small amount of volume there.

NOTE: Other ways of creating volume in the hair include; backcombing, using a pintail comb and backcombing the underneath of the hair between the root and the mid-length, and crimping.  Crimping can lift the root but shouldn't be done around the face and should be hidden.

Blow-dried hair.

Blow-dried hair with pulled out curls on the ends.

Evaluation:

I found this task quite difficult, but useful.  Blowdrying hair is a fairly new technique to me still and one that I need to practice some more.  To begin with, I wasn't holding the hairdryer in the same direction as the hair, meaning I was left with little fly-away hairs on the surface of the hair.  However I adapted how I was holding the hairdryer which helped me to correct this.  I found that I managed to create a a good lift at the root, but towards the ends of the hair sections I could not get them to curl towards the face like I wanted and they just looked a bit straggly.  Another thing that I struggled with was keeping the sections separate.  I was careful not to comb the next bit of hair onto the last section that I had worked on, however when I was blowdrying the hair and swapping the brush around, I found that I was accidentally picking up hairs from the section underneath.  This technique is one that I need to work on and try to perfect.