Manolo for the Brides

The superbly lovely Kate wrote to ask:

I’m a regular reader of your blog and was wondering if you could help me out. I’m getting married at the end of September and want to wear a cream-colored “flower” in my hair, to match my dress. Problem is, what I find is either something from the WIC that’s eighty bucks, or a shoddy-looking fake “silk” blossom that is 1.99 at the craft store. Can you help me find a pretty off-white fake flower for my hair, for less than forty dollars? My hairdresser says it doesn’t have to have a barrette – if it has a stem, she can weave it in.

I feel Kate’s pain, even though I when I was getting married it wasn’t flowers but rather hair gems I sought. Everything truly elegant was way out of my price range, and everything in my price range looked like it had come from a girls bracelet making kit from the Toys ‘R’ Us. Eventually, I let my hair stand on its own, which was more than fine because my stylist was truly a wizard.

Now, anyone looking for faux blooms should learn a little background and a little lingo before hitting the shops. Today’s silk flowers typically aren’t actually made of silk…except when they are, in which case they may cost you a pretty penny. The reason so many fakies look so awful is that they’re made of cheap polyester. Even worse, they are sometimes embellished with things like rhinestones and plastic water droplets.

For blooms that look as nice close up as they do from far off, search for “real touch” or “natural touch” flowers. At present, they’re not that easy to source, unfortunately, and buying just a few is sometimes impossible.The good news is that they’re not hugely expensive, but you might have to eat some shipping costs because they’re easier to get in the UK.

I searched a bunch of floral shops, eBay, and Etsy, and my favorite real touch flower by far is this one:

This clip comes from Mikiye Creations, which carries a large selection of beautiful accessories crafted from semi-precious stones, metals, freshwater pearls, Swarovski crystals, silks, and feathers. The real touch rose above is approximately four inches across and is meant to look and feel like the real thing.

While Kate did say she’d be happy with either a clip-on blossom or a stem, I thought a clip would be more comfortable. I worked with faux flora before my own wedding, and I found the stems themselves to be pointy and not quite as flexible as I might have liked. Better to stick with a clip than to spend one’s wedding day being poked in the head by a rogue bit of plastic!

This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 11:30 am by Never teh Bride and is filed under Accessories, Beauty, Flowers, Hairstyles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.