Wednesday, March 03, 2010

How to Become a Hepkitten in 5 Easy Steps

On Sunday, I had the honor of giving my Hepkitten* presentation as part of the Winter Reading and Arts Festival at Cedar Mill Community Library. A hepkitten what they called a girl who was crazy for dancing, back in the day--like the main character of my novel, Ruby. The Hepkitten talk is a blast to do, and what makes it even more fun is dressing the part.

Now, as anyone who knows me will attest, I am not a girly-girl. Makeup and I are barely acquainted, nail polish and I are strangers, and most days, my hair runs rampant. But after some practice, I've mostly got the process down. So here, for the first time ever, I present to you:

How to Become a Hepkitten in 5 Easy Steps






Step 1: Gather raw materials: big round brush, rat-tail comb, foam rollers, long & short bobby pins, setting lotion, hair spray, setting lotion, artificial flowers, freshly scrubbed face and a head of frizzy hair. Oh, wait. That last bit might just be me.




Step 2: Make a deep side part (de rigueur for 1940s hairstyles); then gather hank o' hair for first victory roll. Use big round brush and setting lotion to get it all nice and smooth and ready to roll. In theory. Some days, my hair behaves. I love those days. Most of the time, though, the dynamic goes like this:


Me: Okay, hair, remember how we do this? Remember how much fun it is? Whoo-hoo, here we go!

Hair: Oh, yeah. That thing you make me do sometimes. I'm not doing that.

Me: You start behaving right now, or... *threatens hair with hairspray*

Hair: Now you've made me mad. You're gonna be sorry.


*Scene deleted due to graphic violence*


Ah, victory! Big roll on the left: Done.

(Tip: If you're seriously interested in learning vintage hairstyles, search YouTube for tutorials. People have posted instructional videos for everything from finger waves to beehives.** My fave for victory rolls is here.)


Step 3: Roll the right side. This is a smaller roll, and goes much better when you use the setting lotion instead of super-hold category-5-hurricane-proof hair spray, like I accidentally did on Sunday. (Can I help it the bottles are the same color?) Too late to wash my hair and start over, so (mild cursing deleted)...

...I remind myself that this is why God made artificial flowers.




Step 4: For the back: If I have time, I'll set pin curls, let them dry and brush them out into '40s curls. If not, then a little setting lotion, foam rollers, sit 20 minutes, then swirl into one big uproll. Quick and easy.

Another tip: If all else fails, this is why God made snoods. Also 1940s authentic and perfect for almost any hair disaster.



Hmm. Rolled, flowered, made up and mascara'd. Seems like I'm forgetting something, though...









Step 5: Ah, yes...that red, red lipstick. If you ain't got a red lip, you ain't 1940s. Wartime, baby--it was all about the bold.

Add a vintage suit jacket, vintage skirt, seamed stockings and high-heel oxford shoes...

...and voila! You are now a bona-fide hepkitten.

Many thanks to the Cedar Mill Community Library for hosting me, and also to the folks who came to hear me speak on a sunny Sunday afternoon. We had a great time and the audience was fab!

*
Full title: A Hepkitten's Guide to the War. Oodles of vintage photos, video clips, and stories about what it was like to be a teen in the 1940s, with jitterbugging, taxi dancing, and the upheavals in homefront life brought by WWII.

**Click here to see the horror that is the making of a beehive. If I ever write a historical set in the early '60s, I am NOT doing this. Just watching makes my scalp whimper.

8 comments:

Lisa Nowak said...

You are such a riot! I love the part about your hair saying, "I'm not dong that." :) Thank God my character wears a ponytail through the back of her ball cap. A much easier style to emulate, should the need arise.

Christine Fletcher said...

Yeah, my hair doesn't like getting dressed up. Too bad, I tell it. Earn your keep around here.

I think ALL my future characters will wear ponytails through the backs of their ball caps...no matter what the era.

mi said...

i'm impressed!

i see a lot of rockabilly girls in my part of town sporting the victory rolls - that or the 'ole betty page 'do.

ever since having my son i'm strictly a wash and go girl (though i seem to do a lot more going than washing!)

Christine Fletcher said...

ikw, I'm pretty much wash-n-go, too. Learning how to do this was a major shakeup for me! Funny how publishing a book leads to all kinds of new ventures...many of them having nothing to do with the actual book. :)

sally nemeth said...

If I even attempted such a feat, the entire blog would be blacked out due to violence. Kudos on the Victory rolls, hepkitten!

Christine Fletcher said...

Thanks, Sally! :) This was something that took me way, WAY out of my comfort zone, but it's been fun.

mi said...

christine - i don't know if you've talked about this before, but i was wondering why your latest novel has two different covers. do you, as the author, ever get to have any input on cover design?

Christine Fletcher said...

ikw, that's a great subject for a blog post. (Thanks for the prompt!) :)

I shall expound more soon.