I just got my rats in the mail two days ago. I ordered them from adiscountbeauty.com.

http://www.adiscountbeauty.com/page73.html.

I ordered two of each length. I snapped them together into doughnut shapes, put a little ponytail where I wanted the style centered, and threaded it through the smallest one. I put a few bobby pins to anchor it, added the others, pinning them down, too. Then I pulled up the hair around the mass of rats and put it in a large ponytail with the hair of the smaller one.

By this time I was running short of time and ended up just twisting into a bun, fastening with a fork and a chopstick. The bun is messier than I'd like, but everybody else thought it was great.

http://www.katherinesweet.org/images/victorianrat.jpg

Sooooo cool!  Maybe you could put a picture up of what your rat looks like so people have a better understanding of what it is.  I remember my grandmother 's rats, they always facinated me.

Thanks for posting your pic - it really shows how beautiful it is and the great condition it is in.

This is what the plain rats look like, except in the photo you can't see the snaps at each end.

http://www.adiscountbeauty.com/media/hairartrats.jpg

They are about 1-1/4 inches in diameter and rather firm. The surface is netting, so they can be pinned rather easily with bobby pins. You can snap together as many sausages as you need to. There seems to be some sort of wire inside, so they tend to hold their shape if you bend them. Besides snapping them into doughnuts, they can be used to make pompadours, French rolls, and various curl things. I guess they can, but I'm still on the learning curve, that is.

Another issue is that my hair is silky and wants to part in front, so the rat, being darker than my hair, tends to peek out. I could cover that with synthetic hair, though I'm the only one who noticed.

Perhaps I should get more, in order to make my hair higher, rather like Marge Simpson, or Marie Antoinette maybe. I still haven't reached the roof of my car yet. :)

But seriously, a person could take more short rats and make their tail into a number of curl rolls to go on top.

I think you'd need to carefully consider balance, though. This style put some tension on my front hairline. I think I'll allow more time for adjustment and anchoring next time I use them.

So I'm probably going to construct some sort of synthetic hair-based pile'o'curls to go on top, for those special occasions when there's no such thing as too much artifice.

Very neat! Thanks for sharing.

Ooo! Nice, eKatherine! I've surfed for rat-based hairstyles (as opposed to rat-based soup) but have only come up with Gibsons so far. I can't wait to see your experimentations! ;-)

/Kate

WOW, THANKS this is really cool 8) I am going to go right over there. I have been using some really old rats that were my mother's from the 1950's and some that were my aunts that she made from her own hair combings. I'm going to get me some of my own that will be brand new!  ;D

One way to make your own hair rat (so that the color matches):

Purchase a pair of kneehigh hose that is as close to your own natural hair color as possible.  Save your shed hair (cleaning out your hair brush can give you a good start).  Put the collected hair into the kneehigh.  Keep stuffing the knee high until you have the desired size.  By twisting the hose, you can make the rat "thinner" in diameter.  

My grandmother used this method for her rats.  Obviously she did not put any hair pins through the socks very often, but I think I remember that she pinned through the end where she tied off the sock.  She also used rather heavy "socks" and would sew them in half, length-wise for a better diameter.

At lhc they had the crown braid as the hairstyle of the week, so I thought I'd try something different. It didn't work, as I had lots of loopy thingys, but by the time I'd taken it down, I really wanted to do something different and elegant. Reenter the rats. This time I pinned two of them to my scalp with many very fine hairpins, which is much more secure than previously. Again, there is a tiny pony in the middle to stablilize the lot. After bringing up the outside hair and pinning it into a bun, I tucked the base of a 6" piece of curly weft into the bun and pinned most of the curlies in place.

http://www.katherinesweet.org/images/Fancyupdo1.jpg

http://www.katherinesweet.org/images/Fancyupdo2.jpg

I'm ready to go to the ball! I just need to slip on my ball gown, tiara, and glass slippers.

You have beautiful hair, eKatherine! I love the style - it's so Victorian! I can't wait until I can do that with mine!

My mum always does her hair like that. She looks so pretty. She is one of those people who has a look that seems to come from a different era. Very very classic!  :)

Wow!  That looks great ekatherine!  You are most certainly ready for the ball.

VERY nice, I LOVE it!!! :)

that's incredibly classy!!  8)

Thanks, guys. When I took it down, I counted 25 hairpins. :-/

eKatherine, your hair is so beautiful.
When I first read the title of this file, I thought you had a picture of your hair and, well, new pet rats.
I know you're all laughing at me...
I've never heard of a rat for your hair!  Didn't know such things existed.  However, now that I know about them I may have to give them a try when my hair's a bit longer.
Thanks for the education.

eKatherine--that style looks great on you.  

Where do you get your hair wefts that match so wonderfully?  

I got the weft from Texas Beauty Supply - http://shop.store.yahoo.com/texasbeautysupplycom/

As far as the color match, I'm just lucky on this. My hair happens to be close enough to this manufacturer's light auburn (30) that it works for most things. Some other types of hair don't have anything like a close match. Texas Beauty Supply deals mostly with African-American salons, so they don't have much for blond colors. Most synthetic hair in general has big gaps in the blond end of the spectrum, where there might be 3 or 4 colors that are more or less black.

Human hair is different. Many types have quite a few different shades.

wow your hair looks great eKatherine!  ;D

question: how do you use a rat? do you wrap your hair around the doughnut to form the bun? confuzzlement!

If you go to this page http://intimelyfashion.com/hair/gibson1.htm you will see how they put in one rat for a gibson-style hairdo. I used three for the first style on the page, and two for the most recent one, graduated of course.

I haven't figured out yet how to wrap my hair around a rat successfully, the hair having such a mind of its own. What I did was to take a small section of hair centered where the rat was going to be centered and ponytail this. Then I placed the rats, pulled the ponytail through the center hole and pinned the rats securely to my scalp and to each other, using millions of tiny hair pins set perpendicular to the direction of hair growth.

Now that the rats were structurally sound, I pulled up the hair all around (as in the gibson girl instructional photo, but higher, as I have more rats), pulled it into a tail at the top, twisted into a chignon and pinned it in place. The bun looked good, but you can't see it under the mass of curls.

thanks eKatherine!

eKatherine - your styles are stunningly beautiful.  OK, you've talked me into trying rats!  I simply must try those beautiful "do's".  Your hair is so beautifully healthy, too.  Thanks for sharing the photos!

nightowl

I hope  you have as much fun with them as I do, nightowl. :D

Wow. I didn't even know that things like rats existed...
I can't wait until my hair is long enough for them. Hope that company ships overseas...

Ekatherine, your hair looks very beautiful and healthy.