10 Dance Hairstyle: For Latin and Standard in 2019!

A 10 Dance Hairstyle that works perfectly for Latin and Standard!

How often are 10 Dancers caught in this situation? The organizers of the competition decided to hold the Latin and the Standard events on the same day! Or, the competition is only a one day event? Or finally, the organizers are actually offering a 10 Dance competition, which means we have to do both styles on one day?! Either way, this means we 10 Dancers have to come up with a look that works well for Latin and Standard. Not too fancy for Latin, not too relaxed for Standard. Sure, an easy option is to just slick the hair back into a tight bun. But that’s neither fun, nor modern! What we need is a 10 Dance hairstyle that works for both styles, looks modern, and supports our dancing.

Luckily, after 20 years of competing in both styles, Kora has a few good 10 Dance hairstyles up her sleeve. In this tutorial, she shares one of her favorites. The best part about this 10 Dance hairstyle is that it takes less than an hour to complete. After turning professional, Kora was faced with a new challenge: how to get ready for a professional competition quickly when you’ve been coaching all day long! Not only did she need a 10 Dance hairstyle that would look comparably beautiful to her 5 Dance competitors, but she also needed something that she could do quickly. This style became the perfect choice!

By the way, she uses a special trick in this hairstyle that you can read about right here! She talked about it in length during that post, and even shares where you can pick up one of those cool tools yourself!

10 Dance Hairstyle Supplies

For this 10 Dance hairstyle, you will need a few supplies:

  1. Hair dryer
  2. Hair crimper
  3. Hair straightener (if you have curly hair)
  4. Hair ties
  5. 1.5″ hair pins (NOT bobbie pins)
  6. 2.5″ hair pins (NOT bobbie pins)
  7. Hair nets
  8. Mirror pieces or other decorations
  9. Elmer’s® School Glue
  10. Göt2Be® Glued Hairspray
  11. Handheld mirror
  12. Fine-toothed comb

10 Dance Hairstyle Process

Below is the step by step process Kora takes to create this 10 Dance hairstyle. Prefer to follow along via video? You can do that, too! Just press play!

1. Prepare the hair.

The first step to this 10 Dance hairstyle is to prepare the hair. By this, we mean brushing out your hair so that all the knots are out! If you have curly hair, you’ll need to straighten it at this time. Then part your hair into three sections.

First, part your hair exactly down the center.

Second, create a part starting from the center line, about one inch back from your forehead. Continue this part around the crown of your skull towards the back of your head, stopping about 1.5″ past your ear. Draw the comb straight down. Section this hair off by combing the hair framing your face forward, then twist it up and secure it so that it’s out of the way.

Repeat on the other side, going slower this time in order to make sure the parts are even and symmetrical. When you’re finished, you should have about two sections on either side of your head framing your face, about an inch deep. The third section would be the majority of your hair.

2. Create the ponytail.

We’re going to forget about the front two sections for now. As for the rest of the hair, we are going to slick this back into a tight ponytail at the base of your skull. Spray the roots of your hair until your hair is wet from hairspray. The heavier your hair, the more hairspray you need. Take your fine-toothed comb and, pressing the spine of the comb against your skull as you go, comb your hair back into the ponytail. Keep going until all of the hair is gathered into a tight ponytail. Secure with a hair tie. Hairspray again and set into place using the hair dryer.

Take out the hair tie, gather it a second time into an even tighter ponytail, secure it again, and set it again. If you have think or unruly hair, you may need to do this a third or even a fourth time. Just keep going until all of the hair is pulled back into a very tight ponytail, and the hair is laying flat against your scalp. If there are any bumps or openings in the hair, you need to do it again. The ponytail is the single most important step of your 10 dance hairstyle, because without a good ponytail, you will have nothing to secure your bun and details to.

3. Crimp out and net your ponytail.

Lightly spray the hair gathered in your ponytail. Then, patiently, section by section, crimp all of the hair in your ponytail. Once that is done, give it a light spray and go get a drink of water or something. You need to allow your hair to cool for about 5 minutes. After you’ve allowed your hair to cool, brush it out until you get a nice big fluff ball in the back. Take a hairnet and secure the seam with a pin at the base of the ponytail. Envelope your ponytail in the hairnet, then wrap another elastic halfway down the ponytail just to keep the hairnet and ponytail separated from the rest of your hair while you work on it.

4. Crimp out the front sections of hair.

Just like with the ponytail, lightly spray one of the front sections, then patiently crimp all of the hair. Give it one last spray before heading over to the other section. While the second section of hair is cooling, comb out the first section. Take your time combing it out. Remember that you need to give the second section of hair sufficient time to cool before combing it out again. When you finish, you should have two massive clouds of hair around your face.

5. Roll the hair back.

This is where the design comes in. Start by shaping the hair at the part. Depending on your face shape, you may want to give the hair more or less lift. Once you have the shape you’re looking for, spray it into place and set with the hairdryer on low power. Then, roll the hair section by section until you reach your ear. Secure temporarily with a hair clip so you can spray and set the roll. After the roll is set back to your ear, take out the hair clip and continue rolling the hair back until you reach the base of the ponytail.

Stretch the twisted hair over the top of the ponytail, then pin into place with the shorter hairpins. You may need two or three to make sure the twist is really secure. Spray and set the roll. With the leftover hair, twist it into a rope and wrap it around the base of your ponytail, spraying and setting as you go, until the entire length of hair is complete. Smoothen down any frizzies and set the entire roll before working on the other side.

When you do the second side, you may need to work a little slower just to make sure the rolls are symmetrical. Use your handheld mirror often and make sure you check the hair from the top. After all, the audience and judges will see your head from the top, so you need to make sure it looks symmetrical even from a bird’s eye view. Repeat the process until the entire length of hair is wrapped and secured around the base of the ponytail.

6. Create the bun.

For this 10 dance hairstyle, Kora created a “Snail Shell Bun”, but the truth is, you can create any bun you want. At this point, your hair is sufficiently fluffy enough to create any style. You can even use a rat to create a “Half-Moon Bun” like what Kora showed in this tutorial, here. But for today’s purpose, we’re going to stick with the “Snail Shell Bun”.

Take out the hair tie and flatten the middle of the ponytail so that the shape of the ponytail is like shoe horn. Then, start rolling the ponytail from the ends, in and up. When you reach the top, insert a 2.5″ hairpin at the bottom two corners of your skull in order to hold the bun in place. Make sure the legs of the hairpins criss-cross each other and are inserted into the ponytail base. You want to use the ponytail base like a pin cushion. That’s how you keep the pins from sliding out during competition.

As you shape the spiral of the snail shell, use the smaller hairpins to pin portions of the hair into place. Periodically shake you head just to make sure the hair is secure. It needs to survive both Tango and Samba, so it better be strong!

And as always, make sure the seam of the hairnet is hidden! Try your best to hide the seam as you’re creating the bun, but if worst comes to worst, you can always tuck it into hidden corners and secure with hairpins.

7. Spray away!

This is where having a third hand comes in! If you’re lucky to actually have three fully functional arms, then you’re fine on your own. However, for the majority of us who only have two arms, you’d better find another person. They need to spray and set with a hairdryer all of the little frizzies that tend to escape the hairnet, making sure everything is smooth and lacquered. Also have this other person check over the rest of the hair. They might spot something you didn’t notice.

8. Time to decorate.

Finally, the finishing touches to this 10 dance hairstyle! Kora recommends using Elmer’s® School Glue for securing rhinestones, mirrors, or other decorations on your hair. This glue is completely water soluble, which means it comes out in the shower with some conditioner and shampoo. The only downside to the school glue is that, because it’s water soluble, it’s not so useful if applying rhinestones or decorations to your forehead, especially if you tend to sweat on your scalp. For that purpose, Kora recommends using eyelash glue.

Take your decorations and add a strip of school glue to the back. It’s helpful to let the glue dry for about 30-60 seconds before applying. Kora has also found it useful to add heat to the hair with the hairdryer just before applying the decoration. Place the decoration in the desired spot and pressed strongly for about 30-60 seconds. Blow dry the edges of the decoration so the edges of the glue are dry and keeping the decoration in place while the glue in the center continues to dry. Be patient and use your “third hand” for the back, if needed.

A 10 Dance Hairstyle for Today’s Dancing!

And that’s it! A 10 dance hairstyle that is completely relevant and modern for today’s dancing, making use of all the modern ballroom hairstyle techniques. But what’s great about this hairstyle is that it looks good for Latin and Standard. Not too fancy for Latin, not too slicked for Standard. It’s the perfect medium. As you can see from the picture, in both Latin dress and Standard dress, the hair is perfect. And because it’s relatively fast to complete, it’s definitely a hairstyle you want to keep up your sleeve?

Questions? Comments? Please let us know in the comment section below! We’d love to hear from you!

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