Friday, February 5, 2010

10 Secrets to Styling Hair

10. zero drama—Never ever do anything to your hair in the middle of an emotional crisis, on a whim, on a dare, or on a whim. You feel like you want to do it, because you know what a big change a major alteration of your hair will make; but that big difference is exactly what should inspire you to wait.

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The drama will pass in a day or two, but the haircut or change of style will last for a long time.Think especially long and hard before cutting your hair, because it grows only an inch a month—that’s a lot of time for a lot of haircut remorse if you wake-up on the cold morning after and realize you have made a terrible, horrible, and perfectly heinous mistake.

When you do consciously, rationally, reasonably decide you are emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually ready for a change, collect pictures of what you want. Make sure it fits you – your personality, of course, but also the shape of your face, the tone of your skin, and the health and texture of your hair…

9. Caution: chemicals—More than ever, you should try to avoid hair treatments that involve harsh chemicals. Bleach. Ammonia, wax, silicone, and alcohol, the most common volatile compounds in hair products, ravage your hair, destroy your scalp, and take a toll on the environment.Think of the baby ducks and little minnows downstream from the hair salon: they will hate you if you contaminate their water with all that nasty, gnarly stuff after you rinse it out of your hair.

Makers of upscale products wisely, strategically have gone green. Show your appreciation by paying the few extra dollars or Euros for the stuff that saves your health and the planet.

8. Heat kills—Whose great idea was it that crimping looks cute and cool? What made anyone think that making hair look like spaghetti was a good idea; what suggested that bargain basement curls could substitute for the real deal? The crimping iron has gotta go—not simply because it delivers a shabby, low-rent look, but also because it fries your hair and sucks-up fossil fuels way out of proportion to its size.

Those same fundamental principles apply to all your hair appliances: First, they destroy your hair. Second, they destroy the planet. If we all decided to give-up our blow dryers for a day, we would save enough fossil to power over 100,000 cars for a workweek. Instead of a blow dryer, use a towel. Instead of a curling iron, braid your hair.

 aImage by Hairstyles

7. Go natural—with your products, with your look, with everything six or fewer degrees from your hair. The cheap but popular hair products contain the same volatile organic compounds that gave your car “that new car smell.” They create the illusion of healthy, radiant hair at the expense of your tresses’ real needs.Would you consciously put car wax on your hair? When you buy one of the most popular conditioners, mousses, or gels, you do exactly that. Say it all together, please—“eeeew!”

6. Know your color palette—When you change your hair color, change it to a tint or hue consistent with your skin tone.The upscale retail stores have colorists in their cosmetics departments; ask one of them to help you put together your color palette for all your beauty products, clothing, and hair color. The right hair color requires a little calculus, because it comes from a function of skin tone, eye color, and personality. For example, yes, every girl may get red hair, but very very few girls actually can and should do the red hair thing, because it requires a rare combination of skin, eyes, and temperament.

5. Know the shape of your face—Before you decide on a cut and style, you absolutely, positively, beyond even the faintest hint of any doubt must know the shape of your face.Faces come in at least seven major varieties, mixed, of course, with infinite variations.jee

Your friends, family, and stylist happily will help you calculate your dimensions, so that you can discern whether you are rectangular, diamond, or square, unless you are oval, pear, heart, or just plain “long.” Once you have mastered your facial shape, you can begin choosing among the hair styles that work best to accentuate your best features and hide the ones that are not quite so spectacular

4. Seek professional help—Seriously, can’t you and your friends spot a home haircut from at least 500 yards…in a hurricane. Can’t you spot a home dye job, or worse, home highlights just as easily? In fourth grade, every girl on the planet tried to cut her own bangs to look just like whoever was the starlet du jour. Surely, you learned your lesson.

3. Bob! When in doubt, bob your hair. No matter what facial shape, hair texture and condition, or cultural distinction makes your tresses unique, a bobbed look will work for you. In addition to looking tres chic and absolutely de hoy, bobs require practically zero maintenance, certainly no extra styling each morning. Bobs come in short, medium, and long, so that you need not imagine yourself with the classic preppy shoulder-length cut…unless that’s your look. Because of their popularity, bobbed hairstyles rule the internet and fashion magazines right now. Type “bob hair style,” and watch about thirty-two gazillion possibilities appear.

 aImage by stefie_jones

2. Angle. Consult Paris Hilton and Victoria Beckham for details and suggestions. Angled haircuts typically send strong messages about your maturity, sophistication, self-confidence, and fashion savoir-faire. Angles often work in relation to jaw lines, accenting particularly strong, classic chins or adding strength and definition to slightly less-than-powerful chins.

1. Layer. Back in the day, layers meant more everyday mirror-time. Haircutting techniques have evolved, so that even “Charlie’s Angels” hair from the 1970s version becomes almost effortless. Layers especially match your haircut to your facial shape, taking the corners away from square and rectangular faces, adding proportion to long faces, and softening the points on oval and heart-shaped countenances. Layers typically add romance and allure to your hair, and they definitely make your cut more decisively feminine. Ironically, although you would imagine layers would lock you into just one look, they usually give you more versatility. Ask your stylist either to work-out the geometry of it or just show you the possibilities.

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