Wig-O-Mania

If you want to bleach your hair blonde, all one shade I recommend you start off with highlights and your hair should be in semi-good condition and moist, I am a natural “black head” with expensive taste and didn’t know it could look and be so easy.

Instructions:

Things You’ll Need:

• shampoo
• on the scalp bleach
• developer 20-30
• gloves
• brush
• comb

Walking down my local high street the other day I noticed a nicely shaped ‘white woman’ in front of me.

I though, ‘she’s shaped like an African woman’. To my surprise when I glanced at her while passing it was a black African sista, checking back I then realised it was the hair and style that made me think it was a white girl which now brings me to this question.

Have black woman lost the love of themselves? Do they all want to have hair like every other race, but their own ?

I remember going to school meetings with mothers in the early 1980s because our girls and my boy was sent home for having plaits and dreadlocks.

We had to speak, cus, and lose our tempers before they decided that our arguments about our cultural and natural hair styles not being like Tina Turner, (or nowadays Beyonce Knowles), were relevant and allowed us to style our children’s hair like a black person and not have to use all manner of chemicals to make it more like every other Asian or white girl.

In short, we like so many other black parents up and down England at the time, changed something. Now I’m wondering, what did we really fight for?

Once thought of as a little girl’s hairdo, a face framed with fringe is now sexy and sophisticated.”Bangs look good on anyone,” says Lori Williams, owner and stylist at Coiffure on Phillips in Sioux Falls, S.D. And women are taking notice, following in the footsteps of celebrities such as Katie Holmes, Reese Witherspoon, Sienna Miller, Tyra Banks and Heidi Klum, just to name a few.

“I’ve been suggesting bangs for a long time,” Williams says. “It’s about 50-50 right now. But the more they see, the more they come around.”

Kate Wismer is one of those women. Wismer, the reigning Miss South Dakota, got bangs as part of a makeover before the Miss America pageant earlier this year when she appeared on TLC’s reality show “Miss America: Reality Check.”

“Mine are right down to the eyebrows and straight across,” says Wismer, a student at South Dakota State University. “They’re really dramatic-looking. It was a pretty gutsy decision. I wouldn’t have been able to envision myself with bangs and cut them on my own.”

Since she’s been back from the pageant, a lot of Wismer’s friends have followed suit. “Maybe they felt inspired by me rockin’ the bangs,” she says with a laugh.

Whether blunt cut and straight across like Wismer’s or swept off to one side, there’s a fringe for every woman’s style, says Christen Wermers, a stylist at Salon Artist Suites in Sioux Falls.

“You’re seeing angled bangs — they’re really in — with the longest piece right below the corner of the eye,” she says. “You’re seeing eyebrow length bangs, like the Katie Holmes-style bangs. And you’re seeing a lot of wispy bangs.”

And you don’t have to be a 20- or 30-something celebrity to look good in bangs. Older women wear bangs well, too.

“They give a really youthful appearance,” Williams says. “They cover up lines on the forehead” — and receding hairlines. “The area of bangs that come forward covers that up and makes the hair look thicker.”

The shape of your face dictates what type of bangs will look best. If you have a rounder face, blunt-cut bangs across the forehead will look good, Wermers says. With a longer face, go for something more angled.

Consider, too, the length of your hair, Williams says. If you have a heart-shaped face, balance the bangs with hair that falls at least below the chin line.

“You don’t want to look like you’re wide and square at the top and narrow at the chin.” Same goes for those with square-shaped faces, she says. “You want the hair to come down past the jaw line to slenderize the squareness of face so it doesn’t look like you have a square box sitting on the face.”

The only danger with cutting bangs is cutting them too short. Even then, there are still ways to make the cut look intentional, Williams says. “Sweep them out to the sides and squeeze the ends together with pomade to make it look like you meant to do it.”

For anyone who thinks bangs are a fleeting fad, think again. Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour’s iconic look includes fringed bangs. And as long as Wintour has them, they’ll always be in style.

Style editor Bobbie Thomas highlights easy, delightful ’dos for the season

You wear your hair 365 days a year, so you might as well make it your best accessory! And luckily for you, in addition to being one of the only surface features that makes a statement about your sense of style — it’s also easy to adjust! So if you’re stuck in a style rut and the purse strings are tight, consider a new look for your locks. Remember — it’s only temporary!

Bobbie Thomas, TODAY Style editor and author of the Buzz column for In Touch Weekly, offers advice on four hairstyles that will sizzle this spring.

Big bangs
From supermodels like Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum and Elle McPherson to superstars like Janet Jackson, Liv Tyler and Halle Berry, we’re seeing big bangs on some of Tinseltown’s most famous faces. For the most part, these strands have been chopped in a chunky manner, leaving a full layer of fringe along the forehead. Not only are these blunt bangs a great way to conceal your hairline, but some women may be motivated by the fact that you can avoid botox and hide high-up wrinkles with a strategic snip of the scissors!

But keep in mind, if you’re thinking about trying out this trend, I strongly suggest seeing a stylist. Cutting these crisp wisps on your own is not as easy as it looks!

Modern waves
Carefree-looking curls may come across as low-maintenance, but they still take some serious effort! To get a gorgeous, wavy ’do like Michelle Pfeiffer’s, you’ll want to use two different size barrels to achieve a balanced bounce. The trick is to make this look seem simple rather than overly styled, so don’t worry about making each strand look the same. Also, by leaving a few inches at the roots and a few inches at the ends untouched, your curls will look loose and luxurious.

Plus, you’ll avoid damaging the most heat-sensitive areas of your hair! And finally, for Fergie gets her flowing locks by curling both toward and away from her face with an iron (a back-and-forth technique takes the “perfect” out of the picture!).

Easy up-dos
At the Oscars this year, we saw a slew of leading ladies with pieces of hair pulled back into messy masterpieces. Jennifer Garner and Calista Flockhart let strands fly freely in the front, while the rest of their hair was pinned back, emphasizing high cheekbones and functioning as an instant face-lift! Even Cate Blanchett’s simple half-back hairstyle was flattering and fresh. The key with these updated up-dos is to look effortlessly tossed and tucked. So don’t worry if your wisps are blowing in the wind — just fasten up your long layers and go!

Buzz cuts
From the bob to the boycut, stars are sporting short-short ’dos! Stylish celebrities like Renee Zellwegger, Selma Blair and Rihanna are all picking up on the pageboy trend, and this look is going to be big for spring. Shorter styles work well for those who don’t have a lot of time to fuss with their hair every day.

But before you say bye-bye to your locks, consider how short hair will look with your features.  Those with an oval face shape generally wear extremely short hair the best. But whether you want to crop your locks to the chin or sculpt your strands into a punky pixie cut, there’s no better time to hit the chopping block!

Things You’ll Need:

• Shampoo
• Club soda

Billy Yamaguchi explains how the elements should all come together

Thursday, February 28, 2008 For a hot second, I believe I’m on the set of an infomercial. There’s tranquil music playing, and a cup of green tea is handed to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cher – or worse, Jessica Simpson – popped up out of nowhere with a camera crew in tow.

The reality is I’m visiting the hair salon at the award-winning Lake Austin Spa Resort and looking at myself in a mirror.

Hairstylist-to-the-stars Billy Yamaguchi, the author of “Feng Shui Beauty,” is standing behind me, explaining how I could have the most amazing hair if I only embraced feng shui principles. (And, presumably, grew more hair.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about personal style and beauty lately. Earlier this month, I was one of the only guys in the audience for the Dove-sponsored beauty session with panelists including “Beauty Myth” author Naomi Wolf at the University of Texas.

Austin has been my home for almost a year, and I always tell out-of-towners that it’s a pleasure to live here because Austinites tend to express themselves with their clothes and their looks more than in the East Coast cities where I’ve lived. So I was open to hearing what Yamaguchi has to say about personal style and how we can take our look to a new level.

“You basically have three seconds to make a first impression,” says Yamaguchi in a very comforting voice. “Have that first three seconds be a home run to where people are like, ‘Wow, who’s that person? I want to get to know that person a little bit longer.’ This is what feng shui does.”

But come on, how is feng shui, which I might use in setting up my new house, in any way related to the follicles on a person’s head?

“It’s a science that turns itself into an art form,” says 45-year-old Yamaguchi, who owns several salons in California and visits Austin several times a year to meet with clients who spend about $440 for hair and makeup styling. “Feng shui literally means wind and water. The wind is your breath and shui is water, what we’re made out of.

“There were a lot of people who have been really skeptical. But you start to see patterns happen over and over and over. There’s no way that I can be mistaken unless that person didn’t want to truly express themselves.”

Most of us, whether we like it or not, find a style that works and stick with it instead of pushing ourselves creatively — something that’s easier to do in a city like Austin.

“Austin people, to me, are chic,” Yamaguchi says. “They’re interested in looking sassy. They might not want to look like (the people looked) when I was in Dallas doing makeovers.

“It seems when I’m here in Austin, the women like to be a little more chic. It’s a very incredible market for us because people are interested as long as they can understand the message.”

The key to unlocking one’s personal sense of style is to understand who you are now, says Yamaguchi, whose client list has included Julia Roberts, Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, Heather Locklear, Miley Cyrus and Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson.

By embracing the person we are today, we’ll get a better look, he says. So that means not ripping out a photo from Vogue or InStyle to mimic a celebrity look or stroking your stylist’s ego by letting him give you a cut that’s not right for you.

While I’m sitting in the hot seat, Yamaguchi takes me through a typical session with a client:

“If I were to ask you, ‘Marques, a word or words to describe your personality,’ what words would you choose to describe Marques?” he says.

Oh, no, we’re going to talk about me in the third person. This can’t be good.

I pause and laugh to buy myself a few seconds. “I would say determined.”

“What color would you choose to describe ‘determined’?”

Another pause. “Red.”

“Perfect. It’s a fire element in feng shui. Give me a word to describe how Marques lives?”

“I live a hectic life.”

“What color would you choose to describe hectic?”

“Black.”

“What you’ve chosen is a water element.”

From those questions, he’s able to determine what styling tools he’ll use and what look might work. Even though I deal with fashion every day, Yamaguchi tells me that to find balance in my five elements (in Asian cultures, those are earth, fire, water, metal and wood), I should enhance my look with earth tones such as oranges and browns. Thankfully, he agrees that my new square glasses offer me a certain edge rather than my beloved Gucci glasses.

Ultimately, Yamaguchi believes that because our personalities and lifestyles are constantly changing, so is our personal sense of style. Therefore, a person might want to add highlights or lowlights this month, and later in the year, select a bob over a longer look.

“You have to have all of the five elements in harmony,” he says. “I’m not trying to box people in. I’m trying to get to know who they are at that time, and that can tell me a lot.

“Some people get married. People have children. Children move on. People get divorced. Some people’s wives are trying to be whoever their husbands want them to be. I think it’s important for them to be who they are spiritually.”

Yamaguchi is right. I haven’t taken it to a spiritual level, but our sentiment is the same. I always hope to encourage people to express themselves in the now. And that might mean taking a worthy risk such as a hair color change or finding the ideal color palette for a wardrobe.

“My goal is for people to be connected to who they are,” Yamaguchi says. “I don’t get tired of it. I get to see the story happen every day.”

A few generations ago, women visited their hair salons once a week for a shampoo and set. Then when perms became popular, visits decreased to every six weeks or so. In the 1980s and 1990s as hair products became increasingly more available, women styled their own hair. Today, most women visit their salon only every nine to 10 weeks to get a haircut and receive a touch-up of color. And the result, according to Gordon Nelson, international creative director of Regis Salons, is not so great.

“Most women are walking around with a hairstyle that went bad several weeks ago,” he says.

Since most of us realize we don’t have time to spend at the salon once a week, how can you tell when your hair goes “bad?” Nelson says it’s easy.

“It’s the day it doesn’t work, the day that it takes more product than usual to style,” he says. “That’s the day you need to get it cut. Don’t wait a week or two – you’ll be walking around with a style that doesn’t work.”

Nelson advises women to schedule their haircuts just like they schedule paying their bills and getting their cars serviced.

“You need to have a schedule for yourself,” he says, “and for your hair. Your face is the first thing people see when they look at you, and your hair frames your face. Having a schedule in place is easy and will keep you looking and feeling great.”

When we do arrive at the hair stylist, Nelson advises making the most of your time.

“A picture is worth a million words,” he says. “When you find a photo of a hairstyle you like, bring it to your stylist.”

If you’re looking for a new cut, Nelson says to tell your stylist what you want your hair to do and how you want it to look. And if you’re not sure what product you should be using, ask your stylist for advice.

“Pomades, waxes, gels, mousses and creams all work in different ways and do different things. Remember: before making up your mind be sure to smell the product.”

Other new hair trends on the horizon:

– Hair is going shorter.

“A lot of women are wearing their hair mid-length,” says Nelson. “This season they’ll be taking the plunge and going shorter.”

- More products using natural ingredients, like green tea and vitamin C.

“Out are the stiff, high and spiky looks,” says Nelson. “Look natural.”

- Flat irons are a staple in styling, whether you have short, straight, long or curly hair. Flat-ironed hair looks smoother, shinier and healthier.

– Blond will be the hair color of choice, says Nelson.

“Even men will be sitting in the stylist’s chair for color services.”

– Hairstyles are mimicking fashion trends.

Nelson’s prediction? There will be more earth tones and natural textures as well as layering.

Sharon Mosley is a former fashion editor of the Arkansas Gazette in Little Rock and executive director of the Fashion Editors and Reporters Association.

“Bangs look good on anyone,” says Lori Williams, owner and stylist at Coiffure on Phillips in Sioux Falls, S.D. And women are taking notice, following in the footsteps of celebrities such as Reese Witherspoon Tyra Banks and Heidi Klum, just to name a few.”I’ve been suggesting bangs for a long time,” Williams says. “It’s about 50-50 right now. But the more they see, the more they come around.”

Whether blunt cut and straight across like Wismer’s or swept off to one side, there’s a fringe for every woman’s style, says Christen Wermers, a stylist at Salon Artist Suites in Sioux Falls.

“You’re seeing angled bangs – they’re really in – with the longest piece right below the corner of the eye,” she says. “You’re seeing eyebrow-length bangs, like the Katie Holmes-style bangs. And you’re seeing a lot of wispy bangs.”

And you don’t have to be a 20- or 30-something celebrity to look good in bangs. Older women wear bangs well, too.

The shape of your face dictates what type of bangs will look best. If you have a rounder face, blunt-cut bangs across the forehead will look good, Wermers says. With a longer face, go for something more angled.

Consider, too, the length of your hair, Williams says. If you have a heart-shaped face, balance the bangs with hair that falls at least below the chin line.

“You don’t want to look like you’re wide and square at the top and narrow at the chin.” Same goes for those with square-shaped faces, she says. “You want the hair to come down past the jaw line to slenderize the squareness of face so it doesn’t look like you have a square box sitting on the face.”