Tutorial: Gibson Girl Hair (Without Teasing!)

Gibson girls at the beach

I have long hair, like really, really long.  I just cut seven inches off it and it still reaches the top of my butt.

I've been trying to figure out how to do a Gibson girl style with it forever and I haven't been able to make it work.  I'm really particular about what I do to my hair and what kind of products I use in it, so anything with teasing or a bunch of hairspray was out.  Edwardian women generally had long hair too, so I knew if they could make it work then so could I...granted, they probably teased the heck out of their hair.

My great-grandmother on her wedding day, rocking  the Gibson hair style.

I found an easy tutorial that said to split your hair into two and twist it up.  This works for me for about two minutes.  After that my hair is too heavy and pulls out all the volume around the face.  Fail.

I found another tutorial where the volume is built by teasing, which is an awesome solution if you are okay with teasing your hair.  I'm not.  Fail.

I found yet another tutorial using a foam wreath to create the volume, but I couldn't work out how to make it stay in place.  Fail.

At some point it occurred to me that I should use a rat to create the volume, then I wouldn't have to tease my hair and I would be able to pin it in place.  I scurried off to the beauty supply store and bought this jumbo braid hair extension.

I paid about $2.00 for this.  It comes in a variety of colors.  It is magic.  Choose one that's as close to your hair color as possible.  I picked #30 light auburn, which is a little light, but a pretty good match for my hair overall.

I took it out of the package, looped the bottom elastic to the top elastic and made a crown. It's comes braided, but I ended up redoing mine because I pulled it apart first.  Whoops.

Stuff you'll need:

Braided crown of fake hair (rat)
Bobby pins, lots of them
Comb/brush/fingers to remove tangles

Nice, but not necessary:

Clips to section your hair
Clear elastics
Hairspray
Dry shampoo

How to do it:

For extra volume and hold you can use dry shampoo before you start.

If your hair is up, take it down.  Split your hair in two above your ears.  You'll have one section in front and one in back.  They don't need to be neat or even.

Pin the rat to your head.   It will be less voluminous where the rubber bands connect, so you probably want that in the front or back so your finished style doesn't end up lopsided.  I tried a few different ways of doing this and ended up liking the results with the thinner bit in the front.  If you do this, you may want to replace the rubber bands on the hair extensions with clear elastics because they may show.  I did not do this so you'll see the rubber bands.

Clip the front section out of the way so you can see.  We'll deal with this section last.

Split the back section into thirds so that you have a right, left, and back.  Clip each section so that they stay separate.

Take one of the side sections out of the clip.  Comb it to remove and tangles and pull it up over the rat.  Pin the hair at the top of your head close to the braid.  Don't pin it too tightly.  You want to keep the volume and looseness for the style.  My hair is long enough that it will flop over to the other side.  I pulled it to the front to keep it out of the way.

Repeat the comb/lift/pin process with the other side and back sections.

Great!  Now you have a bunch of hair pinned up on your head, possibly flopping into your face.  I wanted these pieces totally out of the way before I dealt with the front.  I pulled them all together, ran the comb through them to remove tangles, and twisted it into a bun.

You still have the front to deal with.  You can pull the whole section up at once, like you did with the other pieces, and twist the remaining hair around the bun or you can split the front and do it in smaller sections.

I didn't like the way it looked with one giant roll of hair around my head, so I opted to split my hair off-center in the front and pin in up in two steps.

Split the front section and clip one out of the way.  Repeat the comb/lift/pin process and then twist the remaining hair into the bun.

Do your lift/comb/pin again for the last section.

I have short bangs, so this looks pretty stupid.  If you don't have bangs, you're pretty much done.  Just take a fine-toothed comb and smooth out the bits over the rat.  You may need to mess with some of the sections to get it to totally cover the rat.

If you have bangs like me, you'll need to pin and/or hairspray them up.  Mine aren't quite long enough to pin over the rat, so I pinned the bangs right into it.  Try to hide the bobby pin.

Smooth out all the sections with a fine-toothed comb.  You may need to gently move some of the hair to totally cover the rat.

You can use hairspray now if you like to help hold the style, but it isn't necessary.  Part of what I like about this is that it looks best when it's a little messy and undone.

Ta da!  You're done!