Category Archives: Pinup Life & Special Events

The Brit & The Belle: Our Pinup Transformations

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Sarah Forshaw (@Forshawsarah) and Miss Amy May  (@miss_amy_may) are southern belle and southern brit pinups, respectively, who found one another on Instagram part way through their pinup transformations in mid 2013, at which point they tentatively, then all of a sudden, become devoted and divine friends. Bonding over their urge to bring full on glamour to their every day lives, their shared opinions on cake, and their fierce nerd hearts, the two quickly began to look upon one another as fabulous sisters–who simply hadn’t met yet outside the confines of the interwebs. Due to finally meet IRL to share many squishy hugs and swing-skirted spins in fall 2015, they’re opening up their friendship and their closets to you in this shared blog post while they eagerly await their meeting.

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Continue reading →

A Beginner’s Guide To: Pincurls

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I am no pincurls expert. I want to state that right now. But I have been attempting to master pincurls for over a year now, as well as other wetset and hotset methods of retro styling one’s hair, so I’ve learned a few things. I’ll be including videos at the bottom of this post showing you how true pincurling experts roll their tresses, the same videos that I watched to figure out how to do it when I first started venturing into pinup style. Despite being no master at vintage hair, I’ve still been asked multiple times on my Instagram to do my own tutorial on pincurling, and finally I decided that perhaps I do have something to offer on this subject; not my expertise, but my lack of it. The thing about learning to pincurl your hair is that it’s tricky, it takes time and practise, and at the beginning it can leave you frustrated and make your arms ache. Even now, a year on, I don’t roll the neatest pincurls, but I want to show you that it’s still possible to get a pretty and passable ‘do out of a less than perfect wetset.

For true beginners please note that an overnight wetset is not the only option for achieving vintage waves. There are also foam rollers, which are easier to apply but can have varying results, and may also take a bit of practice. For ladies who have serious humidity and frizz problems with their hair they can hotset their hair. There’s several options for this, including hot rollers, hot sticks, and also heated pincurls, where you use heated curling tongs to create the curl that is created by hand in the winding process of wetset pincurls, then secured in the same way as wet pincurls as an elevated or flat pincurl. These pincurls created by heat ought to be fixed with a light layer of hairspray and can be left overnight to set firmly into hair the same as with pincurls, but if being done on the day of an event then they must at least be left to cool completely before being taken out and brushed through. Continue reading →

And So It Begins

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You are a gorgeous specimen. I know we’ve only just met, but I can already tell. You, with your face and your sparkly, sparkly eyes, with which you are perusing my words. I’m telling you, doll. You’ve got it all going on. Keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll conquer the world!

(Did it work? Are you utterly enamored with me yet and thoroughly convinced I know exactly what I’m doing with this whole blogging business? No? Damn. I’ll keep working on it.)

Okay, seriously though, hi! Most of you reading this will be lovely beings who already follow me on Instagram, and where that is the case you should know that I think you are super adorable and you should say hi if we haven’t already greeted one another with such. For anyone else that may have found this, I feel like I should give you a little introduction.

I’m Amy. I’m English, a former farmgirl who resides in the countryside of  South East of England, and I’ve been dressing in the 50s pinup style since early 2013. I own far too much makeup (it is legitimately ridiculous,) my hair doesn’t always co-operate, and even though my mother claims I buy too many dresses I believe it to be fully allowed because I am always a bargain hunter. I don’t have perfect skin. I like to eat too much. I can walk in 5.5 inch heels but truthfully I mostly just wear them for going out to (and thus sitting down for) dinner.

This is me

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But then so is this so be aware what you’re dealing with here

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(Caressing a wooden bear, totally normal behaviour. Not a weirdo at all.)

Here’s a snapshot of the kind of things I’m hoping to share with you in the near future

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In particular I’m planning a beginner’s guide to Pinup Girl Clothing, ‘How To’s on bedazzling and retro hair flowers, makeup product reviews, such as my new favourites the Bourjois Velvet Edition Mattes, retro inspired lingerie on the high street, and False Eyelashes for Beginners. If any of these ideas are at the top of your must-read list then drop a comment to let me know so that I can prioritise the posts. Likewise, if you’ve got ideas for other things you’d like to read about then comment those as well. I don’t claim to be an expert in any way on the pinup style, but hopefully I can satisfy your requests.

For now, thank you for reading and I hope to see around on my future posts.

With a wink and a kiss, just for you, because I really did feel that chemistry back there at the start, you cutiepie 😉

‘Til next time.