- So, you want to turn the hair over on itself, like that.
This is what we call our turn around,
we refer to this as a turn around.
Generally, you'd like to keep it very short,
but for this, and because you're beginning,
what I'm gonna do is, basically, fold the hair in half.
We'll make it a longer turn around
and that will make it a little bit easier for the beginner.
Now, keep in mind that because we've created
a longer turn around, the length of your hair,
when you finish, is going to be shorter.
So, the shorter the turn around,
the longer the length of your piece.
So we'll just fold the hair in half.
And sometimes you'll have some hairs
that are cut a little short.
It's okay, you're not going to get every single hair
into the lace, and we'll make a couple of boo boos here,
but we'll just move forward.
You're not gonna get a very good knot with dry hair,
you want to add moisture into the hair.
And the way we do that is we take a cup of hot water
and we'll dip the hair into the water.
So, on this first half of your square,
I'll demonstrate the first knot.
So, what we're doing is we're taking the needle
and we're placing it under the lace
and we're drawing and catching a piece of the hair.
Bring it through the lace and we, basically,
knot it on itself.
And I'll do it a second time.
So you just repeat the process.
I also wanna get single hairs.
And as you gain experience,
you'll start becoming a little faster.
So, that's generally the idea,
this being the most difficult part of this entire lesson,
is getting that first knot tied.
So what I'd like to do, also, is maybe
just slow that down a little bit for you.
Come through the lace, and you grasp the hair.
It's just a slight tension between the tool
and your forefinger and thumb,
and once you figure out that tension,
things will be a lot easier, but it just takes practice.
You get that first knot, it's such a happy thing, happy day.
So we've done a few knots now,
now what I wanna do is show you each step.
I wanna take the knotting tool underneath the lace
and I'll freeze there so you can see that.
Now, remember, you can see the tension
that I have the lace at, you don't want it too loose.
But you can see how there is tension on the lace,
and that's good tension between the needle
and the lace there.
So I'll hold that there so you can see that very clearly,
and then the next step is we'll grab a piece of hair,
and I'll freeze there.
The next step is bringing it under.
Now, you're going to take your hair and wrap it,
and, at the same time, move the tool back towards you.
I'll freeze there.
Now you're gonna continue bringing the hair
around towards you, and the needle goes away from you.
And I'll freeze there.
Now, you let the barb catch it,
and you're coming through, I'll freeze there.
Remember, you still have that tension there.
Tension on your forefinger and thumb,
tension on the needle and hair.
Now you'll slowly bring the hair through,
releasing here, and drawing the hair through.
So, on this front half,
I really want you to just concentrate on filling,
if you can do every other hole, every other row,
just get comfortable with the art
of tying knots on this first half.
When we get to this second half,
we're gonna concentrate on trying to hit every barb,
every little hole.
The reason I want you to capture every little hole here
is I want you to become so familiar with the technique
that, when we go onto the next step
of building your first mustache,
that it becomes like second nature.
And the only way to do that is to practice,
and really finish off this first square.
So, again, I don't wanna jump too far ahead of ourselves,
but what we'll do on this first half
is just continue to knot.
And it's always good to have, maybe a pair of tweezers handy
as you're knotting and you feel like,
if your hairs begin to kind of splay,
you can take a pair of tweezers and just,
if you have a loose knot, you can go back in
and just squash it.
You can already begin to see what's happening here,
you're getting a nice little textured amount of hair.
We're not so concerned, again, with density at this point.
So, I'll take a little more hair,
remember to do your turn around, just fold it in half,
and we'll dip it into some water.
So, just, I know that my speed is a little faster,
and this is actually quite slow for me,
but after about 20 some odd years,
I won't tell you exactly how many,
but I've been doing this for such a long time,
you'll get there too.
So just do every other hole,
and don't worry about how things are looking at this stage.
We're just trying to fill.
So, we'll stop there and I think
what I want you to do now is to continue filling in
that half of the square.
Once you've filled that in and you fill comfortable
with where you're at, come back to me,
and then we'll do the rest.
A little tighter, a little more density to it,
and then we'll continue there.