Today I enlisted the help of my 10 year old sister, she clearly knows me too well because when she got in from school I hugged her and her immediate reaction was "you want something." Anyway eventually she agreed to be my guinea pig. I should mention that she used to have quite long hair, about halfway down her back but she has recently cut it all of, inspired by her childhood hair idol, the "petit filous girl" ...
^ the "petit filous girl"
Her hair is a little longer than this, as in it just brushes her shoulders, this being important because I hear a lot of dancers saying "oh I can't do dance hair, my hair is too short." So below are my attempts at creating this style...
Photo credit: unknown, sorry!
This style is for Bharatanatyam and none of the things I used are designed for Bharatanatyam so here is how to get a look like this using stuff you can find in Southall basically. If you've never been to India or Southall then you haven't lived and if you are Indian then Southall is your home from home (or more specifically Punjab from Punjab) in the UK.
Ok so these are the flowers, known as "gajra/gajrey" in Hindi/Urdu/Punjabi which is what you should ask for if you're looking for them in Southall. Basically they're made of plastic and the strings at the end are annoyingly short but they do the trick. They are not easy to find, even in Southall. These were the last pair the shop had and that was after looking in like 5 other shops! I don't think they cost me more than £5 for the pair so pretty cheap too.
Ok so traditionally you should use a rakodi, that's the circular metal ornament that goes at the back of the head, but since you have to get them from India, I found an alternative: brooches! If you have an English grandmother like I do, then she will no doubt have some of these hidden in a forgotten corner somewhere, which is where I got these from. If however you don't then you'll find them at car boot sales (if you don't know what a car boot sale is then the rock you're living under must be huge.). All good charity shops should have them going cheaply too. They're a bit small but the plus side is that you can use the pin on the back to pin them into hair as you would pin them into clothes.
This is a kangha. In short, I am a Sikh and Sikhs aren't supposed to cut their hair, when we keep our hair we have to comb it with a kangha; a small wooden comb. I think a plastic comb would work better but since I didn't have one at hand but had about 6 kanghas at hand, a kangha is what I used. I have read that the fact that it's wood is supposed to reduce static electricity in hair, no idea if that's true. The point being that a brush alone won't do, you will need a comb.
These are hair doughnuts, a dancer’s best friend. I shall perhaps do a post on the two ways of wearing them but that is for a later date. The one on the left is one I bought, in most shops they are around £5 I found, but I got this one in Primark for £1, H&M also sell them for around £1.50. The one on the right is made from a pair of tights, if you want the details they were girls’ black thick tights. Basically you cut off the top part of the tights so you are left with two separate legs, then cut of the toes and roll them into a doughnut. I actually find that the home-made one is much easier to use. These are essential for doing this style with short hair.
and this is the rest of what I used. To do this style you
split the hair in two, as if you’re tying a half ponytail, then tie these two
halves into two ponytails and then put in the doughnut securing it with more hairbands.
The colour doesn’t matter because they will be covered but the thicker
hairbands work best. I also used a very small scrunchie because, as I said, my
sister has short hair and so on the lower bun I couldn’t double up a hairband,
hence I had to use the scrunchie because it’s small and so is secure without
being doubled up. If you’re a dancer, you’ll know that hairpins are basically a
part of who you are. Ideally you’d have a big stash of bun pins or “U” pins. It
would seem however that outside of the South Asian community, only ballet
dancers use them, so they are really hard to find unless you are in South Asia,
or a particularly South Asian area. Hence I used normal hairpins, the longer
ones are stronger and are good for jabbing in the bun to keep it in place, the
smaller ones are better for securing the flowers and stray hairs.
And so the final product...
Well I hope you liked this post, I hope to do some more hair posts in the future! Perhaps Kathak hair next...
No comments:
Post a Comment