Latest Trends: Feathers!!!

Finally! A fresh trend in hairdressing! Feather extensions are going to be the biggest thing for 2011. Sleek and shocking, it's a new twist on highlights . They add a hint of trendiness and edge to any color or length and have been showing up on celebs everywhere! The ones seen above, you can wash, heat style, or curl with your normal hair. They last about 3 months. They come in all different colors, so they can be subtle or bold. They will be perfect this summer for outdoor concerts, road trips, all those things that leave your hair blowing in the wind. I am learning how to do them for my portfolio, so practical application will come soon. By summer, they will be relatively affordable, and a great option for someone who wants to add some temporary zing to their look.

Up until now, feathers have been popular amongst hipsters and rockers, in a trend that I also see going mainstream for 2011, the braided accessories. Much like this:

This is a look that's easily achievable at home and I predict will be overused by teenagers everywhere :)
To get this look:
You will need:

• Feather
• Duckbill clips
• Dry Pomade
• Small braiding rubber bands

1. Take a  clean parted 1" section from underneath the round of the head
2. Clip down all the other hair underneath with a duckbill clip
3. With a small bit of dry pomade, smooth down any flyways or frizzes within your section
3. Braid the section down to wherever you would like the feathers to land (Play with different lengths within your cut!)
4. Arrange the feathers in your hand so that the feather bellies will wrap around the outside of the braid well. This is an important step in the overall look of your accessory.
5. Secure them at the base with the clear rubber band, wrapping around as many times as you can. The rubber band will grab the baby fuzz at the base of the feather and will keep it from slipping.

Voila'! Sexy rocker hair! To get that tousled, bed-heady look to go along with it, wrap strands of hair loosely around your curling iron in a spiral pattern (switching directions on each row) and spray with Paul Mitchell Texturizing Spray .

And to wrap up this post on the feather hair trend, a tutorial on one of my favorite braids by Janine from Shear Genius!

Mirepoix or model, this girl's good. Part I

Wow, what a week! I have been working hard the past few weeks coming up with ideas for my portfolio photo shoot, and all that work recently paid off! I spent two days doing hair in Murfreesboro and a good 4 or 5 hours on set, and I couldn't have asked for better results. I pushed my own limits and really learned a lot. I'm really still processing some of it, what a whirlwind! I am lucky, because I have beautiful and talented friends that make this all worthwhile, and together, we all make an amazing team! I'd like to focus on each model specifically, because the amount of change all three of them went through is worth it, and I learned so much from each one.

Today, I'd like to focus on Lauren. Shes' a beautiful girl and an amazing cook. Here's a link to her blog, Mirepoix.  She's been a friend of mine for a long time, she has GREAT hair,  and she is adventurous enough to let me do generally whatever I want to her hair, which makes her invaluable. Here's a great picture of her before I got hold of her mane. She'd already made a great color choice for her complexion. I love the medium auburn on her. So for her "makeover" I really wanted to brighten that and add some dimension. I had put some blonde in her hair before. Blonde highlights, no matter how bright, against any warm red just look astonishing, so I really wanted to play with dimension, brighten up her red,  and pull some thick blonde all throughout.
After studying Wella's color line, here's the red formula I went with:

6R + 7R + 042 / 20v

 This, I was not happy with. The red was not vibrant enough and the roots were hot. I have come to realize that I just don't like Wella's reds after this adventure, and that's okay. It's hard... SO HARD... to find a good red line out there. I'm sure my hands will fall off after putting this out into the blogosphere, but I (apologetically) don't even love Paul Mitchel the Color's reds. Other things I discovered; I added the gold in order to make the red pop, but I think the 042, which is wella's pure gold pigment, desaturated the red too much.

I WILL NOT forget about this blog!

I think I've probably started at least 20 blogs through my internet career and they've all fallen by the wayside when I loose interest/ get distracted. Not this one. A friend of mine finally saw it and encouraged me to actually keep it up so I am pushing myself extra hard to at least blog once a week. Here's to hoping it works.

Anyway, it's snowing here, and I'm all thera-flued up so today will be spent planning. I finally have a portfolio shoot! So soon, though... it's Thursday! I have to get my plans, sketches, and supplies by Wednesday and no one's going anywhere today. So planning it is.

I have been putting together ideas for different models in a slide show. For example, here's a link to Sarina's inspiration. Unfortunately, all those plans were long term and we just so happen to have been able to make plans for sooner, so i have a few models and 4 days. Hello reality show, anyone?

I'll be updating later with my progress...

Wish me luck!

Where and When: Warehouse 13 gets it right

FINALLY!

I've been watching Warehouse 13 for a while now. It's fun... like X-Files for this generation. Of course, I can't help but notice hair now when I look at anything, and thus have been frustrated consistently with the head of  Claudia, a character who I'll admit, I didn't like in the first place. In my defense, here's what started this whole thing...

GAH. That flipped out mess is NOT working. They don't always style it like that, here's an article focusing on her cut , which is SO much prettier on her than her long tresses seen here in a photo before Warehouse 13 cast her. 

Anyway, recently they've been doing a much better job with her hair, straightening and smoothing it and BLENDING it beautifully...

But NOW, they've blown it out of the water. FINALLY a HUGE WIN on the Warehouse 13 set! A recent episode called Where and When rocked out the 60's inspired looks for a back-in-time adventure! Here are a few screen shots of the hair, done, I found, by a woman named Susan Exton-Stranks.
First; claudia gets curly:Myka gets a beehive.Pete gets a masculine/preppy side part and slick, Armani, here he comes :)
 
Adorable curls on this extra, and a beautifully executed beehive.

Focus, Breathe, and be Successful

I have needed to recharge my drive lately... the past couple of days i've been fighting off allergies and it's party season and I've begun to loose focus in the face of fun. This is my LIFE. I have to take it back. Success is a number one priority and I'm gonna get it. It's time to breathe life back in to my motivation. It's time to get back in the fast lane and drive like a winner. I can, I am, and I will.

What inspires me?

There's a fashion show coming up at PMTS Nashville, called The Bang Bang Blowout! I'm in a royalty segment and I've been trying to communicate to the models how to use their bodies in interesting ways while in their costumes... and I keep saying "you know, Fosse!" and "go look up Bob Fosse" and "You know how Beyonce' moved in her last two dance videos... that but better!"...

Anyway, I was doing some research to figure out how to pose them. I came upon this compilation video on youtube, so I'm sharing it with a few other videos that I've been absorbing. Today, this is what inspires me:)






::drool::

A few other links I got excited about;

• Shakira's choreographers win in this sexy bed dance :)
• Classic Janet... Rythym Nation <3
• Just... watch it all the way through...
• And one more classic for the road... MADONNA

Wow, Redkin!

The Redken Cover Competition 2008 from Martin Perreault on Vimeo.

Well, I've just discovered a wealth of information! I've been glued to my computer all morning after discovering Redkin's professional site. On the site you can find tutorials, product knowledge, quizzes, and much much more! How amazing! I am learning new ways to think about cuts and styling, and adding so much new inspiration to my career. I have to diagram some cuts today for homework, so I'm challenging myself to diagram some of the Redkin cuts in the Paul Mitchell Method... wish me luck there.

I have to give credit where credit's due... I did not discover the site on my own... the lovely people down at the Mane Event salon in Franklin turned me on to it, as they are a  Redkin salon.

In other news, last weekend, I added a beautiful cut to my portfolio. My best friend and best hair model, Heather Clemons, (also holds the title of the best best best pro photographer:) allowed me to have creative freedom with her cut so I gave her some beautiful long layers and lots of texture. It's a cut inspired by Brian at  Fruition Salon (if you want to see how a salon's website SHOULD look, visit theirs!)

Photos by Rachel Temple, Edited by Heather Clemmons

Beautiful, Dirty Rich

Sure, I've heard this song a million times on the radio, but recently it's become my anthem. In an interview, Gaga said;

Lady Gaga: I was doing a lot of drugs when I wrote "Dirty Rich." It was about two years ago, and it was about a few different things. First and foremost the record is about – whoever you are or where you live – you can self-proclaim this inner fame based on your personal style, and your opinions about art and the world, despite being conscious of it. But it's also about how on the Lower East side, there was a lot of rich kids who did drugs and said that they were poor artists, so it's also a knock at that. 'Daddy I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry, yes, we just like to party.' I used to hear my friends on the phone with their parents, asking for money before they would go buy drugs. So, that was an interesting time for me, but it's funny that what came out of that record – because it's about many different things – but ultimately what I want people to take from it is "Bang-bang." No matter who you are and where you come from, you can feel beautiful and dirty rich.

 In the past year with Paul Mitchell The School, I've been doing a lot of thinking about how fame and fortune is a state of mind. At school, we're taught to stay "forward focused" meaning that we are expected to be working towards a goal at all times and not dwell in failures or fall backs. To constantly push forward and to see the future you in the mirror. It's been the best "happiness" training I've ever had. The Paul Mitchell Culture is changing my life by changing my mind. I think this song, for me, reminds me of that concept, that success not in the stars, but in ourselves.

“The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
—Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor

“If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right.”
— Henry Ford

“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
— Abraham Lincoln

 

How can one control their life if they can't control their hair?

Welcome to my blog! I am about half way through my education with Paul Mitchell the school and I have changed so much. My hope is that I can bring a new voice to the beauty industry and, as my passion is teaching, maybe help some understand better how to attain their beauty goals. The purpose of this blog is to explore the beauty industry and fashion in a way that will provide insight and feedback to help the readers as well as myself  as we journey together!