Practice 2 - Partners design

I began again with the halo plait around the head and this time I made it fatter than previously by pulling some of the sections out a little bit which seperated it slightly. We both liked how this looked because it added a slightly modern twist into it which was the boho messy braiding look that's been popular recently.

The next task was to get two even structures on top of the hair, as we said before we were going to heighten the design by adding rats.
I began by initially putting all the hair into the rats and rolling them up but because we didn’t add any texture through crimping it looked a little bit boring and still needed the curls on top.
I then let the hair down again and curled it all, to then roll back up and planned to use the ends to place over the structure.

I tried to roll the hair into the rat, somehow, without the ends being inside because I wanted to use the curls on the ends and this just didn’t work.
Change of plan, I left out just one inch section from the outside, rolled the rest into the rat and secured by criss-crossing the pins into one another.
The hair left out was just the right length as well that I could take it over the padded hair and pin just on the underside, leaving around 4 inches in length of curled hair that I could then place over the top.

After thinking it through properly this was a better way to do it and make sure I had a secure shape on top. Although I had less curls to work with on top, this didn’t matter because the overall outcome was a lot neater.

I struggled at first with the volume of hair and managing to get it all neatly into the rat, as it wasn’t crimped as well it had to be really neat and smooth so this was a challenge for me as well as working out the simplest way to really secure all the hair and make sure it wasn’t going to move.
Practicing with longer hair and a rat is something that I need to do more as working on the Katie head there is a lot less hair to wrap.
From this I also realised I really needed to practice my French plaiting to make sure it was neat, in terms of sectioning and even throughout.

From this we can create a plan of action to follow for the assessment, which I will be able to use methodically to create the final design.

The overall look I was extremely happy with and it all worked out well considering there were some factors to chop and change.
I feel now I have a good idea of what to use and the steps I need to take to create the look.

I think the design change was a good idea to save time on curling due to the amount of hair and I'm feeling confident for the final assessment.