Hair Tutorial - the Rolled Flower Bun

The last hair tutorial I did was wildly popular (check it out here) so I thought it might be fun to do another one. This time, I'm showing you how to do a rolled flower bun, using the lovely Sophie as my model.

I wasn't sure what to call this, because I'm not entirely confident that it looks like a flower (especially since I only make it with four 'petals' - if you did it with five it would look like a flower) so if you can think of a better name for it, let me know, and I'll rename it. ;)

The idea for this bun originally came from here, but I have modified it quite drastically. I love this bun because it's so pretty and elegant, suitable for all occasions, and when you get sick of it in your hair, you can take it out and poof, your hair is massively curly!

Let's get started, shall we?

Skills required
This can be quite hard to get your head and fingers around to start with. However, it isn't too bad once you have the hang of it. If you like doing hair or are keen to learn more, this is going to be great for you.

Materials required
See photo above. One hairbrush, some water (I like using a spray bottle just because it's easy, but if you don't have one you can just grab a container, fill it with water and dip your fingers into it when you need to), one hairband, a nice thick pencil (I like using a thick pencil because it works for me, but you might find something else works better for you... for instance, you could try using a chopstick) and TONS of bobby pins.

Brush the hair well and spray it with a little bit of water to help control the flyaways.

Scoop the hair into a ponytail. I like to position the ponytail right in the center of the back of the head because then the bun will sit in the center. But you could do it a wee bit lower, or even right on top of the head if you want. 

Take a section from the ponytail that is about one quarter of the size of the ponytail. This will be your first roll. Wet it a little and brush the water into it so the flyaways don't go crazy.

Take the pencil and place it on the end of the section.

Start rolling the hair over the pencil. I always roll it on the top of the section. You could also roll it the other way, under, if you so desired.

Keep rolling right along the section. As you go, bits of the section ahead that haven't yet been rolled might balloon out slightly. Just sort of tuck them in neatly-ish as you go (if you can). Don't worry if you can't, you can fix it all up in the end with bobby pins. 

When you get right to the end of the section, position the roll where you like it. Then, ever so gently, slide the pencil out. Warning: Do NOT slide the pencil out left to right, over the eraser end. The eraser is slightly bigger than the pencil and the hair will get caught and your lovely roll will have to be redone. Instead, slide the pencil out over the lead end, because that end is pointy and it will slide out ever so beautifully.

The roll might go all weird and out of shape without the pencil in it to hold it. Don't worry, just as quickly as you can shove a bunch of bobby pins in it to hold it. Slide the bobby pins in over the bottom layer of the roll, if that makes sense... Put heaps of pins in until it's really secure and isn't going anywhere.

If all goes according to plan, it should (hopefully) end up looking somewhat like this.

Now divide the remaining hanging-down bit into three sections, and take one of the sections. Wet it down, brush it, position the pencil at the end, and start rolling. 

Remove the pencil, pin the section and admire your efforts as before.

Repeat above steps for the third section.

And repeat all again for the fourth, and final section.

Note that the fourth section is slightly wonky. It's off more to the right than the left. Of course, I am not a perfect hair artist and I make mistakes. If I was to do this again the right section would be lower, the bottom section would be more to the left and the left section would be slightly higher. :) If you do it perfectly, good on you, it's quite hard to have it all symmetrical!!

When you've got it (mostly) how you like it, shove a bunch more bobby pins in there to tidy and neaten everything up as much as you can. 

And you're pretty much done! See - that wasn't that hard, was it?

Want to change it up a bit? Some ideas:

- Go for five rolls, or more. The more rolls you do, the more awesome it will look! I like four usually because it's quicker and it looks nice and symmetrical. If you do less than four you'll have a harder time getting the hair to stay put.

- Experiment with the positioning of the bun on the head. Try it higher or lower. You may not be able to have it too low because you have to have hair under the roll for the bobby pin to grab onto, and there's not much hair on the nape of the neck!!

- If you wear this bun because you want curly hair, you'll need to leave it in for quite a few hours. When you take it out the hair is usually super curly. This is because it was wetted, rolled really tightly, pinned, then allowed to dry. Don't make the mistake of taking it out too soon, however. Leave it in all day if you want curls.

Special thanks to Sophie for being my model. :)

What do you think? Have you tried this technique before?