Entries tagged as ‘hair’
V Magazine Issue 64 is bringing us many good things — Mario Testino, Daria Werbowy — but none that I am quite as excited for as the magical pairing of Kirsten Dunst and Kristen Wiig. Kirsten can do no wrong in my eyes (even as an anime babe I adore her) and I am happy to see her looking more like her glamorous self. Mario Testino does a diva good. To see vintage Kirsten in action check out this video, The Making of Marie Antoinette, although it should realistically be called the Making of Kirsten Dunst’s Hair. Amazing pouf action going down — I need that hairspray for my French courtsean costume.
Meanwhile, who knew Kristen Wiig was such a hottie? Her SNL characters never fail to send me into convulsions of laughter, no matter how insipid some of the surrounding actors/skits can be (MacGruber? Was funny the first time. Not the subsequent thirty.. ugh, can’t believe they managed to make a feature-length film out of this mess.) V dressed her as iconic women displaced in bizarre scenarios — Carmen Miranda does Vegas, Brigitte Bardot goes Geisha, and Bollywood Frida Kahlo. As much as I love her on SNL, she needs her own bizarre scenario; someone get this woman a show, please! Click on the Wiig pictures up close and check out her fierce nail art.
Categories: 1
Tagged: hair, mario testino, v magazine, nail art, marie antoinette, kirsten dunst, film, takashi murakami, anime, kristen wiig, SNL, tom allen, sally lyndley, nicola formichietti
Last week I wore my hair up in what I thought was a cute and subdued (and yes, poufy) manner. Forty-five minutes into dinner, my former boss’ 15-year-old daughter asked me whether I watched Jersey Shore, then coyly informed me that my hair looked just like a certain greasy Oompa Loompa’s. This is the second time in as many weeks that I have had to deal with otherwise literate and well-adjusted teenagers who seem to be getting their only fashion cues from MTV. I may not be able to convince Brother the Younger to wear straight-leg jeans (yet) but I am not giving up the pouf to the guidettes of the world.
Once upon a time, when a woman’s hair was known as her “crowning glory,” Charles Dana Gibson sketched what would ultimately be the first pin-up: the Gibson Girl. Fresh on the heels of Parisian hairdresser M. Marcel Grateau, whose heated wave iron would change women’s hair forever, Gibson sketched his feminine ideal with a tiny waist contrasted with upswept curled hair piled high. Besides being beautiful, the Gibson girl was at ease, fashionable, and an equal to man.
Ladies, this is how it’s done:
Clockwise from top left: Chanel-approved extensions and pouf; Miu Miu girls sporting half-up and braided pompadours; models at Elie Saab with Gibson Girl hair; fluffy and refined at Louis Vuitton; more Victorian throwback hair (and couture) at Christian Dior; Eva Mendes; poufs and tortoiseshell glasses at Michael Kors; candyfloss hair at Roberto Cavalli; love the hair, love the lips, love Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette; structured updos at YSL.
Categories: hair
Tagged: chanel, charles dana gibson, dior, elie saab, eva mendes, gibson girls, hair, jersey shore, kirsten dunst, louis vuitton, marie antoinette, michael kors, miu miu, mtv, pinups, pouf, roberto cavalli, snooki, victorian era, YSL
With Paris fashion week quickly approaching, I’d like to share some more info for my fashion-minded friends visiting the city. I already blah blah blogged about Merci, but those of you craving a hair + nail fix should head over to Passage de l’Industrie in the tenth, just off of Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin. My friend and hairdresser Chris has been telling me to pass by because I always short-circuit my blowdryers on the wimpy euro plugs, so earlier this month I finally did. It was not at all what I expected. Upon parking our Vespa in the semi-seedy neighborhood and turning onto the Passage, we discovered the charred remains of the Comfort Hotel St-Martin, lending the claustrophobic alley a charmingly authentic war zone quality. Wig stores line the first block — Postiches, Max’s Perruques, Schana’s — with utterly bizarre window displays that we couldn’t resist photographing. Amazingly, almost all of the wigs are shown with sunglasses, as if to say: you, too, can be a master of disguise!! I wasn’t sure whether to cry, laugh, or run, but by the time we reached Delorme none of those other stores really mattered. European pharmacies are pretty much my favorite thing ever but Delorme is coming in an extremely close second.
Delorme is the epicenter of the Passage de l’Industrie. The beauty supply store has everything a beauty professional (or wannabe) could wish for — hairbrushes, hair accessories, enough pins and clips to fill a hair tool belt (Chris has one of those… it’s awesome),styling products and tools, nail polish, and things you don’t even know existed. Browse a giant catalog of the aforementioned goodies (with pictures you can point to if you don’t speak French), pick out what you want, and the helpful staff will get it for you. After much deliberation, I ended up with 300 bobby pins and 300 French hairpins for 3€ each (although I expected nothing less, they have turned out to be excellent quality) and a Mason Pearson brush I have been coveting for 30% less than the US retail. There is so much variety that the store can be a little overwhelming, but it’s the best place to get a great deal on a few choice pieces. Be prepared with a few things you are interested in buying and stick to those; otherwise you could end up in a pickle (yes, I said it) at customs when airport security finds your bag full of sharp pointy objects and in flagrant violation of the liquids policy.
Delorme, 17 Passage de l’Industrie, 75010 Paris, France – +33 01 44 83 65 00
Categories: beauty · hair · nails · paris
Tagged: beauty, delorme, hair, mason-pearson, nails, paris, passage de l'industrie, supply, wigs
Q: How do I get my hair to look like this? – S.K., NY
A: This is a great easy look for someone with shorter hair. Wash your hair and spray it throughout with a volumizer like T3’s Plump or Kiehl’s Super Thick Volumizer. Then turn upside down and blow dry, using your fingers to smooth the hair but not completely straighten it. Leaving the two side pieces free, loosely pin the hair back; you can put it into a neater ponytail later, the idea now is just to smooth it.
To get Ms. Chung’s curly front pieces, use a curling iron. Curl, pin, and spray with hairspray, while maintaining the center part. While your curls are pinned, brush the rest of your hair upwards and backwards into a loose ponytail, brushing back towards the base of your head with a bristly brush or your fingers. You can also use your fingers to gently pull hair up from the roots for a bedhead look. Pull the ponytail into a loose loop/bun and secure at the nape with an elastic.
Revisit your front curls. Unpin them, then brush them out gently. Brushing will remove most of the spray to leave your hair looking soft and tousled like in the picture. You can use a ribbon or other hair decoration of your choice to add the finishing touch. I really like the ombre effect on the ends of her hair, but for that you will need a little more help than I can provide. Enjoy!
Categories: Q&A · hair
Tagged: alexa chung, hair, kiehl's, ponytails, Q&A, T3
This morning I straightened my hair and now I just want it to look like this:
Hairdresser Chris notes: My guess is a 1-inch barrel iron. Looks like Luigi’s hair (ed’s note: Murenu. Could be, or, could be Guido’s. Have not been able to find a definite answer… need a 2009 Le Book!). The way to get a spiral like that is not to wrap with tongs closed, but to wrap with tongs open, winding in a spiral all the way down the cylinder. Those spirals should fall and not be pinned up. Instead of brushing them out like the polished waves, tease them instead. The crown of the head does not have the spiral all the way to the scalp, it drops flat around to near the temple; that’s where you would start the curl, or maybe a little above that. But to me… there’s a yeti’s back of hair added on to those girls’ heads. And a wind machine.
So let’s keep it all in perspective, shall we?
Categories: hair
Tagged: big hair, chloe, glam waves, hair, waves
So this one time, once upon a time, two years ago, after a really rowdy night at Cirque de Soleil (rowdy, I tell you!) with three of my favorites, things were decidedly fuzzy. We had watched some midgets bouncing on people’s heads, we had taken a water taxi across the East River, we had demolished Buck Hunter and perhaps a few six-packs of Bud Light at the Black Bear Lodge. We all finally settled back at MDD’s to continue the party. I was trying to be cool and light my cigarette over the burner on his designer oven when things got hot. Not hot in a good way; HOT HOT in the way that the tops of my eyebrows were singed into ash and suddenly I had a widow’s peak where there was none before.
I have a lot of hair and it has accidentally been set on fire three times, but never have I ever: burnt my preshesita eyebrows. The unfortunate byproduct of this incident is not whether the hair grew back — it did after a month of chola brows — it’s how it grew back. The permanent problem I now suffer is a misdirected part. The hairs at the center of my forehead (down in front!), instead of behaving, do their own thing. They’re rebels. They go against the grain. They suffered trauma and were never right again. They do an obscene number of things that are fun to describe but impossible to style. I have tried everything to get them to grow properly; I have cajoled them with hair oils, I have tugged at them, imploring them to go back to their seats. My PTSD hairs are an endless source of (mild) frustration. Chris has suggested massage at the root to try to push the follicles into the correct position. I am considering plucking them violently in the direction I want them to go and seeing how they are reincarnated. Can anyone help? Oh, woe is me with my twelve hairs out of place. The End.
Categories: eyebrows · hair · idle talk
Tagged: hair, issues
I always have love for the perfect wave and I am guessing many of you do as well. It’s a seductive, overtly feminine hairstyle I have been trying to figure out how to perfect for a while. Allure has a great video of Luigi Murenu describing the inspiration behind the hairstyle but not really explaining how to get it. I finally got Chris to show me how to do the glam waves I have been trying unsuccessfully to master on my own. This is not for the faint of heart — you will need some tools, products, muscle, and patience.
1. Wash your hair. Or not. 2. Section your hair and blow dry it straight with a round brush. As you blow dry, use a volumizer, like T3’s Plump, on each section. 3. Decide on either a center or side part and part hair accordingly. Section dry hair and start curling with an iron from the bottom up. For this stage, T3 has another awesome product created just for this purpose: Elevate. It’s a volumizing spray made specifically to work with irons (curling and flat) so the hair stays full as it heats up. It also protects the hair from the hot iron. Your hair will look scarily Medusa-like after this step but it’s supposed to look like that. 4. Brush out each section gently with a soft-bristled brush, like a Mason-Pearson. (Side note to Mason-Pearson: You need a website befitting of a brush-maker of your status.) 5. Holding each section away from your head, use the brush to tease the hair underneath. Sort of take the brush and start at the root and just move in small, gentle reverse strokes underneath each section so the hair is slightly fluffed. 6. Set with hairspray (Elnett is my favorite) and you are good to go!
clockwise from upper left: Angela Lindvall at Gucci SP9, hair by Luigui Murenu; backstage with some Elnett at Valentino FA07, hair by Orlando Pita; big and fluffy at DKNY; Kim Noorda backstage at Jean Paul Gaultier FA09, hair by Michelle Buswell; Lindsay Ellington at JPG; deep side part at JPG; Amanda Seyfried at the Oscars; red lips and a perfect wave on Daria at Valentino FA07; blond coif; expertly done waves that move + bounce @JPG.
Categories: fashion · hair
Tagged: allure, christian miller, dkny, elnett, glam waves, gucci, hair, jean paul gaultier, l'oreal, luigi murenu, mason-pearson, michelle buswell, orlando pita, T3, tommy hilfiger, waves
In an exciting twist of events, my hair got an early Christmas present last night. When I arrived home I discovered a package containing a new T3 Featherweight Dryer and a trio of T3 Anti-Gravity brushes! There is a fun back story to how these gifts from above ended up in my possession. Jen Gear, the president of Gear Communications and publicist for T3, found my article about Orlando and Chris, liked it, and decided I needed to try some of their other products. The Featherweight blow dryer already has a notch on its belt from Allure and is the recipient of a 2009 InStyle Best Beauty Buys award. Before embarking on some old-fashioned hometown Thanksgiving fun last night I put this dryer to the test.
I have been using an Elchim 2001 for the last four years and I’m obsessed with it – it’s powerful and gets the job done. But lately I have been feeling like it could set my hair on fire at any moment. My hair is really long and a combination of fine/coarse wavy/frizzy and it really needs to be worked-over to be straightened. At first, the weight of the Featherweight threw me off; I am so used to the heft of the Elchim and have always equated that with quality. So I was disappointed by the comparatively puny weight (not size, the size is about equal). The blast of air also didn’t seem as strong or as searingly hot as the Elchim’s. But as I started using it, I noticed my hair was drying rapidly and had a squeaky-clean quality and incredible shine. The dryer never got overheated and my arm didn’t feel like it was going to fall off! Overall I dried my hair and styled it completely in under 25 minutes, whereas it takes me almost 45 minutes with the Elchim. (Note: I used the T3 Large Ceramic Barrel brush, which is also what I use at home). The Featherweight also smoothed the frizz of my hair completely without even using any product. I can’t wait to continue to use it when I get back to New York. It might be time to retire the Elchim for good.
Categories: hair
Tagged: blow dryers, featherweight, hair, hair brushes, orlando pita, T3, tools
My friends know how fond I am of my hairdresser, Christian Miller. He has cut my hair (and the hair of countless girlfriends) over the last 5+ years. I always tell people about my first, propitious meeting with Chris. He was recommended to me by a classy and stylish former coworker when I first moved to the city. I will admit, my hair is pretty fab now, but before moving to NY I always seemed to manage to find some way to butcher it: hair dye incidents, blunt bangs, bad cuts, bar fires – you name it, my hair has been through it. When she recommended PANYC salon, I pounced. But I almost didn’t meet Chris. When I arrived at PANYC’s old location, it was not the retro-edgy establishment is it now. It was kind of small and grungy. Chris was running late. And he had bad hair. Hair that can only be described as peroxide-bleached Dumb + Dumber hair. With roots. So I was justifiably scared. In fact, I was seriously considering fleeing the premises and thinking up a million excuses. Luckily, I survived the first cut, Chris got a new haircut, and the rest is history.
I am not the only one who thinks Chris is the bee’s knees. He happens to be Orlando Pita’s first assistant. As in: Orlando Pita, hairdressing guru, stylist of the stars, he of the coveted $800 haircut, hair magician (real magic this time), whose runway curriculum vitae reads like the first fifty pages of Vogue: Carolina Herrera, Michael Kors, Versace, Prada, Miu Miu, Christian Dior, Valentino (he was in The Last Emperor), Gucci, Narcisco Rodriguez, Dolce & Gabbana, Proenza Schouler, Derek Lam, and John Galliano. Drool. Where was I?
Ah yes. So Chris has given me the inside scoop on Orlando’s inspired and innovative styling products: Orlando Pita Liquids for T3. My office-mates and I have long been obsessed with his dry shampoo, but to overlook the rest of the products in this range would be a mistake. And the intriguing story behind the products is exemplary of one of those ah-ha moments that creates truly meaningful products.
Orlando, whose origins are on the runway and who has been doing shows for more than 25 years, was the first to recognize the need for products that were fast, effective, and most importantly, did not damage the models’ hair. In the typically frenzied backstage environment, there is no time to properly wash and style each model’s hair; thus, their tresses are often the victim of damaging hot tools and styling products that get the job done but leave the hair in a pathetic condition. To counteract the damaging effects (putting the “care” in “hair care.” aw.), Orlando turned into an impromptu chemist/chef, wrestling with the products at hand and often mixing them (mousse + conditioner, for example) to achieve the desired results. He then took his innovation one step further and joined forces with T3 as a platform to launch his own line of products.
The products’ functionality adeptly addresses both components of styling that Orlando originally recognized as obstacles: 1. no time to wash and 2. hot hot heat + hair = :(. All products can be applied to dry hair – even dirty hair thanks to the dry shampoo – so they are super efficient; and, they work with the heat from blowdryers and irons. The heat from these tools actually enhances the conditioning elements of the products so styling is achieved without a hitch and the hair is left with luxurious, nourishing vitamins and proteins that leave it in better condition.
Chris described Orlando’s dedication to the line, which is manufactured in a factory in New Jersey, as total: he has spent countless hours with the chemists making sure each product functions to his exact specifications and even customized the signature scent of the collection. The first product from the line was Plump, a volumizer that leaves hair full and polished, and Chris told me one of his favorites to use is Elevate. I couldn’t agree more — it’s the only product I have ever used on my hair that has made it totally straight without sacrificing any volume or making it look flat.
So here we are today; regular gals like ourselves can easily access the products that make hair fabulous. He truly is a man of the people – when Chris asked him for some used bottles of products to review, he gifted me with my own shiny new set of every product from the line! YAY pour moi. So far other than using the dry shampoo I am obsessed with Boost, a lightweight cuticle smoother that goes on ends and works with your blowdryer’s heat to protect them from splitting.
One more thing. I know this sounds like a full-on advertisement for this line, but other than the goodies I have not received any form of payment. jk. I just think it’s a really good and smart story (and inspiring for the inventors out there!) and hope you guys do too. Below, some of my fave of Orlando’s creations.
Update: Everyone has been asking me why I chose that Purple mag shot of the nekkid models to headline this. It’s all about the hair! Hair and shoes make a girl happy.
Categories: hair
Tagged: christian miller, dry styling, hair, hair masters, john galliano, models, orlando pita, T3, terry richardson, valentino
