Victorian Hair Styles

During the Victorian era women's hair was considered her glory. In my portraits of Victorian women you will notice that they all had long hair, this was because they rarely cut their hair they'd also use hair pieces to enhance they hair do's to make it fuller. Victorian Women tended to pull their hair back into buns and sometimes they'd let loose long curls either at the back or on the side of their face. To decorate their hair styles they sometimes used ornate combs and clips. To create the smooth appearance they;d used oils.

Early 1830's to 1860's 

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This Portrait of a Victorian Women is from the early 1830's. Her hair is very soft and smooth looking also she has a center parting. As you can see she has long tight curls framing the sides of her face and at the back she has what looks like a bun with a plait wrapped round it, this might have been a hair piece or she could have had very long hair. She's accessorized the hairstyle with a gold tiara.

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These are some Early Victorian hair styles I found, as you can see all the hair styles have a middle parting and they are all very smooth looking. Something else I noticed when I was research early Victorian hairstyles was that their ears tended to be covered most of the time.










Queen Victoria style had a strong influence when it came to Fashion. Queen Victoria kept her hair styles quite simple - center parting, looped glossy hair around the sides in up do. This Portrait below of Princess Victoria in 1833 it appears she has plaits pilled on top each other. After researching a little more on this type of hairstyle I found that it is called the Apollo Knot and was very fashionable, it featured and bun made of plaits placed high on the head.

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Late 1860's to 1890's

Near the end of the Civil War, hairstyles became larger and the use of hair fillers (aka rats) and multiple hair pieces became popular. Women continued to have large and elaborate hairstyles in the early 1870's. Hairstyles got tighter when ladies bustles got tighter this didn't happen until the late 1870's

In early 1870's the first bustles came out which meant that ladies hairstyles changed too, women began to lift their hair up higher sloping upward from the forehead then they'd leave cascading lavish plaits or curls or both sometimes worn in a chignon.
False hair was used a lot and was very fashionable, this false hair tended to be obtained in Catholic countries. Convents, prisoners or poor people in workhouses sold their hair for a good price. People in desperate need of cash tended to sell their hair.

However in 1876 The English Domestic Magazine announced that the use of false hair was no longer fashionable. Women began to wear their hair smaller, neater and close and higher on their head. Curls were arranged to fall from the back of the head onto their shoulders. Tight curled fringes became increasingly popular, The Princess of Wales particularly favored this look. False fringe were made in order for women not to cut their own hair. Small neat hair which was scraped into a bun on top of the head stayed fashionable through the late 1870's to 1880's. The normal tight curled fringes turned into small tendrils on the forehead and by the 1890's it had gone completely.

Websites Used :

• http://beautifulwithbrains.com/2010/08/06/beauty-in-the-victorian-age/
• http://hubpages.com/hub/Beautiful-Victorian-Hairstyles#
• http://www.fashion-era.com/romantic_era.htm
• http://www.victorianweb.org/art/costume/nunn10.html