With a short hawk, I'll fan using Got2Be Freezing Spray, my hand, and a blowdryer.
Aquanet never really worked for me... I want to try Rave #4 after hearing a lot about it.
When it gets longer I usually spike it out (like in my pic) and use one packet of Knox in almost half a mug of microwaved water, and the blowdryer.
For huge spikes, Knox has got to be the way to go.
For mine (not "huge," per se..) I microwave half a mug of water for about 2 or 3 minutes, then immediately dump 1 packet of Knox in. You have to stir it for a while so it's all liquid. This will be super-hot, and you have to be finished with your hair before it gets super-cold.
I wait for it to get cooled down to the point where if you stick your hand in, it's lukewarm.
Get the first straightened chunk of hair you want to be spiked in one hand, and with the other hand, dip four fingers into the Knox, and generously coat the bottom half of the spike, kind of squishing it all together to get a nice coat going. Then, with your blowdryer on hot and high, dry it thoroughly while standing it up. It's nice to cover the handle of your dryer with a bag or something...
Once it's dry, it should be really stiff, but you still have flexible tips. From here, you keep one hand on the blowdryer, and the other takes little dabs of Knox and just coats the length of the spike slowly, drying as you go slowly up. Repeat a bunch of times and move to the next spike.
Hope this helps! I've never found a really good Knox tutorial and I'm still experimenting myself.
If I have any enlightenments I'll be sure to post here.
Maybe I'll make a video, I really like the one on the front page =)
Yeah, I've never seen anyone go over it in that much detail either. Sounds interesting. Definitely, if you do do a video, put it on here. I'll definitely put it up on the front page, if it'll help some people out.
I have now upgraded to knox gelatin as well and once you get a method down that works for you it really works wonders and is less damaging to your hair than soap or hairspray.
I dont even measure out the water. What I am doing is using two packets of knox and boiling up some water and putting it in and mixing it at the same time until it becomes a little more on the watery side but NOT completely watered down. I then rub it into my whole mohawk and comb out the base and blow it dry a bit before completely combing it out and shaping it. I have found that to let it dry completely and then comb it out is painful and hard to do. So I work the pick through just the base to get the general shape going and then finish it after drying. It will flake a bit but then I just run the pick and my hands up over it and it gets most off. it will also depend on how thick your gel mixture is.
The thicker the gel, the harder the hair will be to comb but the more stiff it will be. When I did this years ago it was a very thick mixture and made my hair like fiber glass. These days I make it much thinner and it is nowhere near as solid but it holds as well as my soap was and takes about a quarter of the time. i also coat it with some Rave 4x for good measure
Perhaps a new video will be in order in the coming days/weeks =)
If somebody doesn't beat me to it that is