Hair Wreck 2009!

Today's post is a homage to one of my favorite blogs cakewrecks

Ah, the inspiration

And now for the "hairstylists" take on the inspiration

Okay not too bad WAY more momish than the inspiration
and now for the side "layers"

I want to cry my eyes out for my poor sister
See yesterday's post for more on bad layers
Sorry sis at least it grows back right?

Let's Talk Layers

Are you the girl who always says "um yeah, no layers I just can't style layers"? Well my friends, that's because you've been getting bad layers. Layers shouldn't make hair harder to style - they should make it easier. Do you think someone like Jennifer Aniston has a hard time styling her layers on the days she does her own hair? NO! Because she has a great haircut with WELL BLENDED layers (yes I'm yelling). Chunky layers are a nightmare and you can flatiron them until your hair burns off, but they are never going to look good. Now I'm not telling you that you need to spend $600 to get a great cut , but I am telling you that it's going to cost you more than 15 bucks. Do yourself a favor and splurge on a great cut and then tell me you can't tell a difference between what you get for say $65 and what you get for $15. Getting my first real cut at age 19 was like the first time I bought a real leather handbag. I loved that buttery soft leather and knew I could never go back to that cheap plastic crap. I understand that you might not always be able to get the expensive cut - heck I still carry my cheap bags once in a while. But leave the real cutting to your experienced cutter. If you need to sneak in a $15 trim here and there we understand. But I will say with a great cut you might find you can actually go longer between appointments. I get mine cut about every 6 months (ooops did I say that out loud?)

Men's Grooming

Men's haircuts are one of my favorites. There are tons of stylists out there who are afraid of doing them because you can't really hide any mistakes in a men's cut. My awesome husband was my very first client when I was going to beauty school. I think it took me 2+ hours and about 4 haircuts (in the same sitting) to finally get it right. I've come a very long way since then. My adorable husband doesn't get much say these days in what his cut is going to be. I usually just do what I want and experiment on him.
I think the most common sin I see in men's cuts are that it's choppy and not blended at all. This is what happens when you get a 15 min clipper cut (FYI I spend around 45 min-1 hour on a men's cut). Clippers are a fine cutting tool, but most people doing them don't go back and blend it all together and that's why you get those choppy lines in the back. Another thing I see is taking the hair line up too far in the back. I swear some stylists do this just so you come back in 3 weeks because you think your hair is all grown out, but really it's just a neck trim that is needed. You want to work with the hair line as much as possible and not take it up too far just to make it square. And for what it's worth it's not easier to do a men's cut and that is why I don't charge different prices for men and women. I probably spend more time actually cutting on a men's cut because most women just want a trim of an inch or two and I spend the rest of the time blow-drying. Now here are some of my favorite looks for men.

The cool rocker shag

The emo rocker

The classic short businessman

The classic college/frat boy

The Trendy

The Grow Out

Growing out short hair to long is kind of a nightmare... I would know - I've done it 3 times in my life. The last time I did it I was fortunate enough to be pregnant 2 times and took weekly pictures of myself. I won't bore you with the weekly progress, but here is my hair over about a 3 year period. You can see how short it got (the bleach blonde) and then where I went from there. The two hardest stages are getting it from a short style to bob style and then from shoulder length to past the shoulders. I think those two are the hardest because those are the points where I always want to cut mine back off.



March 2005: just cut off my bob length hair


April 2005: cut off like Keira Knightley 's hair on the cover of Elle Magazine (and no I'm not drunk in this picture just really happy with my cut)


June 2005: cut off to almost mens length (the back and sides were clipper cut) and bleached blonde. I cut it this short so I could get this blonde.


March 2006: colored dark again with highlights and getting closer to bob length. When I grow my hair out, I change the color so I don't get bored with it.


August 2006: cut off to a shag since I didn't like the mom bob thing I had going (and being almost 9 mo pregnant I needed to feel cute). BTW this is just a couple of days before my son was born :)


February 2007: still dark and grown into a bob length again. Bangs are pretty wispy from the "after-baby hair loss."


August 2007: 1 year since I cut it off into a Shag. Now much lighter and shoulder length.

February 2008: 6 mo later almost past the shoulders and even lighter. I cut heavier bangs to change up the style and help with my hair boredom.

August 2008: finally past the shoulders, still rockin it light with the heavy bangs. About 4 weeks before I had my daughter.

Blow-drying

The tools needed for a good blow-dry

1.Products:

-Kevin Murphy Staying Alive Leave in conditioner

-Kevin Murphy Anti Gravity Volumiser

2. Good Blow-dryer like the Chi Rocket

You need heat and tension for a smooth blowdry.

Read my post on Blowdryers for some more good ones.

3. Brush; mine is an Aveda ceramic brush. I like ceramic brushes because they heat up and that helps smooth the hair

4. Something to clip up sections of the hair.

I section my hair into 2 sections front and back and I work from bottom to top. If you do it this way, you don't have to clip up what you've already done.

The finer the hair the thicker the sections can be. If you have really coarse hair you're going to want to take pretty thin sections so you can get all they way to the root.

I do the front first because it's most important (also, if you get tired on the back it's doesn't matter as much).

If you want more volume at the top then have the hair cool

down around rollers.

I love velcro rollers (avaliable at target or any beauty supply) because you don't need clips to hold them in and they don't leave marks in the hair.

There you go a quick smooth blowdry.

Home Haircolor

I've been asked the question about home haircolor, so here is my answer. Don't do it! I don't say this because I'm afraid I will be out of job; that will never happen because someone will always botch up a home haircolor job and I will be there to fix it. I do make a lot of money off home haircolor corrections so maybe I should say do it so I can charge you lots of money to fix it! I kid, I kid. My reasons for not liking box color are many. First and foremost, the stuff they put in there is junk. For example, metallic salts: they work by coating the outer surface and take away the shine from the hair. Many companies get around this by adding other chemicals with light reflective properties. If you decided to go to a professional for say, highlights, some of chemicals in the box colors can react badly with the professional colors (i.e. hair falling off) so buyer beware there. Next, you get what you get color wise with a box color. There is no custom formulation like you get in a salon. Rarely do I ever put just one color on someones head. I usually mix 2 to 3 colors to get my custom color. Finally, the developer is usually only 10 or 20 volume which might be OK for going really close the natural color but not if you are hoping to go a couple of shades lighter. It will usually come out very warm or even orange. If you must do some sort of touch up in between I'm cool with the root touch up kits like this one from Nice & Easy

Just touch up the front of hair and your part. You should be able to get a couple more weeks out of your color job.

try a glaze like this from Frederic Fekkai (sephora or macy's carry it)

or a hair powder spray like this one from Bumble & Bumble (bumbleandbumble.com)

If you have dark brown or black hair you can always use mascara to cover up those greys in between color it's another form of temporary haircolor.

More on wedding hair

I've talked about bad wedding hair and I got a request to talk about some good ones. When you start looking around at hairstyles for your wedding think red carpet hair. Most of the styles that celebrities rock on the red carpet would be great to wear for your wedding day. The goal is to still look like yourself just fancier. Here are some of my faves

Daily Washing

So many clients ask "how often should I be washing my hair?" My answer is a couple of times a week at most. I know, I know your hair gets greasy right? Well have you ever considered that you might be over washing it and therefore robbing it of the natural oils? Yes, that's right people over washing can actually make your hair even greasier in the long run. What happens is you strip off the oil and your sebaceous glands say "no oil must make more must make more." Then you say "oh my hair is greasy so I need to wash it." Then the sebaceous glands say...
Ok so you get the idea. So how does one go from washing everyday to just a couple of times per week. Well first, start off by going every other day and on the day you don't wash you can try using a dry shampoo like this Rene Furterer one
or if you're real cheap you can try baby powder, but use sparingly so you don't get white roots. Try it for 2 weeks if things don't improve after 2 weeks then you might be in the minority of people who really do have oily hair. If things get better after 2 weeks then try going longer. I know how you feel. I was a daily washer until I went to beauty school. Now I wash when I can't remember the last time I washed my hair was. Good luck!

Curling with a Flat Iron

You need a smaller flat iron with rounded edges on the plates. I don't usually curl hair with mine because I just use a curling iron. But if all you have is your flat iron you can still curl your hair. I snagged this from youtube because it's a really good demo on how to do it.

The 5 min Updo

I got a request for rolled out bed hair that looks great. This is as close as I could get. I guess you could sleep on it and wear it again the next day.

The how to
You will need a hair tie
about 5 or 6 bobby pins
A little hair spray. I used Kevin Murphy Session Spray

This is what my hair looked like after wearing it wavy the day before and sleeping with it in a braid.

put it in a ponytail but don't pull the ends through on the last wrap of the hair tie

You should have a loop type bun thing

take the bun smash and twist it clockwise

bobby pin random parts around the bun

insert the bobby pin and then twist,twist, push in and down

The goal is messy imperfection so don't go crazy with the pinning

If you want a more polished look in the front then start off with the grown up ponytail