Cherry Dollface Photo Shoot at Le Keux!

Some people say you should never meet your heroes, WRONG! I'm glad I didn't listen to them, meeting Cherry was one of the best experiences I've had. So forgive me, this post is two years in the making. I'm not entirely sure why it's actually taken me so long.  I've shared these images on my Instagram so it's about time I show them off properly. Cherry Dollface was my gateway into the vintage/pinup scene. I'd always loved it but didn't realise there was a whole world of people out there who lived this life daily, that is until Instagram and Youtube. Since discovering this wonderful world I've met some of the most wonderful women you could imagine, empowering, encouraging and inspiring. It all started for me because I wanted to do my eyebrows in a pinup style and I found Cherry's channel. 

Then I realised she also did videos about how to style your hair, and so the interest grew. I've kept up to date with her videos and posts ever since and I found out she was doing a UK tour and offering photo shoot packages with hair and make up done by her lovely self, I couldn't turn it down so I signed up and patiently waited. 

The shoot took place at Le Keux Vintage Salon in Birmingham, a place I had been wanting to visit for a while actually. They do photo shoots, hair, make up and offer lots of different packages so it's definitely worth a visit. I arrived with a dress I had made especially for this occasion, a leopard and cherry print dress with a huge skirt and underskirt. It was the most complicated dress I've ever made and it was by no means perfect but I loved it. I found the fabric in a little shop in Lyme Regis called Sew-La-Di-Da Vintage and I managed the buy the last of the stock they had of it so I had to make sure I turned it into something fabulous and I feel like I did it justice.

The salon is wonderful and the staff were amazing. Lynsey looked after me and talked me through what would be happening and really put me at ease. Not having done anything like this before I was a bit nervous and really excited to meet Cherry. You could hear her before you could see her, bouncing around and chatting excitedly with the lady she was shooting with before me. Before it was turn I had a little look around at the rooms available to use for shoots. Spoiler - they're all great.

So it was turn, meeting Cherry was lovely, she was so warm and full of fun you instantly felt excited. I hadn't had my make up and hair done professionally a lot so it was a real treat and I had intended to pay a lot of attention so I could replicate it at home. Unfortunately I was too caught up in conversation with Cherry to pay proper attention to all the processes so styling my hair successfully with heat still remains a mystery to me. 

Make up close up (excuse the millions of filters)

I love how she did my make up, I used to always use eyeliner on the bottom of my lids but she didn't and I couldn't believe how big it made my eyes look. She gave me a bright red lip also, I love red lips but never felt too confident with them like I couldn't quite pull them off because my lips were big and I felt I looked like I'd just pushed my face into jam. But then Cherry said something that has forever changed how I feel about my lips, she said I only feel like that because I have big lips, this doesn't mean I can't wear it and basically that my big lips were wonderful. Since then I've worn lipstick almost every day and love when they look big and bold rather than shying away from them. Big lips embraced. Tick.

I have no idea how she did what she did to my hair, she did tell me, and the products she used. But I can never re-create this, it looked perfect. The curls were so silky and defined, and the set held for a couple of days. When I use heat my curls drop in a matter of hours and can use get success from doing wet sets.

A few sneaky dressing room snaps before the shoot began

Suddenly I was ready to get dressed. I really wasn't sure what to expect as I've never looked like this before, but I couldn't have felt more confident and couldn't wait to get started. I had a few sets to shoot in and I wasn't a natural, at all! But soon I felt more at ease and didn't want it to end. Lynsey took the pictures and was great at giving me direction and tips which helped me so much.  It was a wonderful day, I made some great memories which I'm now ready to fully share.

 Ignore the dodgy hem...

Above is probably my favourite 

I feel like this one is perfect for my blog name, I also love how it shows off my dress

If you're thinking of doing a shoot like this but haven't done one before and feel nervous - do it anyway. Give it a try, I see bloggers who do this all the time and I wish I could afford to do it more. I can't recommend Cherry or Le Keux enough.

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Oil Slick Hair, My Dream To Be A Disney Villain

I've had red hair for years now, about 5 I think. And I love it, I really do. But I've always dreamt of something darker, something more...Ursula or Maleficent and maybe even a bit of Hades creeping in. 

To be really honest I've always wanted blue hair but haven't dared bleach it to achieve this dream. I did however notice that the ends of my hair were getting very light, light enough to colour blue? Why not! I caved and bought some 'midnight blue' from Directions and boldly whacked it on hoping for maybe a bit of ombre? And what did I get? DISNEY VILLAIN OMBRE THAT'S WHAT!

I did panic slightly when I blow dryed it as it looked like a dark storm, blue and black and murky. Once I'd washed it once more what I was then left with was, oil slick hair, perfect for any evil character. 

In the sun it was beautiful, stunning blue at the bottom and streaking throughout the red which now had streaks of purple and almost looked iridescent like those purple/red/green cars you see around. 

I decided to pin curl it and this was the best decision I made. It brought the blue higher up and more visible and you could really see all of the colours working together. So in love with this hair. 

Long term, will I keep it? Not sure, I think blue will be harder to maintain than the red but I just really wanted to try it out. The blue will stay in a little longer but I may colour it again with the red which I think will make the overall end colour really stunning.

Stay tuned!

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Wet Set Tutorial With Soft Curlers

One thing you may know about me is that I have a creepy obsessive relationship with my hair. I love spending evening messing with it and making it look pretty and using a shit load of filters and hashtags and sharing the hell out of it on Instagram. Can't help it and will never apologise for it, and I love creeping over all your pictures too and getting inspiration, don't we all do that? I have hair envy of so many people all day long. Instagram just feeds it, and I love it. 

I got some of these soft rollers in my Christmas stocking along with this vintage hairstyling book so I couldn't wait to test them all out. I liked the curlers so much that I bought another set from Claire's, they're £8 a pack (18 pieces). 

 

I played around with a few of them and after posting a couple of pictures on IG I was asked a few times to do a tutorial and I've only now finally gotten around to it. I didn't do a video this time as it had to be done in two parts and quite repetitive so didn't think it was needed. Because I did a west set I left it overnight to get a good curl which meant I had to do some of the pictures at night. I did however I steal one of my mum's sewing lamps to make it a bit brighter as the lighting in my room where I do the tutorials is quite dark. So forgive some of the crazy brightness, that's the only thing I photoshopped in these pictures - tried to fix the insane shine!

OK so first I washed my hair and let it dry so it was only about 10% wet. I then sectioned off my hair and got all my viscous tools ready. I had two packs of the curlers at the ready, a slumber cap, hair ties and a solution made up with hairspray and water. I never really use a setting pattern, I should really - any suggestions guys?

I start with the front middle section and always do it in the same direction as I try to get a bit of a barrel roll going on. Take a small section of hair and if the hair has gone a bit dry then lightly mist the section with the water. Put the end of the hair on the middle soft part of the curler and roll it down towards the scalp, twisting the ends in together to secure it in place.

After I've done the top center section I then repeat the process down across the sides too. Try to keep the sections of hair as evenly sized as possible.

 Once the sides are done I then finish the pattern down the back of the scalp until it's all done up in the rollers.

When it's all done you should look something like this, not gonna lie, went to bed feeling pretty damn vintage last night.

 

To top it all off I went to bed in a cheeky slumber cap. I tend thrash about in my sleep so I prefer this to sleeping in a bandana or hair scarf, old lady chic never goes out of fashion and they're really comfy. I bough this from Superdrug for about £1.70.

 

OK so here comes the hard part. The brushing out. I find this really hit and miss, sometimes I love and other times it just doesn't go right. Spoiler alert. This time I ace'd it. Beware, you will look like this when you wake up - don't freak out, just get to work with the brush. And you know I find it hard to not pull a funny face.

 

I use my big brush for this part. It's really simple so I don't know why I seem to mess it up at times. The trick is to do it in small sections so you can really control the curl. It takes quite a while to get it how you want but be persistent! 

 

When you've done one side switch over to the next, keep going back and brushing out until you're 100% happy, I seem to go over it at least three times before I get the pomade out. I give the fringe and initial brush out but leave that to the end, it's the hardest part for me. 

 

 

 But when you do feel happy with your curls dig out the pomade or wax, I use Black and White's. Using a small amount run it through your curls to make them super shiny, smooth and controlled.

 Sometimes after I've used the pomade I have to go through and brush it out a bit more and go over it again. Look how shiny it makes it, it really does make a huge difference.

 Ugh, the fringe. I don't know why it hates me, it just takes me AGES. This is why sometimes I leave it just keep it as a victory roll, it always behaved for them. I have to tease the hell out of it, time and time again, sometimes I have to use dry shampoo to make it backcomb better especially when it's freshly washed. 

 

 I leave the pomade to the last minute on this bit as it's not so easy to brush out if it messes up, after about 15minutes (because I'm annoying) I'm finally happy with it and secure it in place with a couple of hair grips and finally smooth over a tiny bit of pomade.

 

 Look! It worked! Shiny, shiny. Then proceed to take many, many pictures and IG all of them, haters gonna hate. Feel epic, go out, look epic, take more pictures.

Filter the crap out of it!

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Lindy Bop Black Myrtle Dress Review

Lindy Bop do beautiful and affordable rockabilly dresses, I've had my eye on a few for a while and I just couldn't resist this gorgeous black Myrtle dress, they do it in a few different colours like blue, red and green but black is the colour of my heart so I just had to have it. 

At a bargain price of £29.99 it was hard to not order more. Most of the dresses are either £29.99 or £34.99. I wasn't sure what the stretch was like so I ordered a size 20 due to the bad boys. It did come with an elasticated back so I could have gotten away with a smaller size but it still fit beautifully so I didn't worry. 

 Excuse the silly photos...can't pull normal faces!

I love the points on the top of the bust, very vixeny, I think I could do with spraying some starch on there as I was dancing a lot in it and they did sometimes flop a bit but not all the time. The cut is oh so flattering and I teamed it with a Lnidy Bop underskirt (£21.99) so it had a lot of swing in the end.

It's made out of a nice durable fabric so the price really is surprising but just because it seems cheaper it's of no less quality than my more expensive dresses so don't worry about that. Basically, I bloody love it and want to wear it almost every day...do you think I'd get away with it? haha. I recently wore it a wedding and even the bride told me how lovely my dress was, if that's not an endorsement I don't know what is!

 I now think I want this dress in all of the colours, they come in patterns too but the red does look very nice. I've also just bought on of their Ophelia dresses...so stay tuned.

I also did a great wetset on the front of my hair, I just want a huge fringe as I didn't want to commit to the whole hair as sometimes it doesn't always work for me and I used a curling tong for the rest and did some victory rolls. Maybe another tutorial is in order. 

They currently have 13% off! Go buy!

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Directions Hair Colour

I've been trying to get my hair the reddest I possibly can, especially since I've become a bit obsessed with rockabilly style. In the past I've tried every colour and have been using Olia 6.6 for a while which is the brightest it's been in a while. 

But then I discovered this semi-permanent colour everyone's been using so I thought I'd give it a go. It's called
La Riche - Directions, and while it's semi permanent they offer a wide variety of colours, from all the colours of the rainbow and there's definitely something for everyone.

I chose the shade 'Poppy Red' and bought four pots, you don't mix them with anything so they go straight on as they are - and I have a lot of hair so I thought I'd get four. I still topped by roots up with the Olio 6.6, but instead of going over the rest of my hair with it as I normally would, I washed and dried it (important, dont mix makes, always do them separate),  and then I applied 1.5 pots of Poppy Red. Left it on for about half an hour as I normally would, and freaked out when I washed it out.

It runs practically magenta, so don't freak out. When it's dried, all beautiful and shiny you'll see it's brilliantly BRIGHT RED! It was amazing to me, I've never had such red hair. I had to say I do have to top it up after two weeks as it's not permanent but to go from vaguely red to looking like Ariel bursting out of the sea I would say it's definitely worth it. I think I paid about £3.50 a pot, and then £7 for Olia, so not even £20 a month for bright red hair, what more could you ask for?

 Before

After

 

I did add a couple of filters, because, well, I'm a girl, but they barely effect the colour, it is actually that red. Buy it, buy it now. Don't wait! Perfect for my victory rolls I must say.

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