Beauty and Hair in the 1920's

This weekend I am fortunate to be apart of the Kennedy High School production of “Nice Work if You Can Get It”. And while everyone was being hectic and getting ready for our first performances, I got a chance to really think. I noticed that every girl and boy was focusing a lot on our hair and makeup. We had specific guidelines on how to shape our hair into the right form. We also had to make sure it was appropriate for the time period. This time period was in the roaring 20s, so many things influenced the styles of hair. The styles included a lot of pinned up hair and curls, smoky eyes and thin eyebrows, flapper dresses and pin stripped tuxes.

For hair, girls had to create the classic 20’s pin up curls that make you hair look much shorter than it actually is. I first curled all my curl into tight little ringlet curls and then teased it slightly to create more volume. Then I shoved a ton of bobby pins in my hair and pinned the curls in different places around my head to make it seem like my hair was only chin length instead of it’s actually length. Once you get the length right, how you style it is totally up to you. Because of my character, I pinned some curls to the side of my face to frame my face. Other girls pulled some curls out and made it look more natural, while other girls put a headband in to make it seem like they were truly a flapper girl.

Even though you would think makeup in the 20’s wouldn’t be much different from what it is now, it definitely is! In the roaring 20’s, makeup was centered on a smoky eye with greys and blacks. To create this apply a white or silver on the center and inner corner of your lid, then apply a grey or black on the outer corner of your lid and along the crease. Then blend to get that smoky look. Apply some winged eyeliner and you’ve got the perfect 20’s smoky eyes! For lips, red was the staple color in the 20’s and it was applied very thinly on the lips (definitely not how Kendall Jenner wears it!) Eyebrows were also much thinner and longer than they are today. For blush, it was applied to the center of your cheeks.

Those were just the different trends for hair and makeup in the 1920’s, in my next blog post, I will be reviewing the fashion in the 1920’s!