How to Cut Your Own Bangs - Like I Did

ATTN: What you are about to read is the result of hair that is growing longer and longer, and the owner of said hair not knowing what to do with it. Also, it is the result of pie bangs coming back with a rage, and said hair owner not being able to resist. You may do this at home, but only if you are within 5 miles of a hair dresser you trust. You must be OK with pixie bangs, if you cut too much and must only have pixie bangs left.

First of all, decide what kind of bang you want. Personally, I love the heavy bang, commonly referred to in the 5th grade as the pie shaped bang. Usually when I try this, I get a wispy Helen Hunt bang, or at best, a bad feathery Claudia Schiffer bang. However, bangs I covet most are Melissahead Yabberings, Heidi Klum bangs at times, and for a minute Zooey Deschanel's bangs in 500 Days of Summer. Oops, if you look at those, 2 out of 3 have dark brown hair, which may help the bang look more solid instead of whispy.

Here is how to cut your bangs at home:
1. Wet your bangs. It's best done right out of the shower.

2. Use sharp, pointy scissors. I was in an emergency, and used scissors from Sephora that are curved at the top. This is not recommended, but will suffice in an emergency.

3. If you have long bangs (aka, no bangs), comb down the amount of bangs you want. If you want the pie shaped bang as mentioned above, you literally should pull down your bang in the shape of a triangle, with a point of center up at the top. Don't make the bang all straight accross at the root. Make it in a triangle shape.

4. This is the fun and scary part. You need to cut off several inches. Hold your wet hair straightly between your fingers, and start cutting accross (the result of this is shown in the picture above. You can cut straight accross, or at a sharp diagonal. I did a sharp diagonal just for fun, leaving one side almost long enough to go behind my ear. Leave room for error, so cut it slightly longer than you actually want them.

5. Now trim the line you just cut. Hold your scissors at a vertical angle, and cut up into the bang. Don't cut horizontally anymore. Cut up. This will give some dimension to your bang, and help it not look like such a jagged edge.

6. To style, put a bit of mouse, or my favorite, the mens Texture Creme from Crew. Love that stuff. That will add some body and lift your bang.

Things to think about in the morning:
1. If you are a two-day hair kind of girl, note that your new bangs may very well stick straight up in the morning. They will probably calm down, but won't have that 'just stepped out from under the blow dryer' effect.

2. You may want to make them shorter, because they will suddenly be in your eyes. Pause before doing this because you are about to really mess them up, and then trim. When you trim, continue with the vertical angle on the scissor. This will take a longer time to actually trim your new bangs, but is less room for glaring error. You'll still have error because you did it yourself, but it won't be so, so bad.

Hair in "Normal" Times of Styling

Hair in "Normal" Times of Styling, originally uploaded by KT Flicker.

Who knew a ponytail gone wild could have launched a motherly protest in Facebook. There were honest to goodness revolts going on. Mom threatened to pull out of her highly anticipated trip to NYC, and dad declared that he could finally be like Harrison Ford and wear and earring...to keep up with my "punk" look.

So for you doubters, who actually thought that I colored one side of my hair brown, and the other side blond, here you have the evidence of the "normal" style of it, all nice and neat with the help of Aveda Smoothing Fluid and an old fashioned blow dryer and round brush (I've fired my flat iron...it's frying my fresh ends). It's actually the other way around: blond on top, brown underneath. A hybrid.

Look at the Two Tone

Look at the Two Tone, originally uploaded by KT Flicker.

Last weekend David was nice enough to drive us up to New Haven so that I could get my haircut with my favorite colorist at Laurell Oullette Salon. This isn't a styled version of my hair, it's the version that just spun out of a tight bun, but you get the idea of the color. Fun.

Fresh Hair Color

Fresh Hair Color, originally uploaded by KT Flicker.

As you know, I've been submerged in launching our new company, the new home for women entrepreneurs, Collective-E. And if you don't know about launching a website, they can take longer than expected. Especially when you are launching 3 other websites for clients at the
same time.

So, as if personal reputation wasn't enough, I declared that I would not cut or color my hair until the website launched. And let me tell you, that is hard. Every time I PMS, I crave getting my haircut. And I get strange urgings to jog, but I jog anyway, but these cravings are like, in the evening, I can't do anything else but run and feel my heart pounding.

Back to haircuts. So we've been on the verge of launching Collective-E for several weeks now, furiously emailing directions to each other while driving to respective holiday destinations. So come Xmas, I was in Columbus, OH, home of my husbands family, and destination of my Ohio hair cuttery, WTS, a salon run by two rock star men. My man, Glen, is also a bouncer, and an amazing hair stylist. So I couldn't resist sneaking away to him during one of four family Christmases.

Result? Blond on top, and Mocha #5 mixed with a little of #6 I think on the bottom. Doesn't it look like animal fur? He straight ironed it, and I haven't been able to get it quite that straight since.

But I share this with you now, because since I cheated, and cut and colored before the launch, I couldn't share it with you until the site launched...So...it has launched!!! Ans here is my refreshed haircut! Go visit www.collective-e.com and tell me if you think that it was
worth the wait...

How to Curl Your Hair with a Flat Iron - Yes, Curl

It's the Chi Curl, and I've been mastering it before blogging about it. Couldn't give you a recommended how-to post without being able to curl my own hair with my flat iron, and with a Chi flat iron nonetheless. So here it is. How to curl your hair with your flat iron. After mastering this, you can throw that bulky round brush away!

To show you the curl, half of my hair in this picture just got curled with the flat iron in about 7 minutes. The other half remains straight so that you can see the difference. There are two big tricks to curling your hair with a flat iron: timing and your wrist. Depending on your flat iron, it may take a bit to master this combination. It did me, that's for sure. I thought my Chi was broken and tried to return it, but didn't want to bother. Then one morning, the curls sprang to life.

The curl is in the wrist: Glen is the rock-in-roll hair dresser for WTS Hair in Columbus OH who taught me this technique. He is pulling the hair from top to bottom through the flat iron. But do you see how his wrist is turned? He is turning the flat iron to have the curls go underneath. I have since gotten more layers, and want the layers to curl away from the face, so I have been grabbing my hair so that instead of pointing to the floor, as shown, it points to the ceiling.

Slow that curl: You must pull the flat iron slowly down the small section of hair you have. And by small, I mean small and thin so that the flat iron can cook it properly. Resist pulling the flat iron quickly through your hair, as if your hair is a ribbon that you are curling with the edge of scissors. Pull the flat iron slowly down the length of hair, keeping your wrist turned each time.

Little Tips: Here is what I've realized after curling my hair with the flat iron many times (and if you have your own findings, please tell us in the Comments below!)

• You could start with your wrist turned, grab the hair, then flip your wrist back to a normal position, and it may be easier to run the flat iron through.
• In the flat iron, your hair might slide and slip out the end of the flat iron. My flat iron , ever so slightly, does not close evenly, and although I thought this was a defect in my flat iron, I've since seen it with other brands. So. As you are pulling the flat iron down your hair, try guiding the tip of your flat iron with your other hand. Don't get burned, though! This is just an ever so slight guidance.
• I don't use product on my hair before I flat iron. I did once, and the smoke it produced scared me too much. I do spread some Aveda Smoothing Fluid on it when wet, and then apply the smoothing fluid again when dry.
  

If you need a flat iron, I got mine at Ricky's, but you can get one from Amazon.

Good luck! If you have pictures, add them to the FashionMista Page at Facebook!

New Harido :: Brown Coloring Won

The poll on my hair color was very interesting. There was almost a tie for black highlights or brown coloring with blond highlights, and slightly less than a third voted for no change at all. Well, that wasn't really an option. I just put it there, because when a girl wants to bring some drama to her hair, she wants to bring drama to her hair. I couldn't go too crazy, though, because I remembered that I was having a wedding in a year...and dark hair is damaging to bleach up.

So, David, the new fiance (ee!) is filling his roll quite nicely as Accommodating Fiance and agreed to drive me all the way to New Haven to get my hair cut at my new favorite, Laura Ouellette Salon on State Street (CitySearch backs me up on this). They have the funnest coloring system, not to mention the decorating is in mainly antiques. But they also have Gina, the expert and very creative colorist who just won 3rd in a national competition, actually. We talked, and agreed on a brown hair swatch #6 nuetral with a little #6 gold mixed in. And, voila!



Which turned into this (note my bling: that's my placeholder ring of aquamarine from etsy.com!):



Which looks like this from the back (my only instructions are: leave no hair the same length. when I say layer, the whole thing is a layer)



We basically colored 40% of my hair brown, which consisted of the back of my hair, and in the front, we put strips of brown in between the blond highlights (that was all the foil) to create some sweet looking brown streaks. To show this all off, I finally got a flat iron. No more curls and messy layers with summer ending. Even though it was 80 degrees today, fall is coming and that means that hair can take some straightening without getting too frizzy. So I bypassed Duanne Read and went to Ricky's and got a medium priced BaBliss Pro flat iron, with the help of a very helpful girl who had used them. Check out the wall of flat and curling irons at Ricky's:



I did no homework on this brand, so I will be blogging on how good or how bad it is in weeks or months to come...

Poll: Should I get black highlights?

I want "haute hair!". On the Paris trip, one goal is to get a dramatic hair color. Here's what I look like now - blond highlights on a brownish/reddish base that is my own:

I was going for the Daphne Guinness look, but am not getting encouragement on it! Rick, my literal rock star hair stylist in Columbus advised me to go with Mocha #5 all over, and I'd like thick, like a 2" blond highlights. But the black could be cool and dramatic...

With black highlights, I would look like this (if I curled my hair)

Inspiration for New Hair Color! Daphne Guinness

I got a great layered hair cut while in Columbus 3 weeks ago, that I really need to blog about because an actual rock star man cut my hair, and now it needs a good color. I've looked and looked through magazines, and nothing is inspiring. Until now, when I was watching a haute couture documentary on WLWI21, and Daphne Guinness was one of the haute club members who talked to the filmmaker about what makes the clothes works of art. Here's a bit more info about Daphne.

I've never heard of Daphne Guinness before, but I liked her. I know it's bad to confess that on a blog called FashionMista, but truth be told, there is lots I don't know about fashion. There. I said it. Daphne loved her haute collection. She knew her clothing, concentrating on the difference in shoulder seams in two pieces in her collection for one segment, for example. Here's what she says about dressing well, for women.timesonline.co.uk: "I think you do have a more fun life if you wear beautiful clothes. There is a certain joy in it; dressing well is an art and it shows respect to be neatly turned out."

I know this is a ghetto way of posting a photo, and it's not her best shot, but I needed to capture her hair exactly as it was for this film - so the picture is of her on my TV. Blond with streaks of black? Or very dark brown? And she tightly curled it put it in a loose side swoop. Love it.

How to Get Nice Wavy Curly Hair with a Curling Iron

In a pinch, with minimal hair product, I created Goldie Locks curls for my friend's outdoor wedding with a drugstore curling iron. I have since replaced it with a ceramic Hot Tools curling iron which I love.

My stylist at the Laura Ouellette Salon in New Haven, CT gave basic instructions on how to get Kate Hudson wavy hair. She suggested a few main tricks about how to get long, wavy hair:

• use a fat curling iron, maybe a silver dollar in size
• use a ceramic based curling iron
• curl vertically, as shown in this picture
  
• curl the waves in alternating directions, so that when they get blended, or if you run your fingers through them, they will not all wave into each other.
  

Everything You Need for Creating Curly, Wavy Hair with a Curling Iron:
Hot Tools Curling Iron: Terrific curling iron.

Buy at Amazon >


Crew Texture Cream for Control and Shine: It's a man's product, but if you have bangs, this will hold and lift them. It will also hold your curl, and give your hair a better chance for good second, and even third day hair.

Buy at Amazon >

Aveda's Air Control Hairspray: A very light, aerosol hairspray.

Buy at Amazon >



Aveda Smoothing Fluid: A smooth fluid that is applied to the ends of your hair, to give a little extra shine and shape.

Buy at Amazon >

Directions for Curling Your Hair

• Long layered hair is great for curls.
  
• Plug in the curling iron before you wash hair to get it nice and hot.
  
• Apply Aveda Smoothing Fluid to wet hair with quick finger strokes. I use about 5 squirts. With the same quick strokes, apply a dab of Crew Texture Cream to end of hair, and to bangs if you have them.
• Blow dry your hair. If you have frizzy, wavy hair, don't worry about officially straightening it. In fact, leave the round brush at home! Your natural curl will add to the body. Try blow drying it by holding half of my your hair in a loose side-ponytail. Try to dry hair in the same direction.
• Take about 1/2" of dry hair and pinch it in the top end of the curling iron. I avoided pinching the very tip of my hair, which lets it be straight and funky at the bottom, and less cocker-spanielish.
• Curl hair half way up, so that it is straight at the top. That will give the illusion of longer waves. With the curling iron, make it a tight curl at first, then open the curling iron a bit to loosen your hair from around the hot iron.
  
• When done, quickly and gently apply about 3 squirts of Aveda Smoothing Fluid again.

Voila! Curling your hair with a curling iron makes for some great 2nd day hair.

NOTE: There is a difference between a nice curling iron and a cheap one. Here is the difference between the Conair iron vs Hot Curl iron. Notice the tightness and perfection of the curls. Now, it helps to curl a small amount of hair to get a perfect spiral.

Hot Tools
Look at that perfect spiral. And the grip of the curling iron is so nice.

Get a Hot Tools Curling Iron from Amazon >

Conair
Good curl, but too soft and round.


If you want to curl your hair with a flat iron, here's how!

My New Curly Hair Product Invention!

I've tried a new concoction of products in my bathroom to get curly hair for the summer, and I'm so excited that it's working!

True ocean water has been the best "product" to give me natural waves. Ocean water brightens hair in the sun, and it coats it with salt to keep your hair in position. Not the John Frieda Ocean Water product, because that was a big disappointment. Not only did it not coat my hair in salt, but it smelled like coconut sunscreen, which is not how the ocean smells. In fact, it was sticky, and didn't even taste like salt. It curled my hair, but not in the true ocean water kind of way that leaves your locks thick, stiff and soft.

So, in my thoughts yesterday, I considered dissolving some sea salt from the kitchen in hot water, and sprinkling it on my hair. Then I considered using my Ameripure Crystal exfoliator because it does taste like salt, and it's basically salt and some kind of baking soda or something. Plus, one day when I was exfoliating my face, I got some of the product on my bangs, and it actually made them stiff yet soft, and they stayed right where I wanted them!

So this morning, I took a tiny dip of the AmeriPure exfoliator, mixed it with water, and scrunched my hair, which does have some natural wave to it, but it's all about capturing that wave. I did scrunch and blow dry, which maybe I should not have done, because my top pieces did get blown frizzy and straight. Otherwise, though, I am having curly hair!

Proof of Curly Hair From My Product Invention

One curly lock!

Natural curly waves!

FashionMista's Recipe for Curly Hair Product Combos

Products:
2 tiny dips of Ameripure Crystal Exfoliator
Splashes of water
Aveda's Smoothing Fluid
Redkin #2 Water Wax

Procedure: how to get curly hair from these products
Start with wet hair. Dip your finger into the Ameripure Crystol Exfoliator and mix it with some water from the faucet. Rub it on your hands and scrunch into your hair. Blow dry with scrunches if you wish, and if you have a round diffuser, that would be best. Otherwise, blow dry and scrunch lightly, then let the rest air dry. More curls will come. If you can get into the sun while the hair is still wet that would be fantastic.

Once suitably dry (maybe just the underneath is wet), squirt about 3-5 squirts of Aveda Smoothing Fluid onto your hands and lightly scrunch while smoothing over the top frizzy parts. To finish the curly ends, take a small dip of the Redkin #2 Water Wax and quickly pull at the ends of your hair. For extra hold, rub in some more Ameripure Crystol Exfoliator.

Comment below if you try it!

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Celebrity Bang Me

I'm dropping out of the Split Ends Club and dropping into an 8:15pm hair appointment tonight at the Scott J Aveda Salon Spa (their name rings through my head b/c I used to call so much for bikini waxing appointments...no longer!). Ever since Anne Hathaway's bang in The Devil Wears Prada, I want my bangs back. I'm over my swoop, no-bang look, so am looking for a new bang to hopefully give a little life to my just-got-out-of-bed-and-didn't-brush-my-hair look. Also, because of my roots, the new, undied pieces of my hair are healthy and limp. I need me some color damage to bring this droopy look some volume!

Here's what bangs I'm going for:
Ashlee


NOT this person (oh wait, I think that's a 1998 Jessica!)



If only I had curly hair! (Ruth!!)


I could take a little of this bang - a whispish swoop:


Most of these pictures have brown hair...maybe I should get that too...??

This sent from MistaVille:
Hillary


An iVillage article on bangs (check out the before and after picture...it's amazing what a little makeup and an expert blow-dry and style can do)

My Bang:


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Frizzy? Aveda's Smoothing Fluid is Your New Best Friend

I just got a nice layered hair cut and highlights from Scott J, an Aveda Salon Spa (who offers affordable prices for New York) and came home with the best blow out I'd ever had. I have straight hair, but this was really straight...professionally straight. How did it get so straight? Aveda's Smoothing Fluid. My stylist applied it to my hair when wet, then dried my hair, then applied again. Not only was it straighter, but it was thinner.

I've used other smoothing balms, particularly Mop's Glisten. And I tried to not buy Aveda's Smoothing Fluid. But when I tried my stylists technique using Glisten, the same effect did not happen. More like weighted-down-hair-waiting-for-something to-happen. You can buy Aveda's Smoothing Fluid online at Amazon.

Even when it's raining and painfully humid in the apartment, if I use the smoothing fluid, stand outside of the bathroom (where it's cooler) I can have straight hair. I would say that everyone should apply this Aveda product to their hair when wet, even if you're not going to blow dry. I do.

Buy the Aveda Smoothing Fluid from Amazon

Use Aveda Smoothing Fluid to make smooth, wavy curls.




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