Oh Rats!

I first have to mention that I grew up in a beauty salon. Both of my parents use to be hairdressers. It was in my blood to become a hairdresser, I suppose. So, I went to school and learned and practiced the art of hairdressing. I learned finger waves and pin curls among the many other things. Since this was in the early 90's and finger waves and pin curls were not popular by any means, I thought this part of learning was irrelevant and thought it very silly that the instructors were so keen on making me learn these useless old techniques. We had to practice over and over again to get the perfect waves and the perfect bases for the curls. We were tested...even the board test had a big section on these techniques and we had to perfect them. This has been over 20 years ago, I gave up hairdressing about 15 years ago, but I guarantee that if someone wanted finger waves or pin curls I could do it. A haircut not so much.

OK, so that had nothing to do with the subject of this post. I just wanted to give a little background to let you all know how involved in the hair world I have been. And the irony that now I am happy that I know how to do pin curls and finger waves. And the fact that I have never heard of the magical things that this post is actually about.

So getting to the subject. Rats! When watching Lisa's tutorials when she mentioned using a rat, I always assumed she meant a rat tail comb. That was the only rat I've ever heard of...besides the icky furry ones. I have to say that when I finally found out what she was really talking about I was so excited. I went right out and bought them and my hair has not been the same since.

You all probably know what a rat is. I just got stuck in my own time and never knew :) For anyone who does not know, I'm going to tell you. It is a mesh form for making rolls in your hair. Probably not the dictionary definition, but hey. What I found is called a chignon form. It looked like a blond donut when I bought it. They come in several colors and you get the one that matches your hair the closest. Since you can't really make victory rolls with a donut, I cut mine in half. So now I have two pieces. These things are great for victory rolls or Betty bangs when you have long bangs. (I didn't know that you could see mine until I saw this picture, I should have placed it farther back).

My first attempt at using my new rats. I rolled my hair in hot rollers. I rolled the sides with one big curler on each side. I pulled up the sides and placed the curler in like a Victory Roll. The front section I placed the curler in going down and toward the side. The back I just randomly placed curlers going down. After I took it down and brushed it out, I pulled the sides up in victory rolls. Now, I am not really experienced at victory rolls. I only got them right the one time (my last post). I was able to put in my victory rolls and large pin curl in about 5 minutes. If you are having trouble getting Victory Rolls, try using rats. They make it so incredibly easy. If you can roll your hair in rollers you can use rats.

Interesting Tidbit...Do you know how victory rolls got their name? Victory Rolls were a fighter-plane maneuver in World War II. Ladies wanted to honor soldiers, so they adopted the name for this popular hairstyle.