Smoke and Mirrors

Have you ever seen a celebrity updo and thought to yourself -WOW I didn't think she had that much hair. Well you are probably right, she doesn't. Hairstylist have many tricks up their sleeves to make an updo look, which sometimes requires some smoke and mirrors! Here is a chignon I did on myself using hair extensions aka fake hair. I know the color is a little off, but I did that so you can see where the fake hair is. Of course if you do it you want hair the same color as yours.

Back view of finished Chignon

Side view

I started with curled hair. Nothing fancy just quickly done in large sections

It's then pulled back into a ponytail

Take a weft of fake hair and fold the ends to meet each other
This hair isn't anything fancy just some from Sally's Beauty Supply

Wrap the weft around your ponytail and secure the end with a few bobby pins

Make a "bungee" cord with a rubber band and 2 bobby pins

Fold the ponytail up and use your bungee cord to secure it. Push the pin on one side. Then, holding the other pin, pull the rubber band across the underside of the ponytail and secure the pin on the other side

Now your ponytail should look like this

Take another weft and create a hair pad with it-this will give the the chignon a really full look You can also use a hair rat (awful name I know) close to your hair color to get the same effect

Roll up the weft to make the hair pad

Pin the hair pad to the underside of the ponytail

Use several pins to secure the hair pad into place

Fold the ponytail back over the hair pad and fan out to cover it

Pin around the chignon to hold its shape

Here are a few different celebrity versions

Taylor Swift with a soft side part version

Anne Hathaway with a tight side part version

Reese Witherspoon with a loose deconstructed version

Now go give it a whirl and let me know how it turns out!

The Red, The White & The Blue

Here are some shots from my first solo photo shoot. I came up with the concept, cast the models and photographer. I also did all the hair (including color) and make up. I will never do both hair and make up on a photo shoot again, unless it's just one model. It was way too much work for just one person! I spent 6 hours coloring the blonde and black haired models the day before, then over 2 hours creating the red wig. The day of the shoot I spent hours just doing the hair and make up and then we still had to shoot it-I lost my voice from all the stress! Lesson learned: For a shoot with more than one model do the hair OR the make up. It was a very good learning experience to say the least. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. Would I change a few things? Absolutely, but overall I'm happy with it. And now for the pictures:




The concept behind this was a hair-centered shoot with a twist on red, white and blue by doing red hair, blonde hair and blue black hair (black haired model does have blue streaks in the sides it's just not visible in all the pictures). It is all about the color and texture of the hair. Still trying to decide if I should enter into NAHA for 2010. What do you think?