Cotillion Hairdo's

Two of my friends went to a cotillion for Viennese Waltz this weekend in DC and they enlisted me to do their fancy do's.  The pictures are not that great since they were taken with a phone, but bear with me....

Andrea

In progress shot.

Completed back.

Completed Side.

Andrea's hair is naturally straight, falls just past her bra-strap; her hair is about average thickness in a ponytail, baby soft and very pliable hair which is great for styling, but fly-away prone.

The front was parted to the side and swept back, combed smooth for the tiara.  Originally I had planned to give her romantic side twists, but time constraints didn't allow me to jazz up her hair more.  =(   Her hair was swept into a mid-high pony tail and then twisted into a series of pincurls that were then pinned on their sides to give a pooled effect instead of a rolling wave effect and a few were twisted as they were pulled from the ponytail to give a slight blossoming effect.

With her length and volume of hair you get a medium sized spread for the curls with a low profile.

Pros: (1) Sturdy; unlikely to fall out on you; (2) works on most hair-types and any length shoulder-length and beyond.
Cons: (1) Fly aways -- requires some pre-prep for fly-away prone hair; (2) density and length of hair determine the side/spread of the style.

Codie 

Side shot with (massive) tiara.

Back shot.

Codie's hair is naturally curly, falls just above her shoulder blades; her hair is thick, but reasonably pliable.

Codie found this for me to do on her hair -- this very simple hairstyle gives a very classic and fairy-tale effect on longer hair, and on shorter and less-dense hair (Codie's hair in a ponytail is almost a full thumb-forefinger around) the shape is abstract and unique.  It requires loosely twining hair from multiple ponytails, which gives it a particular ovoid shape when done along the back of the head with the most loft along the center of the head.  With Codie's particular hair, the curly nature of her hair gave it a certain amount of natural loft without pre-prep.

Pros: (1) Simple; (2) Works with both curly and straight hair; (3) allows for unique styling of front -- was kept reasonably simple for this example due to tiara
Cons: (1) Requires a large number of pins; (2) Shape can be irregular

Chignons

I found out last year that a lot of people buy clip-in buns that are matched to their hair color so you can have a beautifully styled bun in seconds.  Put your hair in a ponytail and clip your fancy little piece over it and pin it down and tada, you're done!  Some examples pulled off Google:

I found Jessica Simpson created one of the more popular chignon's on the market. (Please note the Photoshop on Jessica Simpson's face in the top left two pictures.)

I have too much hair to use a chignon clip-in (it would be the size of a small bucket to contain all my hair) so when I am feeling fancy, I'll take fifteen minutes to braid my hair and do something like this:

Parted my hair into three sections and french braided them completed, secured the ends with plastic hairties.  I separated out two small bunches of hair behind my ears before I did this and left those loose.  I crossed the two side braids under the center braid and pinned where they crossed and brought them out and around to form the oblong shape (low to accommodate a cover), pinned the outward-most points and coiled them in to the center to fill out the bun, pinning as necessary to secure.

Using the third braid, I folded it over, pinning the loose end to the center to form a loop.  I then flattened the loop left to right to fill in the center of the braid and hide the ends of the braids then pinned it down.  Taking the two pieces of loose hair, I twisted these into ropes and wound them around the base of the braids, pinning as I arranged each around the braids.  This was to give the braids more structured chignon/bun like look and also better anchor the hairstyle (for those of us that have dense/heavy hair, this distributes the weight over more space).

You can see fly-aways at the nape of my neck, these are easily handled either with hairspray to smooth them to the chignon or with a a few bobby pins by tucking the hair and pinning it.  A style like this takes 15-30 three-inch long bobby pins depending on (1) how well it is pinned, (2) how well the braids are done, (3) how long I'm expecting it to stay up.