Evaluations

Project Evaluation

When we were first told about the project I started to research Elizabethan hair and the different techniques which they used. Then we learnt about the techniques in more detail during lessons and we were taught how to create Elizabethan and modern hairstyles using the same techniques. I then researched the techniques we had learned and looked at the differences between how they were used in Elizabethan times and how they are used in modern day hairstyles.

When designing my own hairstyle I combined the different techniques we had learned to create several designs. I then thought about the designs and what were the good elements of each of the designs and which elements could be improved. For example plaiting or curling the whole of my hair would take up a lot of time so I decided to only plait and curl parts of the hair. I also thought about what could be achieved on my hair and what would look the best on my hair and I used all of these things to create my final design.

I continued to develop my design slightly as my partner practiced it as we realised ways to make it look better for example changing the number of plaits and the style of the curls to make it look more Elizabethan.

I enjoyed working on my partners design as AJ had given very clear instructions and we communicated well with each other to create the best designs we could. I found some elements of her design challenging at first for example making the bun the correct shape but with practice I managed to achieve her design.

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Technical Sessions

I have enjoyed the hair technical sessions as I think that I have learned a lot and I am now able to do many techniques I was unable to before I started the course. At first I struggled with curling and padding but I am now more confident as I have practised them several times. I liked learning how to create buns without using padding materials and how using the correct backcombing techniques can transform hairstyles and make them very strong and secure. I enjoyed learning different plaiting and frizzing techniques as I will be able to use them a lot in the future as bases for designs and I didn’t know there were so many different ways of using those techniques. I will continue to practice all of the techniques that I have learnt so that I keep improving. This will be straight forward for me to do as I will be able to refer back to all of the notes and photographs in my technical file. I liked how we learnt the individual techniques and then used them together in order to create complete hairstyles. In the future I would like to work more on a person instead of a doll so that I get used to working with different hair types and lengths. I look forward to this now as I am more confident with using heated equipment on people’s hair as I have practised on my doll and on a few people during lessons. 

Word count: 248

Final Assessment AJ's Design

In preparation for the assessment day I wrote myself a few notes on what I needed to do to complete AJ's design correctly. AJ also provided photographs, drawings and a step by step so I had lots of information to look at if I needed it.

Products:

Paddle brush

Pintail comb

Sectioning clips

Grips

Hair pins

Hair elastics

Hair band

Curlers

Crimpers
Straighteners

Hair chalk

Make-up brush

Hair spray

Heat defence product

Method:

Brush the hair through with a paddle brush

Section the hair at the front of the head using the pintail comb and sectioning clips

French plait four plaits into the front of the hair and secure with hair elastics

Put the plaits and the remaining hair into a ponytail and secure using a hair band, apart from the hair of the undercut.

Curl the hair of the undercut using heat defence product.

Crimp the hair in the ponytail using heat defence product.

Complete a bun using the crimped hair in the ponytail.

Straighten the fringe.

Apply hair chalk using a brush to the fringe and plaits in the hair.

Finish with hairspray

This is the end result of the final assessment:

Evaluation of the assessment day

I was pleased with how our assessment went because I finished the hair style on time and it looked how it was supposed to. I think the bun could have been a bit neater as I found it difficult to control the crimped hair on the day to create a smooth finish but in the end I managed to create the correct bun shape. I was happy with the plaits as they sat flat against the head which was something that I had struggled with. I had also struggled with curling to get the curls tight during the practices but I curled and pinned the curls tightly on the day and used hairspray so they maintained their shape which I was very pleased with. I think I applied the hair chalk well as there was very little that dropped and I managed to cover alternate strands of the plaits and dip dyed the fringe how we had planned. Although as I had used more heat defence product on the day than when I had practised it soaked up some of the chalk and made the colour less intense so it didn't pick up as well on camera as I had hoped. So if I did the hair style again I would have layered more of the chalk onto the hair and would have made the bun slightly smoother and crimped the hair better so that the crimping was more visible in the photographs but overall I was pleased with the hair style I achieved. I think myself and AJ have worked well throughout the project as AJ gave me a lot of information on how she wanted her design to look and also gave me plenty of feedback on how I could improve after each practice which I listened to and improved on for the following practice. Also I feel I practised the design and prepared as much as I could for the assessment day and AJ said she was pleased with the hairstyle I crated on the day.

Final Assessment My Design

For the practical assessment where I was the designer I completed a step-by-step for AJ to refer to in the assessment just in case she needed it. I also included photographs from when she had practised the individual techniques on my hair- that can be seen in previous posts, so that AJ could see her previous work and refer to it during the assessment if she needed to. However she didn't need to look at it in the end as she knew exactly what she was doing without it.

Final Design Step By Step

-Section the hair at the front of the head using a pintail comb and sectioning clips so that there are three sections ready to be plaited. Make sure you leave hair out at the sides near the ears so that this hair can be curled later on.

-Do a French plait in the middle section of hair at the front of the head and secure with a hair elastic.

-Complete two fishtail plaits one either side of the French plait and secure them with hair elastics so that they finish in line with the French plait.

-Section off the hair that will go over the padding and crimp using crimpers making sure heat defence product is used on the hair.

-Make a plait for the padding to be secured to and then attach the padding to the head using the plait as a base and secure with hair pins and grips.

-Brush the remaining hair at the back of the head into a ponytail using a paddle brush securing with a hair band.

- Complete the bun using hair pins and grips to keep the hair in place. Make sure all the hair is rolled under and that the bun has a smooth finish.

- Curl the hair that was left out at the front of the head using barrel curlers, using heat defence product on the hair.

-Use hairspray to set the style and then add decorative pins to the bun to complete the style.

These are photographs from the final assessment day.
 Photographs taken and hair styling by AJ Curtis.

Final Assessment

I think AJ and myself work well together, we practiced as much as possible and the end result was how I wanted it to look. If I did this again I may have made the design slightly simpler as there were a lot of elements to complete in the given time. The reason I incorporated a lot of elements was that I wanted to give my partner the opportunity to show off their ability by using several different techniques, however I realised that under the pressure of being in an assessment this may have been difficult to complete. In the final look photographs I decided to have pale make-up with pink cheeks and lips to make myself look Elizabethan but I kept by eyebrows strong to keep the look modern. I wore pearls as they were very popular in Elizabethan times and they also matched the decorative bun pins that I had chosen. I also wore black as this was seen as a symbol of high social class in Elizabethan times as black was expensive to produce. I thought this went with my design well as the hairstyle would have been worn by someone of wealth or high social class if it was worn in Elizabethan times.

Peer Evaluation

I was pleased when I found out that Amy Curtis (AJ Curtis) was my partener for my projects as we had worked together well in a previous task and I was confident we could work well together again. AJ followed my design well and took on board all the feedback which I gave to her, for example making the plaits tighter and the bun neater. Also she gave suggestions as to how she thought the design could be improved for example where the best place to put the decorative hair pins was. I thought AJ did well on the assessment day and even though there were a few problems with getting the padding to stay in the correct place she managed to stay calm and completed the padding well. Then she completed the bun and curls in the time that was left and created the shapes I wanted for both very well. The plaits were also very neat and sat flat against the scalp which is what I had hoped for and the finish to the design was smooth with everything feeling very secure. Overall I was very pleased with the work AJ created and I would be happy if we had to work together again in the future.

Practices

Practicing As A Stylist

First of all myself and my partner AJ swapped designs which had diagrams and notes on how we wanted our final designs to look. Then we started to practice in the studio. We decided that I was going to be the stylist first and AJ would be the designer and so I started to practice her design.

The first time I practiced AJ's hair design I concentrated on completing the whole design so that I knew I was capable of doing the different techniques in the design. During the first practice the different elements took me longer than the assessment time to complete and at first I was slightly worried about being able to complete the design in the assessment. However when I thought about it I had spent a lot of the time talking to AJ about exactly how she wanted her design to look and it took me a while to figure out the best way to complete the different elements. 

Overall I was pleased with what I had achieved as it was only my first attempt and I had managed to do all of the required techniques. However I knew there was a lot of room for improvement and I made a note of  how I thought I could improve the feedback AJ gave to me so I could improve for next time. I needed to section the hair at the front of the head neater so that the plaits we more even and the partings between the plaits were straighter. Also the shape of the bun needed to be neater to create a better rounded shape and I needed to section off the hair in the under cut properly so that none of the hair from the under cut was taken into the ponytail by mistake. This would make it easier for me to make the size of the curls in the under cut even and therefore they would look a lot cleaner. The curls also needed to be neater as they became a bit messy because I worked the hair too much after I had curled it as I was trying to make them look better as I struggled to get the shape AJ wanted when I was curling the hair. 

Lottie also suggested that I should complete the elements in the design in a different order to what I had done to give a better finish. In this practice I completed all of the plaits before putting them into a ponytail and had completed the bun before curling the hair. So Lottie suggested to try doing the ponytail and then plaiting the hair towards the ponytail so that the angle of the plaits was better and so the plaits would sit flatter against the head. This would also prevent having bumps in the plaits where I had to change the angle of them. Also Lottie suggested completing the curls and pinning them before doing the bun so that I could reach the hair that needed to be curled without the bun being in the way.  

After my first attempt I continued to practice AJ's design at home on my dolls head so that I was prepared for the next time we practised in the studio together- however stupidly I didn't take any photographs of this. So when I did the design on AJ again I felt more confident and prepared for completing the design. I took Lottie's advise on board and completed the design using the techniques she had suggested which worked really well and I will continue to use them when doing the hairstyle. I still went slightly over time when completing the style so we knew that this needed to be improved on for the assessment day. However I had become a lot faster than previously when completing the design so I was confident I could continue to get faster.

I think I improved a lot as the whole design was a lot neater especially the plaits as they were more even and tighter to the head which is how AJ wanted them to be. The partings between the plaits were neater than before but could still be improved on for next time. The shape of the bun was better but it was still a bit square in shape and needed to be  more round. Therefore to make this easier for me to achieve we decided that the bun could be slightly higher which I find easier to work on. Also I tried making the bun wider than previously to see if this looked better however we decided it was a bit too big and over powered the rest of the hair so we decided the bun should be slightly smaller. The curls in the hair were a lot neater and had a better shape than before which I was pleased with and we decided that pinning them and using hairspray would help to maintain the shape.

We also practised the hair design at home mainly so that I could practice completing the design in time and perfecting the shape of the bun and the plaits. I did manage to get quicker at completing the design and so I felt a lot better as I knew I was capable of completing the full design on the assessment day. In this particular practice the bun was a lot neater and AJ was happy with the shape and size of the bun. However I did not french plait the hair far enough back and needed to remember to plait so that the french plaiting goes all of the way to the bun. We also decided to add hair chalk into the design as AJ felt it needed something added to complete the look. I found applying the chalk quite straight forward but needed to be careful as it can easily drop onto the rest of the hair if you apply to much. To help prevent it moving we tried using hairspray to keep the chalk in place and this worked well. Also we decided that the chalk should be used as a dip dyed effect on the fringe to make it look modern and so that the fringe doesn't look as bold as it does in these photographs. We also decided to use the chalk on alternate strands of the plaits so that they don't look flat as some of the natural hair will be seen which will reflect more light and pick up the details of the plaits on camera.

Practising As A Designer

When I had decided on my final design I practiced it myself on my dolls head so that I could see what it looked like and also allowed me to practice my own technical skills. I gave AJ a drawing with notes and these photographs so she could look at them before we started practising. 

 Then AJ started to practice on me, in all the following images the hair styling and photographs have been completed by AJ Curtis following my design. I've added them to show how my design developed and the changes that were made.

 These are some photographs of the work AJ did in the studio. Originally in my design I was going to have five plaits at the front of the head with three being french plaits and three being fishtail plaits, however this took up a lot of time and so with the limited time in the assessment I decided to change my design to only having three plaits. AJ then did the three plait design with one french plait in the middle of two fishtail plaits and we both thought this looked a lot better. This was beacause it allowed more hair to be used in the plaits making them stand out more and also meant there was more room for the curls at the side of the head. I also decided that it would look better if the curls at the side of my head were tighter as it would look more Elizabethan and also the design would work better as a whole as the rest of the hair was tight to my head and not hanging down. We also thought it would look better if the plaits were tighter and sat flatter to the head, so AJ continued to practice plaiting so that this could be achieved. I also felt the bun was a bit too big in the first couple of practices and needed to be tighter and so AJ did this in future practices.

More photographs of the work AJ completed on my hair:

We continued to practice including practicing at home to prepare for the assessment but due to illness  and other circumstances we didn't get to practice as many times as we would have liked. However we made the most of the time we had continued to practice with the bun and plaits becoming neater every time AJ practised. I also suggested that it would look neater if the sectioning of the plaits was a bit straighter and AJ agreed and did this. I had decorative bun pins which I wanted to use as I thought they were Elizabethan in style and so we tried placing them in different ways until we decided on having six placed in the bun. I thought this would work well as they would be easily seen when we took a back shot of the design for our assessment. As we had practiced several times and I knew AJ could do the elements of the design to a high standard I felt confident that she would do a good job on the assessment day.