Serenity_Peace
Genius never dies!
I read this in the Washington Post Express this morning and thought you ladies may be able to relate. Straight hair is *in*, and women of all colors/ethnicities are doing anything/everything to achieve straight, silky, shiny tresses:
Perfect, polished hair -- that takes time -- is back
By MELISSA MAGSAYSAY
LOS ANGELES TIMES
(Original Publication: November 27, 2007)
LOS ANGELES - It's 8:30 on a Friday night and Melissa Boock unenthusiastically is contemplating going out with friends. The decision would be easier had she prepped her hair that day, a ritual that begins at 11 a.m. with a shower, after which she pulls her wet tresses into a tightly wound bun that sits atop her head for precisely six hours and winds down in the later evening, only to be hit with an intensive product-and-straightening session just before her outfit choice is solidified.
Boock's schedule, social and otherwise, is dictated by the sheen of her mane and the longevity of her blowout. It is an obsession, a ruling factor in her daily life.
So much for the liberated woman. After years of relatively carefree, wash-and-wear hair, the pendulum has swung back to the kind of perfect, polished, "done" hair that took our grandmothers to the beauty parlor every week. Remember laughing at hairnets worn to bed? Rollers around the house? They're nothing compared with what some women are willing to endure today.
In the pursuit of perfectly pin-straight, rootless tresses, women will hide, cancel plans or avoid breaking a sweat - all to keep their hair intact. They are hoarding expensive hair gadgets, even water filtration systems made not by Culligan but by a Hollywood hairdresser. Instead of paying their credit card bills, they are handing hundreds of dollars to their stylists for blowouts .
They are slaves to their hair.
"I have avoided exercise in order not to ruin a blowout," says Boock, a toy designer who lives in West Hollywood. "And when it's really hot during the summer, I won't go out during the day, so I won't sweat."
Celebrity hairstylist Kimberly Kimble, who does cuts and styles for Millwood resident Vanessa Williams plus Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, and Kerry Washington, attributes the fever to a trend shift - away from the natural-looking, beachy, bed-head tresses we saw on Jennifer Aniston and Gisele Bundchen five years ago and toward straight, shiny, "done" locks.
"It's not about bed head," Kimble says. "It's all about polish now, and healthy, shiny hair rich with color and texture." Women want strong, straight hair because it makes them feel confident, says Linda Wells, editor in chief of Allure magazine. "Men have power suits, women have power hair."
Shana Honeyman, a fashion publicist in Hollywood, has a blond, Julie Christie, chin-grazing bob that she blow-dries on her own, saving a weekly blow out fee. But the do-it-herself process is not without pain. Honeyman uses a Super Solano blow-dryer, a $120 appliance that is supposed to be indestructible. She has gone through three in less than a year and a half. Apparently, her arm gets tired during the hour it takes her to curl her bob, and when she drops the hair dryer , the impact is too much even for the top-of-the-line gadget. Not one to settle for a sub par hair dryer, she marches on and tries again.
"I have been broke, but when that blow-dryer breaks, I will go and get another one for $120," says Honeyman, who sees the cost as an absolute necessity. And then there are those problem roots, the unsightly shadows that tell the world that you are neglectful, if not blond to the bone.
"Roots are an absolute priority," Honeyman says. "I will not go to a nice dinner, or I'll put off a credit card bill to get my roots and color done. When that bleach is burning my head, it's like a rainbow coming over me."
Chemicals will have that effect.
A Super Solano might be the near-pinnacle in drying (the $300 T3 Tourmaline Evolution Professional Ceramic Ionic Hair Dryer would be the apex). But there's also a better way to go about getting your hair wet. Jonathan Antin from Bravo's reality show "Blowout," who has an extensive line of shampoos, pomades and shine serums, has delved into plumbing. He has created the Jonathan Beauty Water Shower Purification System, which attaches to a shower nozzle and turns regular water into "beauty water" that cascades through hair, presumably making it lush and ready to style. The active component in the filter is "amorphous titanium silicate," a mineral that's described as being coated with carbonized coconut shells. Sounds like something the Professor could have rigged up for Ginger on "Gilligan's Island" so that she could keep her red waves nice and bouncy.
Always on the lookout for the next best hair product, Boock recently shelled out $95 at Sephora for the filter and claims her hair is softer, but not soft enough to for go the all-day prep process.
Then there are people who focus on prolonging the luster of their prized blowout. Jennifer Egan's hair is her signature characteristic, just as cocktail rings are her signature fashion accessory (they are up-lighted in her closet). Her hair, too, always looks aglow with shine and polish. To ensure her mane is stick-straight, Egan, who works for the nonprofit arts organization Gen Art, turns to an arsenal she calls her "kit." Housed in a rolling suitcase, the kit comes with her when she knows she is going out directly after work.
Inside are a blow-dryer, a straightening iron, clips to section off hair, dry shampoo, pomade, two brushes (a round and a flat), gloss and finishing spray. And that natural shine? It's from years of taking prenatal vitamins - not because she was looking toward motherhood, but to grow out a "bad 'Friends' haircut" she got in high school. These days, she can prolong her blowout for two to three days by using Batiste dry shampoo spray to absorb oil and dirt. The product is not FDA-approved, so Egan has it shipped over from Britain.
Egan's hair is as smooth as glass, a curtain with no layers. But an elaborate, layered cut is more common among the hair-slave crowd, and many are as obsessed with their cuts as with their styling regimens. You've seen them, obsessively measuring the layers, taking a chunk from each side of the head and making sure they meet evenly and harmoniously in the middle.
After a haircut from a substitute stylist, Boock measured her layers and realized he had deviated. "He cut 3 inches off and didn't layer the back," she says in the most unforgiving of tones. "I was hysterically crying and drank seven glasses of wine and threw up in Mel's Diner after that cut. I had a tail!"
For some people, this is serious business. And as long as shiny, straight, strong hair is the trend, some women will go to, well, any length to attain it. "Hair seems to be possessed," Wells says. "Even though it's dead, it has a life all of its own."
http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071127/LIFESTYLE01/711270304
I want this lady's hair:
Perfect, polished hair -- that takes time -- is back
By MELISSA MAGSAYSAY
LOS ANGELES TIMES
(Original Publication: November 27, 2007)
LOS ANGELES - It's 8:30 on a Friday night and Melissa Boock unenthusiastically is contemplating going out with friends. The decision would be easier had she prepped her hair that day, a ritual that begins at 11 a.m. with a shower, after which she pulls her wet tresses into a tightly wound bun that sits atop her head for precisely six hours and winds down in the later evening, only to be hit with an intensive product-and-straightening session just before her outfit choice is solidified.
Boock's schedule, social and otherwise, is dictated by the sheen of her mane and the longevity of her blowout. It is an obsession, a ruling factor in her daily life.
So much for the liberated woman. After years of relatively carefree, wash-and-wear hair, the pendulum has swung back to the kind of perfect, polished, "done" hair that took our grandmothers to the beauty parlor every week. Remember laughing at hairnets worn to bed? Rollers around the house? They're nothing compared with what some women are willing to endure today.
In the pursuit of perfectly pin-straight, rootless tresses, women will hide, cancel plans or avoid breaking a sweat - all to keep their hair intact. They are hoarding expensive hair gadgets, even water filtration systems made not by Culligan but by a Hollywood hairdresser. Instead of paying their credit card bills, they are handing hundreds of dollars to their stylists for blowouts .
They are slaves to their hair.
"I have avoided exercise in order not to ruin a blowout," says Boock, a toy designer who lives in West Hollywood. "And when it's really hot during the summer, I won't go out during the day, so I won't sweat."
Celebrity hairstylist Kimberly Kimble, who does cuts and styles for Millwood resident Vanessa Williams plus Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, and Kerry Washington, attributes the fever to a trend shift - away from the natural-looking, beachy, bed-head tresses we saw on Jennifer Aniston and Gisele Bundchen five years ago and toward straight, shiny, "done" locks.
"It's not about bed head," Kimble says. "It's all about polish now, and healthy, shiny hair rich with color and texture." Women want strong, straight hair because it makes them feel confident, says Linda Wells, editor in chief of Allure magazine. "Men have power suits, women have power hair."
Shana Honeyman, a fashion publicist in Hollywood, has a blond, Julie Christie, chin-grazing bob that she blow-dries on her own, saving a weekly blow out fee. But the do-it-herself process is not without pain. Honeyman uses a Super Solano blow-dryer, a $120 appliance that is supposed to be indestructible. She has gone through three in less than a year and a half. Apparently, her arm gets tired during the hour it takes her to curl her bob, and when she drops the hair dryer , the impact is too much even for the top-of-the-line gadget. Not one to settle for a sub par hair dryer, she marches on and tries again.
"I have been broke, but when that blow-dryer breaks, I will go and get another one for $120," says Honeyman, who sees the cost as an absolute necessity. And then there are those problem roots, the unsightly shadows that tell the world that you are neglectful, if not blond to the bone.
"Roots are an absolute priority," Honeyman says. "I will not go to a nice dinner, or I'll put off a credit card bill to get my roots and color done. When that bleach is burning my head, it's like a rainbow coming over me."
Chemicals will have that effect.
A Super Solano might be the near-pinnacle in drying (the $300 T3 Tourmaline Evolution Professional Ceramic Ionic Hair Dryer would be the apex). But there's also a better way to go about getting your hair wet. Jonathan Antin from Bravo's reality show "Blowout," who has an extensive line of shampoos, pomades and shine serums, has delved into plumbing. He has created the Jonathan Beauty Water Shower Purification System, which attaches to a shower nozzle and turns regular water into "beauty water" that cascades through hair, presumably making it lush and ready to style. The active component in the filter is "amorphous titanium silicate," a mineral that's described as being coated with carbonized coconut shells. Sounds like something the Professor could have rigged up for Ginger on "Gilligan's Island" so that she could keep her red waves nice and bouncy.
Always on the lookout for the next best hair product, Boock recently shelled out $95 at Sephora for the filter and claims her hair is softer, but not soft enough to for go the all-day prep process.
Then there are people who focus on prolonging the luster of their prized blowout. Jennifer Egan's hair is her signature characteristic, just as cocktail rings are her signature fashion accessory (they are up-lighted in her closet). Her hair, too, always looks aglow with shine and polish. To ensure her mane is stick-straight, Egan, who works for the nonprofit arts organization Gen Art, turns to an arsenal she calls her "kit." Housed in a rolling suitcase, the kit comes with her when she knows she is going out directly after work.
Inside are a blow-dryer, a straightening iron, clips to section off hair, dry shampoo, pomade, two brushes (a round and a flat), gloss and finishing spray. And that natural shine? It's from years of taking prenatal vitamins - not because she was looking toward motherhood, but to grow out a "bad 'Friends' haircut" she got in high school. These days, she can prolong her blowout for two to three days by using Batiste dry shampoo spray to absorb oil and dirt. The product is not FDA-approved, so Egan has it shipped over from Britain.
Egan's hair is as smooth as glass, a curtain with no layers. But an elaborate, layered cut is more common among the hair-slave crowd, and many are as obsessed with their cuts as with their styling regimens. You've seen them, obsessively measuring the layers, taking a chunk from each side of the head and making sure they meet evenly and harmoniously in the middle.
After a haircut from a substitute stylist, Boock measured her layers and realized he had deviated. "He cut 3 inches off and didn't layer the back," she says in the most unforgiving of tones. "I was hysterically crying and drank seven glasses of wine and threw up in Mel's Diner after that cut. I had a tail!"
For some people, this is serious business. And as long as shiny, straight, strong hair is the trend, some women will go to, well, any length to attain it. "Hair seems to be possessed," Wells says. "Even though it's dead, it has a life all of its own."
http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071127/LIFESTYLE01/711270304
I want this lady's hair:
