Finger Waves

Hair.

It has evolved so much since the beginning of time from the Romans with their top knots to the Georgians with their towering wigs.
I want to start where its really got interesting, when women were liberated from fashions that were dictated by men, when women were released from the bonds that society put on them and they were free to be who they wanted to be.
The 1920s.

Finger Waves
In the 1920s the way women started to style their hair changed. Gone were the waits long tresses and chignons to be replaced with short chin level hair.
The 'bob'.
But the flat sleek style of the bob sadly didn't suit the face of every woman of that era so curls and waves were added into the mix.
Not everyone's hair would wave successfully much to the frustration of the unlucky ones but the development of the permanent wave drove flocks of women to the salons to achieve the perfect wave.
This new hair craze also made it possible for women to get into the male dominated profession of hairdressing (you go girls!).

What is a "finger wave"?
A finger wave is an 'S' shaped curl that when dry falls into wonderfully deep waves.
Some people can get confused between Finger waves and Marcel waves. The difference is that with Marcel waves a hot iron was used and with Finger waving you use damp hair/wet set.

I find it fascinating learning about how women beatified themselves before beauty aids like, hair dryers, hair spray and quick heating curling tongs were invented.
I thinks it's wonderful that women went to such efforts to look beautiful not because men wanted them to but because they wanted to look that way and dress that way.
Three cheers for the 1920s female hip hip...

This post was supposed to be accompanied by a little tutorial and pictures of my own finger wave set but since I had the idea (two weeks ago) I have tried and tried and discovered that I am just awful at the whole thing so sometime in the (hopefully) near future you will get to see me sporting a wave set.
Till next time folks,
Laura Lou x