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Davines Matt Pliable Stucco for Wizards, #5
This finishing cream is great if you want to get a messy chunky look into the ends of your hair, it has a matt finish to it and is strong enough a hold to keep the ends chunked together. Great on thick course hair!!
After living in Asia for several years, one of the things I noticed was how unattractive guys with longer hair looked. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against guys with longer hair, in fact I love it normally, so why is it I found these guys to be so unappealing?
After careful studies of haircutting and techniques and style in Asia I came to a conclusion that satisfies my query.
The method to hair cutting that is predominantly used in Asia is done with a razor, as we all know the razor is a great tool to use on thick coarse hair but the problem arises when the hair is OVERly razored…. resulting in a Japanese or Canto popstar look!!!! (Canto stands for Cantonese)
No offense to these popstars but in my opinion, one should aspire to look more like a ‘rocker’ rather than a ‘Japanese/Canto Popstar’. Overly thinned hair not only looks dated but also too ‘girly’ and ‘feminine’, the exact opposite of what is desired. In other words – Passion Killers!! See below for examples of what I mean……
Now in order to achieve more of a rocker look, the hair should still be razored but in a more controlled way. Hair should look piecey and not too wispy, unkempt yet not gelled looking, done yet not look done! There is such a fine line between the 2 that to some peoples eyes, I could be just talking a load of rubbish, but for those in the know, those subtle and slight differences in hair techniques make or break a look.
And for me,(and I’m sure alot of other women) they make the difference between: Rocker V Japanese Popstar, Cool V Cheesy, Funky V Feminine, Good V Bad and Sexy V Ewww!!!! As seen below……
So for all you guys out there, make sure you ask your stylist to give you a style that give you all of the positive traits and not wonder why women/men are not looking your way !! You have been warned!
So I chose this hairstyle for a few of reasons:
1. The color combination is really cool, by combining black with brown, the differences are subtle yet enough to give it a more dramatic effect. The color really brings out the hairstyle which is what good color is all about.
2. The haircut is so well done, again with the combination of soft and hard edges, razored and blunt ends, showing up dramatically on strong straight Asian hair.
3. Hairstyle is soft yet edgy, wearable in real life, and complimentary to the bone structure of the model. Excellent! Well done!
Sarah is one of those lucky people who has naturally curly hair, although we have often joked about it, as hers is quite soft that sometimes, especially when her hair was shorter, if she hadn’t styled it right, it can look abit like a shampoo and set!!
Luckily with her hair now worn longer, the curls look better with the right cut, and right amount of layers, but as you can see from the before pictures, if the layers are too long including the fringe area, the hair lays much flatter on top and gives too sensible a look.
So after using scissors rather than a razor (as we did not want the ends to look too wispy and dry), we took the layers much shorter on top, took alot of weight out by chopping into the hair throughout but mainly on top and then we sliced the fringe off quite short to frame the face more. We then re-wet the hair after the cut and used Leave-In conditioner throughout the hair and twisted medium size sections and dried it with a diffuser. The overall effect is lighter in weight and a younger funner look! Thanks Sarah!
Question by Bonnie:
I’d desperately love your advice on something. I have really really thin hair, and really really less hair. My hair is constantly flat and limp, so basically it just looks like a thin layer of black on top of my head. I’ve done everything I could to give my poor locks a little bit of oomph, and nothing seems to work. I was wondering if you thought a body wave could maybe give some volume to my hair. I’m a little weary of chemical treatments though because I’m afraid it may cause me to lose more hair, and really, every strand is precious to me. My hair right now just about skims my shoulders because I’ve been growing it out. I usually go with short cuts to give my hair some volume, but i thought maybe this time I’d try a body wave. Are those usually successful on Asian hair? how long do the last? Is this a good idea at all?
Answer by Jules:
After taking a look at your photo to help determine the thinness of your hair, One of the first things I would try for your hair is to have a good layered haircut,( if you haven’t already) medium length layers so that it gives it as much body as possible, it would help even more if you had the front part of your hair cut into some kind of longer sweepy look, this would help to define the hairstyle so it doesn’t feel like its just hanging. Next I would try 2 very good products for fine hair, both are made by Prive – (you may have already done this step but I have to add it) Weightless Amplifier being one, applied to wet hair and blow dried in to give body, and secondly their Texture Spray, fantastic for giving body to fine hair and most of our clients cannot live without this one. Not sticky like a hairspray, just enough to make it stand away from your roots. If these step have already been tried and your still thinking about a perm then here are some considerations for you:
If you think you can handle all of the above changes then yes, a perm (soft one) can work well especially if you want a different look. Perms can look great if done well. Asian hair takes fast and well despite people thinking the opposite. My advice if you want to try one is to find a good trendy Asian stylist who does perms all the time, obviously if you went to Asia they would be easier to find but I would definitely stick to someone who has done lots of perms before, then they will know what rollers to use and how long to leave it to achieve the look you want. You could even get them to leave the top straighter and get the body from half way down or take large sections with large rollers. Look for pictures of movements and wave that you like and take them with you. Just remember the looser the wave the less time it will last. If you normally have short hair anyway I know your not too attached to long hair, I think its a nice change, but try to do it when your hair is a little longer due to shrinkage and don’t forget perms drop after the first week, so the first week should be abit firmer.
And last but not least, Perms don’t normally cause hair loss, but they can cause hair breakage if left on too long or if the solution is too strong.
Here’s an example I came across that I think is sweet:
Fringes – which I prefer to call them (have you heard ‘bangs’ said with an English accent? Bad) can change your hairstyle drastically even if you have basic long hair. They can give dramatic effects to your overall look, from framing your eyes/face, hiding wrinkles, shortening a long face, adding more funkiness and interest. They can say alot about a person, ranging from “’look at me, I’m sexy, to hey, I’m fun, or even I’m very conservative and so on and so on, you get the drift!
Hey but what should you ask for? Without the obvious reasons to consider, like complimenting face shapes and working with hair textures and swirls and twirls, you should be asking yourself…. what image do I want to portray? Is it fun, sexy, convenience and out of the eyes, funky and young….
Alot of people find it difficult to take the plunge to cut the fringe off and of course this is a very reasonable excuse as it does take years to grow back, if you feel very doubtful, maybe its a good idea to try one of those clip on fringes to see if you like it? Not exactly true to your hair texture but does give you an idea of the look on your face shape.
Here I want to introduce my version/names of afew samples of fringes so you can get to know the differences between them.
Blunt heavy: need to careful how wide/narrow to take a blunt fringe as it can open or close the face too much.
Classic: can be left heavy or soft, but length is most classic.
Soft wispy: variation of classic but with more softness. Just remember if the fringe is a tad too short and tad too wispy, the look goes more into a young girl of 12 look, so be careful how short you ask for.
Long sideswept: a good start to trying out fringes if your abit nervous but know it can fall into the face alot and can be aggravating because of this.
Short choppy: can vary alot in lengths but are more chunky rather than soft round the edges, abit more funkier looking than the soft fringes above.
Monster fringes: I call them monster fringes becos they are taken very short, giving a stronger, funkier look.
Here’s ones to avoid – Mall fringes: I used to call them Taiwanese fringes because alot of girls wore their hair like this in Taiwan. The length on the right is what I was talking about when it is a tad too short and a tad too wispy – 11 year old!
Just wanted to show you all some work done by a friend in Hawaii, Stella Nakamura. I asked her what inspired her and why she decided to do it.
In Stella’s words:
‘My nephew Kory had asked me a few weeks ago if I could do stars for him cause its his high school spirit week. nothing specific but he really wanted the stars. so my husband helped me find star shapes to cut out but when we got to the house he found the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling that we ended up using (hard plastic ones not the stickers) I took the stars & randomly put them around & decided to do the big one in the back. I held the star down & used cholestrol conditioning cream to section off the outline of the star around the head. then I used bleach & 30 vol. & processed it for 45 min. then toned with P10 richesse from loreal. beforehand I had buzzed his hair with a #1 guard thing. so he was pretty much my inspiration & once I saw everything it all came together nicely.’
Nice Job Stella, Thanks alot for letting me post it.
Nearly ALL good salons will start your service with a consultation. If not I would either try somewhere else or if you are already there, insist on talking to your stylist first. The consultation is one of the most important part of the service especially when you are new to the salon.
This should be done while the hair is dry, which enables the stylist to see what the texture is like, how the client normally likes to wears her hair and also to check for other conditions such as swirls, cowlicks or even head lice (which we will talk about it another post)
During this 5 – 10 consultation (it should not take longer than 10mins because you want to give the stylist as much time as possible to spend on the actual haircut part) You should make the most of this time to get your point across as well as come to an agreement with your stylist on a hairstyle/color. Here are some points to remember to make the most of your time:
1. Your stylist is not a psychic, if this is your first time seeing this stylist do not hold any information back when they are asking you questions.
2. Even if you want them to give you suggestions, becos it is your first time, you must give clues to your lifestyles and desires.
3. Tell them how much time you are willing to put into your hair and whether you are high/low maintenance with it.
4. If you use words like short, funky, trendy, hip or words similar, please define them more clearly, everyone’s idea of these words vary so much. A young hipsters idea of funky may not be the same as yours!
5. If its your first time with someone, it is not a good idea to go in saying ‘Do what you like’ unless you REALLY don’t care!!
6. Do some homework before you go and have at least some idea of what you like and dislike.
7. Do take pictures with you as guide, (even though some stylists don’t like this, personally I think it saves time) this will help eliminate any differences in thoughts, but please be realistic and only use them as a guide to a specific shape and not expect your hair to be exactly the same as the picture, as all hair is different in textures and thicknesses as well as face shapes too.
8. When the stylist asks you questions, please answer truthfully, i.e. if you have had old color or any other product on your hair, please say so, as this can ultimately affect the end result if the stylist is kept in the dark about it.
9. Your stylist should be up front and honest with you as to what is possible or suitable and what is not.. be open to advice.
10. Try not to repeatedly praise your old hairstylist, (no matter how much you loved them)as this will make your new stylist feel that they cannot please you even before they have even tried.
11. Finally – remember that your stylist can only work with what is in front of them – meaning they cannot weave a silk rung from straw!!
New Model Tao Okamoto is the latest ‘It’ model and has the newest ‘It’ hairstyle – ‘the bowl’ so of course I had to have it as one of my picks!!
She is designer Phillip Lim’s muse and he was so taken by her look that for his Fall 2009 show he made all his models wear ‘bowl’ wigs.
Personally I don’t there is enough of these strong short looks on women therefore I think it fantastic that this ‘bowl’ look is in and looking fab and sexy, proving women can have short hair and be sexy at the same time – Not a look for everyone tho’!
Thinning scissors are widely used on Asian hair around the world. As seen above they can vary on how much hair (weight) is taken out, depending on the spaces on the blade. One side has the teeth at varying widths while the other is a normal blade. The result of these scissors would look similar to this with varying widths:
Personally I don’t like to use thinning scissors for a few different reasons:
1. It gives such a uniformal look (above) that it becomes TOO thinned out.
2. You have no control over how much hair is taken out (unlike using razors or scissors) therefore in areas that are already thin, it becomes flat and flyaway.
3. Hair becomes too lifeless as too much of the body is taken away not leaving enough fullness and lift in the hair.
4. Although I do think they are good for use with cutting dog hair : )
