"I told you, you know nothing of wickedness."

If you know one thing about me, you would know that my favorite actress is Rita Hayworth. Despite the fact that a lot of her most popular looks are of her famous and iconic long blazing red locks, my favorite of her looks is the one she sported for her husband at the time, Orson Welles.

One could argue that the reason that I love this film they made together, The Lady from Shanghai, is that this dynamite couple that I adore so thoroughly were finally together on the big screen, and oddly enough, it was Rita's last ditch effort to save their marriage. It was perhaps the reason she cut her hair and bleached it a platinum blonde, and why her femme fatale that she played so magnificently in Gilda was vastly different from Elsa Bannister. 

While Gilda is flirtatious, dangerous and flippant, Elsa is dark, quietly calculating, and well...a bitch. If it really was Orson's idea to cut and dye Rita's hair for the role (the people hated it!) then I think he made a fantastic decision on Elsa's part. I just don't see Elsa Bannister flipping her hair ("Sure I'm decent!") or defeating a man with pure sexuality. Elsa was all about manipulation, and I think short blonde hair worked for her.

My adoration for this portion of Rita's style career had been harboured for many years, however I just never had the hair length to pull it off, and while I was on a vacation from blogging, my hair went from black to red to orange to dirty blonde to back to my good old trusty platinum where I am now.

So I got out a pen and paper and attempted to figure out how the hell this complicated style was done,

I don't have my drawings so I will attempt to describe as best to you my pin curl set: 

Top of Head:

I used four to three foam rollers, all except the front roller at my forehead was rolled towards the crown.

Sides: 

Vertical rows of pincurls (about the width of one finger) alternating to forward and backward pincurls to create wave. Make sure the last row of curls on the side are going TOWARD the face.

Back:

Section the hair into two parts by running the end of a rat tail comb down the middle of the back of your head. The left half should be curled towards your left ear, and the right towards the right ear.

I would describe the brushing but it's a bit complicated in words, but you should know my hair is slightly longer than Rita's, so a few bits needed to be pinned up like standing pin curls.

This is the end result:

Please excuse the dodgy iPhone images, as my camera is currently on holiday. 

I think I will be using this as a day-today style, as I really love that is away from the face and will essentially sit there all day if hair sprayed. I'm really enjoying this length, and I hope to refine the brushing out the next time I do this style.

Let me know what you think!

Have an amazing week,

Kay.