Spin Pins

I heard about these new hair pins by Goody called spin pins. They claim to replace using 20 bobbypins in your hair for upstyles. I found them at my local Target and have tried them a couple of times. Overall they are pretty cool, but for someone who has medium to fine hair like me, although a ton of it I had to do a little back combing to thicken up my hair so the pins ends wouldn't show. I wish they made them in different lengths. They also claim you don't need a ponytail holder first, but I found you do otherwise some of those side hairs fall out when the style loosens a bit.

Head dressings

How cute are these little numbers from Forever 21? I bought this teal one along with a purple one and for $2.50 why not. I don't think I could make one myself for that price! I'm really loving them to spice up a ponytail or messy updo.



The zipper story is big this fall so if can update my look for $5.80 I'm a happy girl. Going to be on the hunt for this one!

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!

Foundations of Updos

With wedding season in full swing I felt it would be a good time to talk about the foundations of updos. Updos fall into 3 categories: ponytail, French twist and free form.

Here are some examples of the ponytail base

All of these styles were created by first pulling the hair into a ponytaill. The updo was then created off of that ponytail base.

Here are some examples of a French Twist base:

All of these styles began with a simple French twist in the back. The rest of the style was built off of that French twist base.

Here are two examples of free form hairstyles:
Free from is where the style was not started with either a pony tail or a french twist

Sew it UP

I did this beauty shoot for my portfolio a couple of weeks ago. I sewed the models hair into an updo rather than using a million pins. After I sewed it up (using a blunt plastic needle and extension thread) I did use a few pins (like 4 or 5) to make it the shape I wanted. Added the cute headband from Urban Outfitters and BAM-super easy updo!

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

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