Got to school for about 8 this morning so I could remove my other latex bald cap and get set up and stuff before the new tutor, Mike Mosher (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0608674/), started his demonstration. Having realised from my previous bald cap that I'd made it too thin, I knew that this was going to be the same, so despite it being a bit bigger, it would still be pretty useless in getting a decent bald cap from it.

Fortunately though, the demonstration today was using pre made vinyl rubber caps, so I wouldn't need it anyway. There weren't many volunteers for the demo today, so I stepped up. At least I'd have a bald cap done on me by a professional and could see what it should look like. Well, that would have been fine if I could see what was going on the whole time. You can see how great a bald man I look in the photo...

Still, we then paired up to start out own attempts, and as I'd literally just taken my cap off, I made the decision to go first, working with Vicki (she was the first person to do me smokey eyes so I was counting on some revenge). I hadn't intended to be quite so vengeful, but it must have seemed that way. Due to her mid-length hair, it meant waxing it down with some proper sticky s***. It's basically what hair spray is without all the alcohol in it. This basically turned her hair to plastic (I'm sorry Vicki).

From here-on-out, it was mostly a nightmare application, going from one disaster to the next. To start with, my s***ty hairdryer I bought yesterday to dry the glue faster wouldn't work, so I'll have to return that at some point. As I attempted to slide the bald cap over the head, and stick it to the pre-applied prosthetic glue, it split down the front. This was fairly easy to resolve as there was a lot of space before the hairline, but it was still a b***** to get on. Then there were several wrinkles I had to unglue and stick down properly. Some of the hairs kept on poking out and I struggled for ages to get them back under the cap… I wasn't sure where I needed to remove the section around the ears, because, for obvious reasons, I couldn't see my ears during the demonstration, so I sort of bodged some 'ear-'oles' through it and stuck it down, because it was lunch.

After a short lunch, so everyone could catch up, we continued our application, not without more frustration. I managed to get a kind of clean line around the front, and managed to get some skin-like texture onto the smooth cap, but then I had to mix up some colour to match Vicki's face. I didn't get to do this yesterday due to more time constraints, and so it took me forever. I saw that other students had managed it pretty well, but didn't really play too much close attention, because I was getting so pissed off with my attempt. I know this is only me second attempt at creating/applying/finishing off a bald cap, but it's so f***ing annoying not being able to get it right! And Especially taking so long to do it. I was close to giving up, but thankfully Mike showed me what I was doing wrong, and how to mix the colours well enough to get a decent looking skin-tone to match Vicki's.

I could tell that Vicki had had enough of it, and as it was fast approaching the end of the day, I didn't bother finishing off the back, and attempted to be as gentle as possible in removing it. This was difficult, as some of her now plastic hair, was stuck to the cap. It eventually came off, but she had an extremely difficult time trying to get the wax crap out of her hair. I was going to stick around again to make another latex cap for tomorrow morning, but as there'd be another class in the same room later on, I brought the tools to make one home to make one tonight. Plus, I'd just about had it for today and had some cold beers and some beef jerky in my fridge.

I noticed some packages for me which made me feel a bit better. A copy of Make-Up Artist magazine sent from home (maybe there'll be some more hints and tips on bald-cap making in there), but best of all, this season's Spurs shirt arrived, so now I have something to wear to the Arsenal game on Sunday morning. This made me much happier.

I then spent a fair amount of time working on a latex bald cap that we'd need for tomorrow, ensuring that this time, it wouldn't be too thin. I think I've cracked it. I won't find out until tomorrow morning though so fingers crossed. I decided to treat myself with a beer or three, so popped to the Novel again, and remedied the day's earlier frustration wisely. Hopefully, I don't get so stressed tomorrow, have learnt from my previous mistakes, and can work much faster than today… hopefully!