One of my favourite ways to bring a bit of Edwardian charm into my day-to-day life is an Edwardian inspired hairstyle or two. They’re perfect for my long hair, and the ones I’ve devised are easy, elegant, and they wear well today (that is, they are not overly poufy and pompadoury). I love them with or without hats (especially Downton Abbey like ones), and they work well for both day and night.
This is a hairstyle is one of my favourite originals, and one of the most wearable ones I’ve seen.
Downton Abbey hair—this is what I’m taking my inspiration from.
The base of all my Edwardian hairstyles is something I call the “twisted pull-back”. It creates a nice bit of body around your face without going all the way Edwardian, meaning you won’t be requiring the hair rats that were popular back in the day. It’s very simple.
Just to give you an idea of what I’m starting with—you don’t need this much hair, but you’ll likely need hair that’s at least past your shoulders.
To start your twisted pull back, part your hair (I like a side part), and section off the front bits of your hair as shown. You’ll start to get a feel for how much you’ll need for different styles.
Tie the front sections into a loose ponytail—don’t make it too close to your head or you won’t have room to twist.
Flip the ponytail through and turn inside out. I generally twist it about three times.
Et voila! All twisted up. Now we’re ready for some different styles!
From here I’ve got three basic favourites—a ponytail, a braid, and a bun. We’ll start with the braid—I love to sleep with my hair like this to prevent tangles, and I like to imagine the ladies of the early 1900s did as well.
Start by dividing your hair into three sections for a braid leaving the tail from the twist ponytail in the middle section.
Braid away!
View from the back.
Lovely!
Next up, the ponytail!
You’re just going to do the twisting thing with all your hair now—gather it all up and feed it up and through the twisty ponytail, and then down through at the nape of your neck.
That’s it!
And the bun, which is basically just a continuation of the ponytail—handy, no?
Keep wrapping the ponytail through and around until you have a bun.
Once you’ve got a bun/roll, make sure the loose ends are tucked in behind the roll and pin it down. I use a combination of large bobby pins and hair pins.
Pinned up! You can wrap it more loosely or pin it lower down for some variation. I find mine tends to settle downwards a bit, so I start high and let gravity do the rest.
Et voila.
And that’s it—my three basic Edwardian-inspired hairstyles! A big thanks to Haley for taking pictures of the back of my head for this 🙂 Stay tuned for for more hairstyles and other entries in the Everyday Edwardian series!
Hmm. Now I just need hair. I may be able to pull off a ‘modern’ flapper style though. 😉
Oooh, definitely! If you’re a Downton Abbey fan, I’m imagining the looks from the start of season 3. You can get sleep-in crimping roller type things (try eBay?) that would make it easy!
This really makes me miss long hair 🙁 My hair grows slowly, so it took my 3 years to get it long enough for the wedding, then I just got bored and cut it to a long angle bob last fall. I like the ease of shoulder-length hair, but I miss being able to pull off waves and braids more. Time to prepare for another 3 year grow-a-thon 😛
The benefit of always having had long hair is that I don’t know anything of the ease of shorter hair, lol 😛 I just think it’s all the same. I don’t think my hair grows particularly fast (I don’t think anybody’s does, really), and I’m starting to wonder if I’ve hit my breakage point with where it is, since it never seems to go any further than that. That would be sad. Also, I have read that putting yeast infection cream on your scalp helps accelerate growth… if you’re desperate 😛
I only WISH I had never known short hair… when I was 4, my mother thought I’d look adorable with a “fashionable” mushroom cut. Well, I looked like a boy, and I never let her forget that fact. I’m fairly certain my later obsession with pink stemmed directly from compensating for the fact that I spent a year looking like one of my brothers. Needless to say, since then I’ve never sported hair above my chin, and even that haircut was in grade 4. It has since hovered around my shoulders (“short” in my terms) with periods of length every few years.
I still feel like my hair grows slower than most though, or at least a lot slower than my friends, who can chop their hair, then have it surpass mine within a year when mine was longer to begin with 😛 I have noticed it’s growing a bit faster in the last year since I’ve become vegan (overall healthier diet? More conscious of [good] protein?), so perhaps my next grow-a-thon won’t take me 3 years after all. In any case, I don’t think I’m desperate enough to slather on yeast infection cream just yet 😉
Hmmm… maybe that’s why I don’t like pink? Actually, I’d probably blame that more on being forced to wear it so much as a child 😛 I will only now tolerate it… but only as accents on otherwise blue/purple/black pieces of clothing. I was joking with a friend at work about how my love of the “cool” colours must be somehow connected to how I’m always cold 😛
I’m starting to wonder if my hair has hit its terminal length 🙁 I don’t think my hair has ever been longer than it is now, and it doesn’t really feel like it is getting any longer. Then again, it is so long that changes within the 1″ range are pretty much non-existent. I don’t think I’m ready to give up eggs and cheese to find out if a vegan diet will help, though 😛 Maybe we can try the cooch cream together someday? 😛
My pink obsession didn’t outlive my elementary days, though I still have the odd pink clothing/accessory item. I pretty much like all colours! I have a fair amount of black for some reason amidst all the colour, which is odd since I’m so pale and it likely does nothing for me. Oh well!
Don’t worry, I don’t think giving up eggs or dairy would really boost hair growth anyway. For me, I think it’s just that I’m eating more protein than I used to since I’m much more aware of getting enough without meat/eggs in my diet.
I too, in all my pale glory, love black. It’s usually because I hate the other colour offerings (yellow, red, and pink, mostly). However, I think we can justify it by saying that black attracts heat and sun rays, and we obviously need a lot of both 😛
And a very good point about conscious protein consumption. I would bet I’m not overly good at that, beyond the eggs each morning. I recently found a wonderful supplier of beautiful free range Hutterite eggs for $3.50/dozen (they are closer to $6–7/dozen in the store), so I’m pretty excited about that.
Hahaha, well I do consciously wear black on days I plan to be outside when it’s chillier 😛 At least on days I wear black, I try to accessorize more with some colour so I don’t look too 90s goth.
Poor Adam misses eggs a lot, so I’m sure for special occasions we’ll get some from our family friend who has backyard chickens. For baking, I don’t miss eggs since I’ve had great success with flax and chia, but you really can’t replace an egg as a whole. Cheese has been surprisingly easy to substitute, so I miss that WAY less than I thought I would. I haven’t even bought goat cheese since the spring, and that was my “cheat” item for the longest time 🙂 Also, eggs never bothered my stomach dairy, so I suppose an egg here or there isn’t going to cause the same regret (most) dairy indulging would, haha.
Hmm… it was -17°C with windchill this morning and I’m wearing navy, black, and grey. It must be a conspiracy of the pale, cold people! 😛 I’m thinking I should experiment with flax and chia for baking for fun, and to shift the nutritional profile (and cost) of some of my goodies. I always giggle when I see people recommending mayo as an egg substitute. I suppose it would work in a pinch, but I’m seriously skeptical about the egg content in storebought mayo. Errrrk.
Flax and chia eggs are awesome for baking. I haven’t had a flop yet when swapping directly, and it means you can eat the dough without any risk of salmonella (though with free-range, local eggs the risk is probably minimal anyway). Even the cost would make it a good idea. I bought 1lb bags of sprouted/ground chia and flax months ago that I’ve barely put a dent in using them for all my baking. I think they were around $15 each, but considering the equivalent cost of that many good-quality eggs, that’s dirt cheap.
I like that you think raw eggs in dough & batter has ever stopped me from eating it 😛 LOL. Not once, my dear! Mmmmmm cookie dough. Oh! Have you ever tried coconut manna? I’m thinking about buying some online because it sounds like coconutty nutella 😀 And then I can grab some more chia and flax seeds from them while I’m at it… I am beginning to think I have a bit of a bulk-buying problem. It may be a good things that I don’t have my own Costco membership…
I adore this. Thanks for the comment on my site. I will definitely be adding this awesome tutorial to my page. I love everything about your site and look forward to more Everyday Edwardian ideas.
You’re very welcome, and thanks for the plug 🙂 The skirt is coming along really well, I’m super pleased with it so far. I’m doing more of a corset-stye skirt, so it comes up a bit past the natural waist. I originally had it coming up right under the bust line, but I decided to trim it down so I could show off a bit more of the shirtwaist I’m making to go with it. I am currently trying to decide if it’s a good idea to put a row of 20+ pearl buttons up the back of the shirtwaist to fasten it… it sounds beautiful, but also a little suicidal with all those buttons and tiny little button holes, lol.
your creativity and range of posts makes each post a delight to read!!
Thanks, Julie! 😀
Hey there, I am Jenny from South Africa. Have to say that you are the most beautiful, elegant and stylish woman. And you look as good as miss lily with your new hairstyle. YOU are creative.
I spend so much time in front of this amazing site of yours.
Thank you for sharing it and all the hard work.
Aww, thanks Jenny! It’s always great to get some thanks & appreciation for all the work I put into this website. Thanks for reading!
Lovely, Beautiful, Smart and Healthy, some of the words that come to me when I see your blog, thank you very much for sharing…All is great!
Thanks, Elizabeth 😀 And a big thank you for reading!
This was really helpful! I’m in the Titanic Musical, and I have to be able to do an Edwardian hairstyle in about ten minutes. My hair goes a few inches past my waist, so I always hate having to learn hairstyles for musicals.
I’m so glad you found this useful, Jaycee 🙂 I have equally long hair, so finding unique hairstyles that use it all up quickly can be tricky. These Edwardian ones are great as everybody had long hair back then 😛
Beautiful hairstyles! I’m going to have to start trying that for my Titanic costumes and general day to day styles.
Thanks, Erin! It’ll be nice to have another Everyday Edwardian-er around 🙂
Sounds like fun! 🙂 I’ll be working on my costumes and will employ the hair style tutorials you have up. 🙂
I’ve been perusing your Etsy shop—it looks like you have the same American Duchess addiction that I do 😛
I do indeed! If I had the money I could be very naughty there.
I have daydreams about being famous and having red carpet reporters ask me about my fabulous shoes 😀 They’re always AD beauties. Sigh.
I am Mrs. Banks in a Mary Poppins play and need a Edwardian hairstyle. The problem is that my hair is only about two inches below my chin. Do you have any suggestions for a hairstyle I could do?
I think you’d probably want to do a bit of a twisty roll from the front of your face around to the back, fixing it with bobby pins, and then some sort of a hair piece at the back to give the illusion of an up-do with more hair.