Saturday, April 08, 2023

Did anyone miss me?

I just realized I haven't touched this blog in 2 years!  I may take it in a new direction.  I've been doing a lot of hair & makeup design lately, so this might be a good place to record what I work on and track my progress.

I finished The New Moon about a month ago.  Set in 1790, so just about everyone wore a wig, and one utility ensemble member had three!  I had a few false starts with some of the wigs, so I ended up styling close to 40 of them.  No, I didn't have anyone to help, so although I was also supposed to be makeup designer, I was so busy doing wigs that makeup got very short shrift indeed.  

I was styling wigs right up to opening night, and ended up restyling one of them because I wasn't too happy with how the first attempt turned out.  Fortunately, the singer, the director & I were all happy with the 2nd attempt.

The men's wigs were largely queues and braids; easy.  It's just that there were about 12 or 15 of them.  The challenge was the women's wigs.  They were all variations of the Georgiana, Adele and Matilda styles from 18th Century Hair and Wig Styling.  They took a LONG time - about an hour just to do a wet set of each one (though by the end I think I got it down to 45 mins), using close to 30 rollers each.  Then the wig had to sit & dry, then I had to take it apart and style it; usually good for another 30 mins to an hour.  (For these styles I definitely recommend the (discontinued, sadly) Lioness style wig, by Mona Lisa, if you can find one.)  Multiply that by 17 or 18 and you get an idea of how very much time it all took.





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