Just Starting Out

It can be intimidating when you try something different like changing your style.

I should know as thats how I felt when I first decided to give up on the hopeless fashions of today and dress the way I admired other women for dressing.

Vintage.

I was worried people wouldn't appreciate the way I had decided to dressed and that I would get odd looks from passers by in the street. But as it turns out people generally like to see someone all dressed up in pin curls and a swing dress and apart from the one off jealous glares off some females it gets a lot of good attention and so will you.

I've written up a helpful little guide to start you on your new style adventure.

When I first started dressing vintage I needed all the help I could get, I didn't ever think I'd be able to successfully pin curl my hair or achieve the prefect eyeliner flick but thanks to the help of makeup/hair tutorials and vintage blogs I did.

Before you do anything you need to decide your era. Are you a 1920s flapper? A 1930s film star? A 1940s

    Land Girl? A 1950s Pin up? Or something completely beyond?

I'm a 1950s girl through and through and always will be, I have tampered with other styles but I always come back to the circle skirts and swing dresses of that era.

Once you have decided your era things become a bit easier, you know what you are looking for in terms of tutorials and what to copy.

Clothes:

Try experimenting with the clothes you have first. Turn them from modern day into vintage with a few adjustment or by adding a few accessories to see what works for you.

Reproduction clothing is great, there are a lot of sites online that sell repo/rockabilly/pinup clothing all depending on what you want. You'll feel beautiful and confident  in what you are wearing instead of worrying if you've paired the right vintage skirt with the right top and so on.

I didn't start wearing true vintage until I was confident in my style. You may be the same or you may feel confident enough to go straight into it. Either way its cool, all that matters is that you feel comfortable and beautiful in what you are wearing.

Makeup:

It can be a tricky thing to perfect but practice makes perfect.

You don't have to spend a fortune on products either, I don't.

In fact I find that most times high street products work just as well (and some times better) as high priced designer ones.

I found that tutorials on youtube and blogs the best way to practice my makeup and technique but once I was confident in what I was doing I started adding my own little bits and bobs into the mix.

                                      Hair:

There are so many different vintage hairstyles it's hard to choose which one to try first.

I want to say

try something simple first but, if you've never done them before, non of them are really that simple.

Don't let that deter you though. As with the makeup practice makes perfect! There are so many tutorials and blog posts available on the internet so make full use of them and get practicing.

Here is a list of links that helped me when I first started out and if you want more go to my links

page. 

Pin Curl tutorial part 1

 Pin Curl tutorial part 2

Victory Roll tutorial

Brows

Hair and Makeup 

If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask, I'll be as helpful as I can (email on contact page)

Also sorry about the awful formatting, can't seam to fix it :/

         I hope this has been a help to you ladies.

Till next time,

Laura Lou x

Untitled (due to the fact that I can't think of a title)

Just a quick post to show you a cute little hairstyle I did on Saturday :)

I used a quick and simple pin curling technique which I will be doing a tutorial on and uploading to my new blog (dedicated to vintage style hair and makeup) http://make-mevintage.blogspot.co.uk/ .

I put my outfit together using a fairly old pencil skirt which I got from George for (if I recall correctly) £8? and the top is also from George, it cost £12 and is still available online and in stores.


On a different and slightly less vintage note, Friday was fishbowl night with Jessie Grace and Sarah Lou.

I'd had a long week at work and could not muster the energy to do anything nice with my hair (don't judge me!) so to compensate I wore my old Lindy Bop Wiggle dress which hadn't actually seen daylight since January 2012, poor thing.

The crippling shoes I wore which prevented me from standing up all night. But it turned out to be a blessing as Jessie Grace and Sarah Lou had to go to the bar all night.

A slightly fuzzy picture of one of the fish bowls we had, I lost count after the first three.

A rather comical photo of me looking mortified after accidentally groping a man on the way back from the toilets.

Till next time folks,

Laura Lou x

Round Up

Well as I haven't blogged in about a week I'll tell you all what I've been up to.
I've mainly been making meatballs and pin curling my hair see...

 

Uncooked

 

Cooked... somehow I think they look better uncooked :s

My 'Secret sauce'

 I could eat these bad boys all day long.

Well that was the meatballs, now for the pin curls!

 

 Upon seeing this photo my little sister remarked 'urgh you look bald!' Why thank you Charlotte.

The night that these were taken it was Hannah Potter's Birthday Night out which of course meant us all gathering together to get sloshed.

Black Lindy Bop dress

We're so in love!

Till next time folks,

Laura Lou x

Laura Lou's Christmas

Hello! I feel like I haven't been on here in ages but in actual fact I think it's only been a week or less.

Anyhoo, in a few hours it will officially be the end of Christmas (not that it felt like it ever started, anyone else feel like that?) so I thought I'd share with you all my favorite snaps that were taken over the festive period.

 This isn't the best picture and doesn't show it off very well but I'm putting it on anyway! The card I got from my Boyfriend :) oh and my nutcracker ;)

Of course there has to be the Christmas table shot

Charlie Brown in the one suit she now has to wear for the rest of the year

 

Me posing next to the tree in my Christmas dress

Christmas dressing gowns were had by all!

This post wouldn't be complete without a picture of me having a drink now would it?

After opening presents and filling ourselves with a most delicious Christmas dinner (made by yours truly) we descended on my Grans house with the rest of the family to open yet more presents!

A full length picture of my outfit, I'm wearing my super cute brand new t-bar shoes I got off mother :) they look just like 1930s tap shoes so I felt compelled to do my poor imitation of a tap dance when I wore them.

This is Bethan being possessed... I'm kidding obviously! I took the photo too soon and it ended up looking like this

Here's what it should have looked like.

Me pretending I'm an extra in a Doris Day film

Here I appear to be stroking my Grans placid looking cat Sebastian but in actual fact I'm stroking my Grans rather vicious at time cat Sebastian. He wasn't very impressed at having his photo taken and attempted to scratch me as soon as the shutter had gone.

On Boxing day Jessie Grace and Sara Lou came round to exchange gifts... and drink Tequila

I think I must be losing my touch as I could only handle two shots, either that or I'm just getting too old for all this.

In the last few days I haven't done too much so we'll have to skip forward to Saturday Night when My Boyfriend and I went out for dinner.

I wore a beautiful Lindy Bop dress I got for Christmas (yes another one!)

 

It's the same as this dress but it's the updated version with a different belt

Excuse the beautiful view of my Bathroom

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a fantastic New Year,

I'll see you all in 2013!

Till next time,

Laura Lou x

'No Makeup' Makeup

I've been trying for a while to find a way of doing my makeup that makes me look 'naturally' beautiful and on Wednesday I think I achieved that goal!
I call it my 'No Makeup' Makeup look.
It's very easily done and with very few products, I'd be happy to do a video tutorial on it if anyone wants to know how I did it (just let me know).

 

I really liked this makeup because it wasn't heavy to wear, it was light coverage and it looked pretty natural. Plus it can be done with any old thing you have lying in your makeup bag.

It also works for a Gibson Girl look, which I have also been trying to perfect for a while.

 

I didn't use any products on my eyes. No eyeshadow, no eyeliner and no mascara which is why I'm surprised I'm even putting these photos online because normally you do not want to see be makeup free. It is not pretty *shudders*

 

I wore it with my favourite hairdo of the moment, the 1940s updo, I think it looked pretty cute.

 

And just look at how flawless my skin looks in black and white!

Till next time folks,

Laura Lou x

More Hair!

Here's a few vintage hairdos I've recently sported :)

 

1960s beehive, I seriously can't get enough of this style at the moment, even if it does ruin my hair with all the backcombing.

 

1940s Veronica Lake style waves. This happened completely by accident on Halloween (hence the spider on my face) never the less I was very pleased with it.

 

Classic 1940s updo. I had to get Bethan to do this for me (oh the shame) but I have the hang of it now!

 My full outfit from that night.

 

Victory Rolls (and my Gingham Shirt! You haven't seen that in a while have you)

Till next time Folks,

Laura Lou x