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Short
Hair Goes Gracefully Into Fall |
| Author: The Short Hair Diva |
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Date: September 2002 |
Introduction
Hello, sweet things! Just when you thought it was safe to show off
all those sparkly summer streaks, delectable dark lowlights, and rosy
red highlights to compliment your tan—oh no! It’s nearly fall!
What WILL you do?
Fall signals a change not only in our seasons, but in our looks as
well. Be sure you have your stylist on alert to make those
sometimes-subtle, sometimes-sublimely different changes to your short
hair to make ready for fall—and ultimately, the holiday season.
A few brief words here about home hair coloring—don’t, don’t,
DON’T! Listen to the Diva—good hair coloring requires a good
colorist. Do you really
believe that Heather Locklear, Andie McDowell, and Sara Jessica Parker
color their own hair with products from the supermarket?
Darlings—puhleeze!
Here are the Diva’s recommended steps to get your gorgeous short
hair ready for fall and winter:
1.
Call NOW to make an
appointment with the best colorist you can afford.
Do your homework first on the kinds of color that work best with your
skin color. This is where so many fall short—for example, you may
absolutely adore red hair, but if your skin has blue-red tones, it
ain’t gonna happen for you, baby. In this case, your skin tone
(blue-red) is cool, and the hair color you want (red) is warm. And the two just don’t mix. Unless you really want to look
like a beet, pay attention to what works with your skin tone!
2.
Call
NOW to make an appointment with your stylist.
(If this is also your colorist, so much the better.) If you love
your hair the way it is, fine. Leave it if it works for you. But if
over the summer months you’ve gotten a little restless and want to
try a change, go for it! Again, do your homework before you go in to
see your stylist—don’t waste his or her time by vacillating
between 6 hairdos the minute your butt hits the chair. Take the time
to really study your face shape to help determine what styles work
best for you. For example, if your face is very round, you might want
to consider a sleek, straighter style rather than a cloud of fluffy
curls—which will only accentuate the roundness of your face. Do try
Hair
Boutique’s Interactive Style Selector to help you make a choice.
Also, please remember that short hair requires constant trimming to
keep it in shape. Don’t let a good cut go bad by waiting too long
between trims.
3.
Be
sure about what type of hair you have.
Don’t laugh—some people the Diva has known truly do not
realize that what type of hair they have, or, more importantly; what
they can expect with the type of hair they have. For example, if your
hair tends to be thick and coarse, then a silky, swingy little bob
will not work for you. Unless you work with the hair you have, that
silky, swingy little bob you envision yourself with will be a “hair
helmet” that wouldn’t move in the middle of a hurricane.
A note here on wigs and hairpieces: if you absolutely MUST have hair
other than what you were born with, then by all means check out some
of the excellent lines of wigs and hairpieces. As with colorists and
stylists, be sure the hair care professional you go to knows good
quality hairpieces and can help you find what you want.
4.
Change
your makeup along with your hairdo.
Nothing will ruin a new ‘do quicker than the wrong makeup. Your
face is much more on display with short hair, and the minimalist
makeup you got by with in the summer simply won’t work in the fall.
Again, listen to the Diva tells you, and do your homework. Nearly
every makeup counter in every mall in the country will do a free
makeover for you (the trick is knowing what and what not to buy
afterwards) if you ask for a “change from my regular look.”
Cosmetologists live for
those words! However, be warned ahead of time that their main job is
to sell you their products.
So take all the pamphlets and information they can give you, as well
as a chart of what they did for you, and tell them (and you’re not
telling a lie here) that since this is such
a new look for you, you want to go home and think it over. This is the
truth, because you do. You may want to check out books by
cosmetic product wizards who has reviewed thousands of products and
written some great books sharing the information.
5.
Jewelry,
jewelry, jewelry!
Now that you’ve gotten a fabulous color and cut, and have
updated your makeup from summer to fall, it’s time to accessorize.
Lucky shorthairs can do so much with jewelry! Depending on your own
personal preference, you can wear tiny, sparkly studs (and do go for
multiple ear piercings if you like), thin or thick hoops, dancing,
dangly earrings, or big, fun, chunky clips and posts. The old rule of
thumb, “long hair – long earrings, short hair – little earrings” is waaaaaay out of date. Wear
what you love! In fact, this season celebrates the end of the
minimalist look the Diva personally hated—quarter carat diamond
studs, a single, fragile neckchain with one tiny stone, one or two
rings, and maybe an understated watch—quelle
horror!! Due to the success of such books as Jean Auel’s “Shelters
of Stone,” and movies like “The
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood", larger, showy and
ornate pieces are back. (Here the Diva heaves a sigh of relief!)
Especially big this season are large-stoned earrings, pendants, pins,
rings, and bracelets, especially amber and turquoise. So go wild, and
give that new look some sparkle!
So, darlings, that’s it. As always, listen to the Diva—she will
never steer you wrong. Enjoy the change of season, and if you take the
Diva’s advice, all eyes will be on you—not the changing colors of
the leaves!
Ta-tahh for now,
The Diva
The Diva’s Horrible Email Picks
By
The ShortHair Diva
Hellooooo, my loves! Just as any other celebrity
receives his or her share of fanmail and gifts, the Diva receives
many, many emails. Some have been, shall we say, a jar of caviar short
of an al fresco picnic? The Diva would love to share some of the more
bizarre ones with you. Enjoy!
Question
Devilishly
Bad Hair Day
Dear Diva,
My boyfriend and I decided to give ourselves
devils’ horn haircuts—you know, where the hair is cut really,
really short all over except for two big bunches in the front? You
make horns on either side of the head, and then spray the horns with
hard hairspray so they stand up on their own. We also got matching
tongue studs, and now our friends say we are Satan-worshippers and
won’t have anything to do with us. Both our parents went freakazoid
when they saw us, too!
So now we are re-thinking the look, and want to
know what we can do to look semi-normal again.
Thanks,
Tanya “Two Horns” and Michael “The
Unholy”
Answer
Dear TTH and MTU,
What were you
two thinking? Such a drastic look is only going to get you stares and
comments, and of course make your parents lose their minds. So if
that’s what you wanted to do, congratulations! But it sounds like
you may have come to your senses, and the Diva can help.
First, go to your parents and apologize for
temporarily disfiguring yourselves. Second, remove those nasty tongue
studs immediately! Aside from making a really bad fashion statement,
they are notorious for causing irreparable damage to your tooth
enamel. Third, go to a proper stylist, both of you. Hopefully you will
have learned your lesson from attempting home hairdos.
The Diva recommends either of two styles for
you—have the stylist either 1) make the length even all over, or 2)
cut down the horns and make spitcurls out of them.
Mon Dieu!
The Diva
Question
Tea
Is For Drinking, Not Dyeing
Dear Diva,
I am one of your biggest fans, and I’ve made a
most dreadful hair boo-boo. My hair is chin-length and white-blond,
and I’m getting married in two months. My wedding dress is old ivory
satin and lace, and I am carrying an antique ivory fan instead of a
bouquet. My thought was to color my hair to match my dress and fan,
but I dislike going to a colorist. You see, I am a homeopathic
gardener, a vegan, and a member of the Sierra Club, and believe in all
things natural. The dyes they use in salons are nothing short of pure
poison, and I wouldn’t dream of contaminating my hair with anything
like that.
So I did some research and found that certain
teas were used to color fabrics, and could also be used as a hair
rinse. I found the right type of tea blend, and let it steep along
with some of my homegrown chamomile, lavender, rosemary, and sage. I
washed my hair with my all-natural shampoo, and applied the tea
mixture throughout my hair, dried it with a towel, and then sat out in
the sun for a few hours to let it dry (I also dislike hairdryers as
they are so unnatural. Mother Nature is far kinder with her sunshine).
To my horror, when I went inside to check my hair
color, it had turned not a lovely, soft ivory as I had hoped, but a
lightless, dull, muddy brown! Diva, it just looks terrible. Teas
stains are very hard to get out, and I simply can’t wait for my hair
to grow out—I’m getting married in two months! What can I do?
Yours truly,
Madison Cabot Lodge Smythe-Smythe
Answer
Dear Ms. Homeopathic Vegan,
You know, this is a case in point where too much of anything can be
a bad thing. You obviously know something about botanicals, but
evidently not enough. Since you did not take the Diva’s oft-said
advice about seeing a professional (and you call yourself a fan!), you
are now going to have to pay the all-natural piper, so to speak.
‘Hair poisons’ be damned, you’re going to have to see a good
colorist to fix your tea-stained hair. Since you don’t have much
time to get ready for your wedding, and you will have to take drastic
measures.
Make an appointment now with a good colorist. He
or she will have to chemically strip out all that nasty stain, and
then color your hair as close to the original as possible. Like it or
not, if you want to look normal on your wedding day, you are going to
have to submit yourself to the hands of the professionals and all
their poisons! Or of course, you can use that same tea to dye your
dress and antique fan a lovely muddy brown to match your hair.
Next time, keep the tea in the cup and out of
your hair.
Best of luck,
The Diva
Question
Dreadful Dreads
Dear Diva,
I am a teenage
boy with long, long dreadlocks it took me years to grow. Last weekend
I was invited to a really cool party and wanted to do a little 70’s
Stevie Wonder look and put beads in my dreads. I was short on cash, so
I figured I could make the look myself. I went to my little sister’s
craft drawer, and took a handful of red and white beads, and her tube
of SuperGlue.
I’m not an
idiot; I know how SuperGlue works, and know how careful you have to
be. So I took all afternoon, and carefully glued beads into my dreads,
using just a little, and only on the very ends of my hair. I have to
say, I looked pretty cool when I was all done.
I was a huge
hit at the party, and danced every dance with all the girls. It was
very hot in there, and I sweated like a pig, but was having so much
fun it didn’t bother me.
But when I got
home, I found that all that sweat on my scalp had made the SuperGlue
run ALL throughout my beautiful dreads! It’s like a big, hard hat
now, and if that isn’t bad enough, it smells terrible! My mom and
dad are furious with me—they never liked the dreads to begin with,
and now they have the perfect excuse to march me to a hair salon and
shave my head. My little sister can’t stop laughing.
Diva, I know I
really screwed up bigtime. What can I do?
Ramone the
Dreadful
Answer
Dear Dreadful
Ramone,
There is a
saying that comes to mind now: there never seems to be enough time to
do something right, but there’s always
enough time to fix it!
You have paid dearly for your night of playing
Stevie Wonder, and I have to agree with your parents—your only
choice now is to submit yourself to the razor. You do realize that
this is completely and totally your fault, don’t you? Redeem
yourself now and go humbly and quietly to get your head shaved.
You’ll gain two valuable things from this: 1) a new start for your
hair, and 2) some badly-needed humility. Oh yes—and don’t forget
to pay your little sister back for her beads.
Best wishes,
The Diva
Question
Lime
Jello Does Not a Gel Make
Hi Diva,
My name is James, and I have this problem? I
think maybe you can help me with. I went to a rave the other night
with friends, and like we had a bet going, you know, that the weirdest
hair would get us in the door free? Well, before I left, I mixed some
lime jello and Vaseline to make a cool green gel, you know? Like, I
mean, how hard is it to get green gel anyways? So, it worked great on
my blonde hair, and I got in for free!
The only trouble was, like as soon as I got
moving in there and got hot, the jello and Vaseline melted and ran
down onto my white t-shirt and totally trashed it. But like, that
wasn’t the worst? The worst was that the hotter I got, the more I
smelled like lime jello. Then I saw I had all these little flying bugs
around me, and like I couldn’t see? So I go to go out of the place
to get some air, and the bugs are swarming around my head so much and
I’m like swatting at them so much I totally lost my balance and fell
down the stairs. So now I have a sprained wrist, bruised ribs, and
really sticky, stinky hair.
What should I do?
James
Answer
Dear James,
I think you are, like, an idiot. It’s not all
that hard to get green hair gel—just go BUY some! If you’d done
that in the first place, you’d have saved yourself the flies, the
bumps and bruises, and a lifelong reputation of being a loser. And
just for the record, those bothersome little flies were fruit flies,
and they were all after the tasty lime goodness of your hair!
As for what to do, did it never occur to you to
WASH YOUR HAIR? Who raised you anyway—a goat? (And who taught you
grammar? The same goat?)
You truly belong in the Darwin Awards.
Eye-rollingly yours,
The Diva
Question
Wrong
Hair Color
Hi Diva,
I have a question about skin tones and matching
hair color. First of all, I am half Chinese (Mom), and half Irish
(Dad), but my coloring is Asian—you know, black hair, golden skin?
Well, I read your articles all the time, and you always talk about
how, if you color your hair, you have to compliment your skin tone.
Well, here’s the thing. I really love my
dad’s red hair, and wanted to color mine just like it. I mean, my
skin tone is warm, and the red hair color is warm, too, right? So I
thought it would work for me. I didn’t have the money to go to a
professional, so I bought one of those permanent hair color kits (and
it was one of the really expensive ones, too—you know, the one that
Heather Locklear uses?) in the store and had my best friend do it for
me.
Diva, it looks worse than awful. The coloring
turned my hair not red, but orange, and it has no highlights and is
dry-feeling. It makes my skin look like crap, and my father—well,
let’s just say he was touched that I wanted hair like his, but he
really hates this look.
How come this didn’t work? You SAID that as
long as the skin and hair tones were compatible it would be ok.
What happened?
Cho O’Brien
Answer
Dearest Cho,
Yes, indeed I did say that hair and skin tones
need to be compatible before you consider changing your color. But I
also expect my readers to use their brains as well---your coloring is
obviously Asian, and although your skin tone is warm, it doesn’t
mean you can get away with red hair! If you had put the money you
spent on that hair color kit to better use and gone to a professional,
he/she would probably have advised you against totally red hair.
Instead, they most likely would have recommended you have some reddish
highlights or at most, a slight tint added to your dark hair.
Just because a hair tone is warm (red), and a
skin tone is also warm (gold), it doesn’t necessarily follow that
the two warm tones will go together. In your case, I am sure that the
combination of warm, golden skin and dull, dry, orange hair are
hideous. My advise to you is to offer your services to your
parents—washing the family car, cleaning the house, babysitting,
whatever, in return for a trip to a good colorist to fix the mess
you’ve made. Remember, to thine own self be true—especially
when it comes to color!
Buh-bye,
The Diva
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