How to Create a 1940s Updo: Friday

This hairstyle has been inspired by the female codebreakers of Bletchely Park. I also run a regular hair and make-up workshop session on site at Bletchley Park called the '1940s Boutique'.

Vintage hair styling requires several things; patience, nimble fingers and a few select styling products. In my line of work as a freelance vintage hair stylist, make-up artist and owner of Sarah's Doo-Wop Dos, I regularly create many different looks from different eras for my customers, so the tips I'm sharing in this article are thoroughly tried and tested!

This style works well for all hair types and lengths and is a great look to learn as it is the basis for many other styles. Modern styling tools make styles like victory rolls easier to achieve as we can now use electric curling tongs and heated rollers to create the curls and waves that women in the 1940s would have had to wet set their hair to create, a much more complicated and time consuming process. Sleeping in pin curls, to look after your hairstyle, was just part of a war time woman's regime, as it was felt that it was important to look your best even at a time when products were scarce.

To keep this look authentic, keep your make-up simple because make-up, like hair products such as shampoo, was in short supply during the war years. Here I have used a pretty rose colour on the cheeks and lips and a beige colour on the eye lids with just a slick of eyeliner and a little mascara to exaggerate the lash line. With make-up hard to come by, a suggestion for women in the 1940s was to melt down what was left of their lipstick and mix it with a little oil. This not only made it go further but also enabled it to be used as a rouge, or what we now call blusher.

1. Start the style by splitting the front of your hair into two parts, one large part and one small part, and backcombing them both at the roots to create lift and give the style a strong base. Use the back of your ears as a rough guide for how far to take each section back.


2. With the larger side, split it again into two and roll the front bit forward into a decent sized roll. Take your time with this part as it is quite fiddly. Once you are happy with how it looks, secure it in place with hair grips.

3. With the rest of the large section, roll the hair up tightly and tuck it in behind the first section to create one continuous roll, again securing it in place with hair grips. If there are any stray hairs your can tidy them up by spraying the roll with hairspray and smoothing with your hand. As hairspray wasn't available in the 1940s (it was later in the 1950s that aerosol 'hairspray' came on the market) women had to use homemade solutions such as sugar water to set hair in place.


4. Now with the smaller side you will need to repeat the backcombing step, being careful not to let the backcombing show through to the front of the hair.

5. Roll up the section of hair, keeping it tight so it matches the other side and pin it in place.


6. Once the rolls are in place, fix them with hairspray and start to create the loose curls on the rest of the hair. 1940s curling tongs were very thin, so, baring this in mind, you want to use a small barrel (approx 1nch) curling tong to create the curls for this style. Once you have curled all the remaining hair, run your fingers through the curls to break them up a little and fluff them up a bit for a bouncy curl. Again, finish with a liberal spritz of hairspray. If the curls do start to drop or the weather is bad, try wearing a snood (a colourful, crocheted or knitted hair net) over the back of your head to protect the curls.


7. To decorate this style I have used a small felt flower hair clip that I made. Handmade accessories were popular during the 2nd World War and as part of the 'Make Do and Mend' initiative people were encouraged to make items and re-use things. For instance, the off-cut of a damaged dress could be made into a headscarf or a brooch could also be worn in the hair. Here the flowers have been placed between the two rolls drawing attention to them. This placement is seen a lot in hairdos from the 1940s.

Credits
Article, hair and make-up: Sarah Dunn, owner of Sarah's Doo-Wop Dos www.doowopdos.co.uk

Model: Katrina

Clothing: Rose-tinted Vintage Bedford

Photography: Jez Brown www.facebook.com/jezbrownphotography

Inspired by the women of Bletchley Park www.bletchleypark.org.uk