‘Tis the season to be glamorous and to fancy ourselves up a little. So here’s a tip for taking your vintage hairstyle a step further from your pretty vintage curls to something a little more bold. How about an eye-catching asymmetric hairstyle?
- Describe an Asymmetric Vintage Hairstyle
- Half Up, Half down with Mitzi Gaynor
- Balance and Shape with Julie Adams
- Combining Textures with Ginger Rogers
- What About Bangs with Martha Vickers
- Volume in all the Right Places with Jane Russell
- Both Hide and Shine with Demi Lovato
Asymmetric hairstyle? Like a haircut?
No! Not a haircut. I am not suggesting you go get your hair cut in an asymmetric cut. I am suggesting you style your hair in a combination of pinned back to be sleek on one side and style the opposite side in curls to soften.
Good reasons for an asymmetric hairstyle
There are some benefits to these vintage asymmetric hairstyles. They combine the prettiness of cascading curls and the elegance of a face exposing updo.
Also, did you know that you can correct certain face shape elements with asymmetry? Pulling hair away from your face elongates it visually. Positioning and concentrating curls to be full in relation to certain areas of your face can soften lines and balance shapes.
Half Up, Half Down
We often think the half up, half down hairstyle is up at the top and down at the back, but this stunning 1950s hair look is up at the side and down at the other side. Everything is pinned away from the neck on the left side of Mitzi Gaynor’s neck. On the right side, her waves and curls are perfectly coiffed.
You might also like: Techniques for Shaping and Forming Vintage Hairstyles
Balance and shape
The full, round weight of this glamorous 1950s hairstyle, on Creature from the Black Lagoon star Julie Adams, is well placed to soften the lower section of her triangle shaped face.
Tip: To help contain the round shape of the curls and keep gravity from pulling it down, use a hairnet.
Combining textures
The wave above Ginger Roger’s forehead draws your eye back to the curl fluff of this hairstyle. Note that the curls are an even weight from top to bottom. If you do not have the layers to achieve that even weight, use bobby pins to pin the curls up into more of an updo look.
You might also like: A 1947 4-Pin-Curl Formula for vintage waves tutorial
What about bangs?
This fanning bang form on Martha Vickers is a great way to combine your bangs into the asymmetric hairstyle. When you are setting your bangs in curls, either with rollers or a curling iron, rotate the direction of the curl a little bit around with each consecutive curl. When you brush it out, you will get the curve around rotation in the bangs.
Volume in all the right places
The drama in this asymmetric curly hairstyle on Jane Russell from the 1950s is all about volume. Jane Russell’s strong, square face shape is softened by the roundness of this hairstyle. The volume begins above her forehead and cascades over to massive amounts of curls.
Tip: Get some volume help with root lifting hair product and hair thickening spray.
Both hide and shine
I am not suggesting anyone should try to hide behind their hairstyle. But I am admitting that sometimes we want to use our hair as just a little tool to cover this or that that we aren’t super happy with. I get this often from women who ask that I style their hair to break up the line of their forehead.
This 1920s inspired hairstyle on Demi Lovato is magnificent in that it gives the wearer a little something to hide behind with a finger wave that frames the face. And, with the other side pinned back close to the head, her face is given some time in the spotlight as well.
Now go get fancy!
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