Monday 22 August 2011

A DIY faux-middy cut: the risk that paid off!

For those of you who may not know, a the 'middy' was a style of haircut popular in the 1940's, that was designed to allow curls to settle neatly into a beautiful shape, the layers sitting on top of each other comfortably to give those lovely graduated curls.
The cut consisted of even layers and a U-shaped bottom, with sides that slant up towards the face. The standard middy consisted of 4 inch layers, but there were many variations in different lengths.

Now, I have been wanting and meaning to go and get myself a middy cut for an absolute age, though being the hairdresser-shy girl that I am (I've only been to the hairdressers a handful of times in my life, usually utilising my mum or step-mum for haircutting needs instead) I haven't quite managed it.
So, when reading up on the middy on this Fedora Lounge thread, I was excited to find some mentions of a 'do it yourself' middy haircut tutorial- could this really work? Surely not! I was apprehensive, but read on to find that many girls had said they had tried it and it had in fact, turned out well!

So being impulsive and impatient, as I can be in matters of the hair, I washed my hair and set to work following C-Dot's tutorial.
Here are the 'after' photos...

Shock horror! My un-made up face and bedraggled hair.
But you can see the hair now slants sharply upwards towards my face.

And here you can see the U-shaped back in all it's self-cut glory!

After following all the steps in C-Dot's tutorial, I dried, spritzed with setting lotion, rollered and slept.
And then I removed my curlers in the morning with baited breath-

*Gasp* 
Hello graduated curls.

Hello curved new shape.

And hello little curls around my face!

Sorry for not having better photos, I took these when my chap was away so of course, using my iPhone I was rather limited.

But all in all, I would say that if you are pining for a middy-style and are hairdresser-wary or your purse is empty then maybe it's worth taking the risk with this clever little tutorial. I'm very glad I did.

Pip pip xx

10 comments:

  1. Oh wow, looks great. My hair has gone ridiculously thin in the lengths and I am considering going shorter, may well try this!

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  2. It did INDEED pay off! Love the last pic of you :)

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  3. Wow, it looks really wonderful, I had been wondering if there was a way to do this yourself for a while as I hate going to the hairdressers too, I definitely want to give this a try!! :)

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  4. I've always been too scared to cut my own hair but this looks great, yay you! :)

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  5. Eeek, thanks girls. For those of you thinking about trying it- take the risk! It's relatively easy to follow, but a little fiddly to even out...but it can be done with a bit of patience (not that I have much)works really well for curled hair!
    xxx

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  6. Your haircut is so cute! It suits your face so well. Lovely!

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  7. You brave thing!!! Well I'm inspired as cant afford the train fair and Nina's salon as often as I'd like!!

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Please leave me a comment, I'd love to hear what you beauties think.