Radient Reds

So its been a while since i last posted and in that time i have gone back to my trusty crop and dyed my hair red. And when i say red i mean red, like pillar box red! and it got me thinking about other red heads that i love.

Red has been the colour of the season now for at least the last 5 seasons, each time it takes on a new incantation from bright reds to coppers, or auburn to tangerine whatever the shade red is always the colour to be seen in.

so here are my pick of red head beauty's and a few tips on how to achieve the look for yourself:

So first up is Emma Stone, this Hollywood star has been every colour under the sun in the past few years and although she can pull off every hair hue i love her best as a red head. This deep auburn tone is one of my faves, i think the tone suits her complexion and really brings out her gorgeous eye's. To achieve this look ask your colourist for warm copper tones, this would work best on a brunette base but would also look good on naturally flame haired ladies. 

 Another red head i adore is Christina Hendricks. Not only has this mad men star got a gorgeous figure, and arguably the best boobs in showbiz, she also has amazing red hair. As a natural red head Christina does not need much help in achieving a fantastic colour but she probably enhances what god gave her with either a colour gloss or a semi permanent colour. this way she can enhance her natural tones without committing to a new colour. I personally love her hair colour here as it is probably nearest to her natural tone and i really love the copper hues that appear in naturally red hair. To achieve this look you want to be staying away from reds as such and aiming for copper and warm tones, maybe even a hint of gold depending on your skin tone.

 Now its no secret that i adore the hair chameleon that is Rihanna but i do love her as a red haired the most. this tone is one of my favourites and very similar to the colour i am sporting myself at the moment. Even though Rihanna was primary red for a while i prefer this slightly softer raspberry red on the star. when going for a bold colour like this is important to get the undertones right. A very bright red wont work on everybody so if you are paler or have a more yellow tone to your skin i would advise going for a more violet red or something with more blue undertones to stop you looking washed out. A good stylist will help you match your colour to your skin tone so the only limit really is how bright you are willing to go.

 Known as the ginger one from girls aloud for a while it took Nicola Roberts a while to become comfortable with her flamed haired beauty but once she embraced it we got some fantastic looks. This is my personal favourite, i love the dip dyed ombre look with the blond on the end of her naturally red locks. Its adds interest as well as texture and movement. This look is quite easy to achieve on natural hair but may take more work on hair that has has quite a few colour treatments. The technique can be applied to any hair colour and could look really nice on brunette hair with warmer red ends. Your stylist will be able to talk you through a choice of colours depending on if you want the look to be natural like Nicolas above or more stand out.

 Another copper haired lady i admire is singer Florence Welsh, the star has always been known for her fiery locks and has tried a few different shades from a deeper red to this lovely copper colour. This look is my personal favourite as i love the vibrancy of the colour and the copper tones and i think it goes well with her pale complexion. Similar to a bright red getting the right tone of a bright copper is important to stop you looking too pale. Your stylist should be able to suggest tones for you that enhance your natural colouring but still be vibrant and on trend. 

More well known as a blonde bombshell January Jones made the change to a red head earlier this year and i personally love it. I really like the tangerine hair hue on the star and this colour has been seen on many fashion forward girls. I love it as it is a bit stronger than a strawberry blonde and has more of a high fashion look to it. It is however a tricky trend to pull off and it would work better on already blonde girls. If you fancy a change using a semi or crazy colour is a good choice as it will just fade out back to the blonde if you don't like it. Peach and tangerine blondes are going to be a big look next season.


The one down side to being a red head is that reds can fade out quite quickly especially very bright or fashion shades so i would recommend a good quality salon colour shampoo as most of the time these guarantee your colour for up to six weeks and contain less colour stripping chemicals. i would also recommend if you have a very vibrant shade to use a colour gloss or semi colour in between salon visits (or these can be done in a salon to prolong colour vibrancy) to help stop colours fading.

I hope these flame haired beauties have inspired you to go out and try it for yourself as its a lie about blondes having more fun!

Hair icon: Rihanna

Rihanna has been on the music scene for a fair few years now changing from a fresh faced teen into pops bad girl. Never one to shy away from the latest trends and even set them herself Rihanna has always been one to try something new. This means that along the way she has had some fantastic hair, and some not so good, here i take a look at what i feel are her best looks.

 This is one of my favorite looks on RiRi, in fact i love it so much I'm currently rocking this cut myself.  Rihanna is blessed with a heart shaped face which means a lot of hairstyles will compliment her face. This cut is particularly good though as it highlights her small features. It is also a good reflection of her personality as its quite edgy and a bit different. I also love Rihanna when she has her natural dark hair as it really compliments her natural skin tone.

 Reading my earlier posts most of you will guess why i picked this next image of RiRi as i love retro glamour.the reason i love this look so much is the colour of her hair. its such a classic look but the colour brings it bang up to date. 

 I also really love this look on the singer as it sort of has a retro feel to it. Hair accessories have made a big comeback recently and i love how the bow finishes off the whole look of the hair. its nice to see the hair in glossy curls too as it gives this look a carefree edge.

 This is rock chick RiRi at her best, i love the edgyness of this look, It really takes confidence like Rihannas to pull off an edgy look like this. It has turned her crop from boring into amazing by applying a lot of back combing and hold spray!

 I think this has to be my favorite look on the singer. Its a classic sleek bob but funked up in the usual Rihanna way. i love he asymmetric line to it and how sleek it sits. I also love that the colour has a shimmer of warmth to it. 

 Not the best photo of the singer but i really love her look here. I like how she has experimented with the red tone on her hair adding a more plum colour to the underneath. The two tone look adds interest to what otherwise could be quite a boring cut.

 Another up do i love on the singer is this one she wore to the met ball. The shapes created by her hair play with the fact she has had an undercut, it makes it a feature of the up do.

 Notice how there are no pictures of Rihanna as a blonde on her? well lets face it when she went blonde earlier this year her hair did not look good. the tone was all wrong and the cut was way too 80's ( and not in a good retro way) so i was thrilled when she showcased this dark do when promoting her film. i love that she has gone back to her dark roots but funked up this long style with an undercut.

I love this look on the singer, ok so its not a practical everyday look but it is amazing. Taken from the princess of china video it takes its insipration from Geisha girls and origarmi, its a true hair piece of art.

Always one to try something new be it cut or colour Rihanna is always ahead of the fashion pack, where she leads thousands of others follow. This is what makes Rihanna one of my hair icons!

Hair-spiration

I like to change my hair all the time, in the past 18 months i have rocked 2 pixie crops (one really short) an asymmetric crop (think Frankie from the Saturdays) a shoulder length one length style, the same look with a fringe and now i'm back to the look i always end up with, a jaw length bob with a full fringe (think Cleopatra). Along the way i have been many colours, Brown, Chocolate Brown, Reddy Brown, Red, Brown with Red stripes, Black and now Purple/Brown with a bright Red fringe. I have been all of these things because I get bored with my hair so easily! what i really want is long dark hair down to the middle of my back, but it always gets to my shoulders and then i want to lop it all off again! but this time i am going to persist and i will grow it, and i will grow it past my shoulders! I'm hoping that by chronicling my progress and hair woes on my blog it will make me stick at it this time!

so at the moment my hair looks a bit like this:

(i'm the brunette and although this photo was taken last year i'm back at the same style now)

I also have a red fringe, and its very red:

I'm loving this look at the moment as it has temporarily distracted me from how bored I am with my hair. So hair grows at about 6 inches a year so i'm hoping that by Christmas mine will just be at my shoulders, what i need to do then is resist the urge to cut it all off! i'm trying to keep my hair in really good condition so that i can keep it long as the hair will be healthy. My problem i that my hair is so thick that it grows really slooooooooowly and i get bored! so i am going to look to these three lovely ladies for some hair-spiration:

So its going to be a good 2-3 years to get my hair to this length but I'm going to keep these photos on my mirror as something to aspire to and hopefully with the help of my blog and a lot of will power and hope i will get my hair to my dream length!

Competition time....

So i got through to the final of my college competition, the brief was to create a day or night look using whatever inspiration we wanted. So as you can see from my previous blogs I have a love for retro styles, so I chose the theme of retro glamor for my look. I looked to celebrities like Amber Heard, Scarlet Johanson and Katy Perry who have all been working the retro look on the red caret recently.

I love the shapes involved in retro hair and there is something so sexy about a bit of red lippie too! so with all that in mind i set off to create my look!

I decided to create a quiff at the front as big hair is always good in retro hair as well as quiffs being one of the big trends in s/s 2012, so i back brushed the top section of the hair and then smoothed it all back and secured it at the back of the head with some grips.

I then created curls using the traditional pin curling technique, i didn't just want to create uniform curls i like the look of the organic curl you get when using the pin curling technique. Plus it is authentic to the era i was trying to create as I'm sure they would us GHD's back then!

Next I created a bow (see earlier blog for how to create one) I added the bow as retro hair tends to contain some form of structure but i wanted to keep this look more up to date and with people like GaGa wearing bows i felt it was the perfect combination of the retro structure and the modern twist i was looking for.

I styled the look with a leopard pencil skirt (classic skirt cut plus the sexiness of the print) a white shirt tied at the wait (50's style) black gloves for some elegance and huge shades and red lippie to create the retro glamour look.

There was 18 of us competing so the competition was pretty tough, and although i didn't win i had lots of fun preparing my model for the catwalk and it was a great experience should i chose to compete in hair competitions later on in my career.

Hair icon: Katy Perry

Hello, so its been a while since my last post but i promise to keep my blog updated more from now on! I'm going to post about my hair icons and who's style that i like. As a hairdresser you take inspiration from everywhere but as celebrities are in the news so much its easy to see there style evolution and many clients also ask for celebrity styles.

so my hair icon today is Katy Perry, i have been a fan of hers for a while as i really like the retro hair and fashion looks and she does them really well. I also like the way she is not afraid to take risks and create some really out there stage looks.

so here is a selection of my favorite KP looks:

 Here is the most recent photo of Miss Perry, as you can see she has ditched her blue locks in favour of a darker longer style. I must admit i do prefer her with darker hair. she has toned down the blue to a navy as well as rocking the dip dye trend with subtle purple ends. the look has clearly been created with extensions as she only had a bob the other day, so who knows whats next for KP but I'm really loving this look at the moment.

 For many years Katy was a long raven haired beauty and I think this is one of my favorite looks that she wore to Paris fashion week 2 years ago. I love the softness of the curls and how she has swept them over one shoulder. the colour really suits her as its such a contrast to her porcelain skin and blue eyes. A good tip if you want to make an impact is to pick a very contrasting hair colour to your natural shade just be careful that it doesn't wash you out.

 I love, love, love KP's hair like this, her short dark bob that she was rocking in the early part of her career is still one of her best looks in my opinion. It really frames her face well and the way it is styled still looks a bit retro but you can tell from the cut that if she wore it poker straight it would have a bit of a rock chick vibe.

 I'm not sure how i feel about Katy as a blonde, i know this is her natural shade but for me she looks much better dark. however having said that I do like this look on her, the sharp bob was such a contrast from the dark retro curls she had been wearing for so long. She is naturally very pretty and this bob just frames her features perfectly.

 Katy's pink hair phase whilst she was promoting 'the one that got away' has to be one of my favorite looks, i really loved the bubblegum hair hue but most of all i loved all the retro hair shapes that she was rocking. this one from the X Factor has to be the best one.

I didn't really know what to think when Miss Perry first dyed her hair blue but I have to sat this look has really grown on me. The one thing that annoyed me though is how bad her roots are, if you earn that much money surely you can afford to keep you roots in check?? however I did really like this look and the way she experimented with cool up do's during the blue hair phase. this look was one of my favorites as the quiff was bang on trend for s/s 2012 but she made the look her own as always.

The reason Katy Perry is one of my hair heroes is that she isn't afraid to take risks, she tries lots of new looks and colours. I feel that she may have the same mentality that i do, which is hair is just hair, it grows back, you can change the colour so you may as well have a bit of fun!

Beautiful Bows!

The Hair style i am loving at the moment is bows! GaGa did it and now everyone is doing it! its actually quite simple to do but looks really effective! it can either be worn edgy on the top of your head or pretty when combined with curls. below is some images of hair bows i love and also a little video of how to do one at home!

 Here is my hair bow i created on my block at college when i had a free afternoon, it was quite long hair so made a big bow but if you want a smaller one just use less hair.

I love this hair style and think it would be perfect for a prom or bridesmaid style. I used this look on a friend of mine but made it a bit more mused up and bed head to give it a retro pin up girl vibe.

 

 This look makes a Bow look quite edgy when paired with bold make up and a scraped back more structured bow.

The lady that started it all off Ms GaGa herself! her bow is probably made of fake hair as she famously wears a lot of wigs so if your hair isn't long enough or you find them hard to do there are a lot of good fake pre-made bows out there.

 

This is a really dainty bow made using just a few strands of hair. The character of Blair Waldorf in Gossip Girl recently wore a hairstyle combining lots of these little bows. but really frustratingly i cant seem to find an image of it. these little bows are great as they work on shorter hair too.

Above is a video i found on youtube of how to make a hair bow, there are lots of them on there and its good to watch a few as everyone has different tips and tricks, she doesnt end up with the best bow at the end of this but i think that it is explained the best. 

hope this has given you some hair-spiration! go and try it, its as easy as a pony tail once you know how and will look fab with cute summer dresses as the weather gets warmer!

C'est moi!

   Hello!

So I know its a bit cheesy (and egotistical) but I thought I would make my first post about me! I'm 23 and a trainee hair stylist! i am going to use this blog to share everything hair that i love and pass on some tips and tricks as well as chronicle my inspiration and also my progress as a stylist! I'm new to blogging so it may take me a while to figure it all out but hopefully it all goes ok! oh and here is a picture of me too, just so you know what i look like (i'm the girl in case you were wondering!) :)