Fashion and Hair Style Category

curly hair can sometimes be a challenge. But it is also one of the most beautiful textures of hair to have. One of the main things you can do to keep your curly hair healthy is to give it plenty of moisture. A deep moisturizing treatment once a month at a salon or at home is essential for curly hair to control frizz and dryness. Use a moisturizing conditioner each time you shampoo and use frizz preventative products and styling products made for curly hair to give your curls definition and shine. You can wear your hair short, medium or long. Curly hair doesn’t mean you’re stuck in a rut; curly hair gives you many styling choices.

Hair Styles for Curly Hair

A very neat hairstyle for short curly hair is a pixie. Pixies were popular in the 1960’s and 1970’s and their appeal has never faded from fashion. You can have a closed cropped pixie or leave your hair a bit longer. Use a styling paste to define your curls or give you a smoother look. Bangs are a cute addition and your stylist can tailor your cut to your facial shape.

Bobs are some of the most classic hairstyles and have been popular since the 1920’s. Have your stylist cut your hair a bit longer than you want it since curly hair draws up as it dries. You can have a graduated bob with the back shorter than the front; a stacked bob gives you a slightly more defined lock than a graduated bob and is also a good choice for short curly hair. Bobs can be very short, above your jaw line, at your jaw line or below your jaw line depending on how long you want your hair to be.

You may also want to consider a layered look. Layered cuts bring out the natural curl and body of your hair. If you opt for a layered cut ask your stylist for professional products to define your curls. This is a great cut to bring out the natural beauty of curly hair and is practically maintenance free. With a layered cut you will be able to wash and go.

For a more polished look choose a medium length or long blunt cut. The longer you have your hair – the looser you curl will be. This is because the weight of your hair pulls your curls down and makes them looser. Use a large barrel curling iron to define your curls. Always use heat protective products before you use any high heat tools like curling irons and flat irons to protect your hair from breakage and damage. You can control the tightness of your curls with the diameter of the barrel of your curling iron.

For special occasions, pull your hair up in a messy bun and let your curls fall. Up-dos are great hairstyles for curly hair. You can wear your hair half up and let your natural curls fall down your back. Add some pretty hair clips or pins for an extra bit of glam. Curly hair is beautiful. Embrace your natural curls and try out some of these neat hairstyles for curly hair.

Successfully recoloring your dyed hair depends on a number of things, including the type of hair color product you first used, the health of your hair, and how long ago you dyed the hair. Of course, there are quite a few other factors you should consider before choosing to undergo a second dyeing. This being said, here are some tips and guidelines that will improve your chances of recoloring success at home.

Current Health of Hair

When you’re looking into recoloring your hair, you should make sure that your hair is going to be strong enough to handle having more chemicals added to it. After all, the last thing you want to do is wreck the health of your hair by recoloring it too soon. If you’ve gone to a salon for professional coloring, you can revisit the same salon and ask them to perform a recolor two weeks after the initial job.

Assuming that you’ve done your own color at home, wait two weeks between performing another dyeing. If your hair is breaking off easily, dry and/or or has an increased amount of split ends, do not perform a recolor. Instead of recoloring, opt to use a hot oil treatment, or quality deep conditioner to help repair the damage first.

Timeline For Recoloring

If you’ve picked a hair color that looks completely unattractive on you, or you simply want a different look, there are a couple of options to choose from. Assuming you used semi or demi-permanent hair dye, you should first shampoo a few times to see if your color fades to a lighter, more appealing shade.

If this doesn’t work, you should wait two weeks before attempting to fix the bad dye job. The reason why is because choosing to re-dye your hair too soon after an initial color treatment risks further damage to the hair follicles – leaving your strands severely dry and brittle. A couple of other things to worry about with hasty recolorings include purchasing the wrong color for your hair, and your hair absorbing too much or too little color due to the condition it’s in.

The at-home hair dyeing systems suggest waiting four-to-six weeks between any big changes to your hair; this rule also includes perms and highlights. The four-to-six weeks between color or other chemical treatments is the amount of time that your roots typically need to grow back out. You don’t want to use too many chemical treatments on your hair in a short amount of time because it can cause major damage to your hair.

Semi-Permanent Product

You can recolor hair after 6-to-12 washes when you use a semi-permanent hair dye. To help the color last even longer than 6-to-12 washes, use products designed for color-treated hair. But please use caution when recoloring your hair before the color has washed/faded out since this can put your hair’s health at risk.

Demi-Permanent Product

If you’ve used demi-permanent dye to color your hair, you need to hold out on recoloring your hair for 2 or 3 weeks to protect its health. If you’re experimenting with new hair colors, using a semi or demi-permanent hair color is the best option; once you’ve found a color you’d like to keep, begin using a permanent hair dye for longer-lasting color.

Permanent Product

The reason permanent hair dye won’t wash out or fade is because the chemicals used are able to penetrate the outer layer of the hair shaft. Once the hair has been penetrated, the natural pigments dissolve, which allows them to be replaced with pigments in the color solution. For better or for worse, this process permanently changes the color of hair strands.

If you’ve found a color that you like, and want to continue using the product, a permanent hair color is the best way to go because it won’t wash out of your hair. Permanent hair color allows you to go 4-to-6 weeks without coloring your hair again. And the nice thing is that you’ll know when you need a recolor as soon as the roots begin to grow in.

If you choose to recolor your hair before the end of the four-to-six week waiting period, you will have to use deep conditioning treatments to replenish the moisture taken away by the chemicals in the hair dye or chemical treatment. Deep conditioning products aren’t always the solution for keeping hair healthy after multiple color treatments, so be cautious not to over-process your hair.

Root Touch-Up

If you’ve colored your hair with permanent color, you’ll have growth showing in your roots. And this means that you’ll want to perform a root touch-up in between hair colorings.

But remember, don’t use anything other than products designed for root touch-ups since the root touch-up products only affect the surface of hair strands. Instead, try using root touch-up pens like the one made by Oscar Blandi called Pronto Colore Root Touch Up & Highlight Pen. It comes in a variety of shades, and is easy to use. Other options for root touch-ups include the following: Clairol Root Touch-Up, TouchBack (in a variety of shades) or L’OREAL Feira Excellence to-go.

Basic Information

If you’ve found a home hair coloring product that you enjoy using and offers good results, continue using this product according to the directions, and also keep your hair’s health in mind. It’s easy to damage your hair, but it isn’t easy to repair the damage.

Along with this thought, some hair dyes are more harsh than others, and you might go months before noticing hair damage. To keep from exposing your hair and skin to harsh chemicals too often, wait as long as possible between recoloring your hair.

Don’t continue using products that cause skin burning, rashes, or other forms of allergic reactions from ingredients in the hair dye. As long as you keep all of the aforementioned advice in mind, you should be safe to start recoloing your hair.

Have you ever heard the saying ‘head over heels in love’? Well, it doesn’t always refer to a woman’s love of a man. It may refer to a much stronger love – a woman’s love of trendy shoes. Women across the world have always been love-sick over these trends. For this article, let’s talk about the shoe trends from last year to this year.

In the fall, boot trends are always the thing to watch. Many women were very glad because comfortable flat boots and riding boots remained in style. You probably saw many trendy suede and leather flat boots in nude and neutral colors, which easily matched all outfits. Many of these suede and leather flat boots had tassels or harness details, which I think, added an interesting touch.

In addition to these boots, cowboy boots also appeared this past fall season. The famous Frye cowboy boots were seen on many celebrity feet in magazines and television. Cowboy and flat riding boots, in general, are trendy to wear with jeans or leggings tucked into them, as well as with dresses and opaque or patterned tights. Ugg boots were not as trendy this year as they were in the past several years. Other than boots, ballet flats were also a popular trend this fall. Ballet flats were commonly worn with skinny jeans, leggings and tights.

In the winter, many women were worried about wearing their trendy shoes as they fear it will get ruined by snow and rain. However, a true fashionista learns how to manage and wears their trendy shoes in the winter. Actually, being caught in ugly shoes is much greater than their fear of ruining their trendy shoes. A ruined trendy shoe can always be replaced, but the ruined reputation of a fashionista is incurable. This is based from a general observation that I had.

This winter, suede heels were very popular. However, the biggest shoe trend this past winter was colorful pumps. You could find high-heeled pumps in every color imaginable this past winter. The pop of color was a great way to spruce up drab winter outfits in gray and black. High-heeled, knee-length leather boots with tabs to pull them up were also very popular. These could be seen worn with skinny jeans tucked into them or with tights and a cute dress.

Another boot trend this past winter was ankle boots. Both flat and wedge heel ankle boots enjoyed popularity this past winter. You also probably witnessed many heels adorned with metal spikes, which gave the classic heel a sexy dominatrix vibe. Additionally, shoes with fur in cheetah and leopard prints were very popular this winter. If you bought a cheetah or leopard printed fur shoe, you may want to hang on to them for next year because they are projected to remain popular next fall and winter.

Spring is one of the hottest seasons for trendy shoes. Last spring, one of the most popular trends was nude shoes. Shoes in every shade of beige could be spotted on the shelves of high end designer boutiques and on low end retailers. These nude shoes made fashionistas so happy because they literally matched everything without even trying.

Peep toed pumps were also popular again this year. Peep toed pumps could be found in a cheerful array of colors and prints last spring. Ballet flats were also popular for the spring, but that was no surprise as ballet flats have been trendy for several years now. I have seen a lot of shoes with perforations this past spring, which I had not seen in quite some time. Casual sneakers with rubber toes (think reminiscent of the classic “Chuck” style Converse sneaker) were also popular this spring. Another popular sneaker trend was a cross between a sneaker and a boating shoe, which was popularly seen in shades of navy, red and white.

Summer is the time for open toed sandals to show off those pedicures. One of the biggest summer trends this year has been the “caged” high-heeled shoes, which feature a crisscross style of leather across the foot and ankle, resulting to a foot looking like it is trapped in a cage. These sexy little caged shoes have been seen on the feet of many celebrities; they were all over magazines. Fortunately, they are relatively easy to walk in because the strap around the ankle helps fashionistas keep their balance. Falling in heels is never sexy, no matter how trendy the heels are.

Another popular trend last summer was colorful sandals. However, colorful sandals are usually trendy in the summer, so there is really no surprise there. Braided flat leather sandals in nude colors have been very trendy this summer, as well. Additionally, wedges and espadrilles have been very popular for the summer. Wedges and espadrilles are fabulous because they are easy to walk in and you never have to worry about getting a heel stuck in the grass at an outdoor party. As such, most fashionistas fully embrace this trend. Cork heels and cork wedges have also been very popular this summer.

One trendy shoe that has been popular for all seasons is the rubber rain boot. I am not talking about your father’s old rain boots here. It’s about the bright colored rain boots with cute prints all over them. This trend likely caught on because of functionality, rather than cuteness, but it’s probably still safe to call them cute. Especially in the cities, you could spot fashionistas strut their stuff in rain boots with dresses, jeans, leggings and even tights. The Hunter brand rain boots have been very popular. Unfortunately, the Hunter boots can run around $100 in price. The good thing though is it has been easy to find cheaper boots made by other brands that are just as cute.

Finding your own fashion style is as much an exercise in self-discovery as it is in choosing patterns and prints. Our clothes speak so much about us, and whether we like it or not, there is quite a bit of truth to the old saying that ‘the clothes make the man (or woman)’. In a sense, what we wear conveys something about us to the world around us; it becomes a ‘visible bio’ for onlookers, and can give people clues about our personalities, preferences, and inhibitions (or lack thereof) as it relates to self-expression.

When you first set out to discover your own fashion style, you may find it a bit frustrating in the beginning, because you may experience a certain amount of worry about what other people’s opinions of your clothes may be, and it can cause you to make preemptive adjustments to your clothing choices – you may not pick this sweater because your friend once remarked that she doesn’t like that particular color, or you may not pick that pair of jeans because your co-worker once said that he thought those kinds of jeans were tacky. As trivial as these things may seem, they can actually cause you to lose a little bit of your own individuality, because you’re operating more from a reactionary mode (based on other people’s opinions) versus really digging deep and finding out what you actually like. In a certain sense, it takes ‘guts’ to find your own fashion style, and you have to be willing to put yourself out there and allow yourself the freedom of expression through choosing clothes that truly reflect your preferences.

So how do you actually go about developing your own sense of fashion? Research will be a very important part of the process. Fashion magazines, television shows, and even visiting local clothing stores can provide you with all kinds of ideas. Many people look to celebrities to get a feel for the latest fashion trends, and it wouldn’t hurt to check out what the latest and greatest Hollywood A-listers are sporting just to get some ideas. There is a caveat to this, however: If all you do is simply copy what someone else is wearing, you’re not really tapping into your own sense of style; you’re instead taking all of your cues from someone else without really consulting your own preferences to see if it’s something that you actually like. It is definitely useful to look to others to gain inspiration, but the way that you interpret that inspiration makes all the difference.

Research has shown that most people tend to dress in a manner that’s comfortable to them, sometimes at the expense of staying ‘current’ or staying ‘with the times’. Examples abound of people who seem to be stuck in a past decade with their clothing choices. Interestingly enough, many people actually dress in a manner that reflects the most exciting time of their lives, even if that time was three decades ago. Dressing in those outdated clothes is a way for them to keep that part of their past ‘alive’, and their clothes actually provide a level of comfort for them, and can conjure up positive feelings of nostalgia. This is a great example of how clothing choices can be a form of self-expression, even if that expression reflects only a certain period of a person’s life.

Your own fashion style is, in many ways, linked to your self-image and your overall perception of who you are as a person. If you consider yourself to be a conservative person, then you will more than likely choose an overall fashion style that will not be too revealing or too provocative. On the other hand, if you’re an outgoing and fun-loving person who doesn’t mind ‘flaunting it if you’ve got it’, you may be a little more liberal with what you choose to wear. Even the types of materials that you choose can make a statement about your personality. Everyone knows that black leather makes a bold and somewhat jolting statement all by itself. Fabrics like wool or cashmere can convey a warm, comforting, and inviting personality. Loose and flowing materials like silk can express more of a free-spirited attitude, while outfits that are mainly made of denim can convey a more no-nonsense and tougher aspect of one’s personality.

Color is a very important factor in finding your own fashion style as well. Bold and bright colors usually denote a more open and lively personality, while someone who always wears muted and nondescript colors (such as gray) can seem to come off as cool and unaffected. Red has always been seen as a ‘power’ color, blue as a ‘cool’ color, and yellow as a ‘happy’ color. These are just some examples of how colors can communicate visual messages without us having to say one word. So when you’re developing your own style, it would be a good idea to do some research on which colors communicate which message, so that you don’t accidentally make the wrong statement, or wear something that does not reflect your true personality.

Once again, it’s all about how you choose to describe yourself to the world around you. What would you like to say by way of the clothes that you wear? What type of statement do you want to make? The old adage ‘Know thyself’ actually becomes very important in this process. It’s very difficult for you to select clothes and fashion accessories that reflect or express your personality if you’re not even certain what that personality is. A good suggestion would be to take some time and write down some of your favorite attributes about yourself. What do you like about you? What do you really think makes you unique? What type of personality best describes you? Then go out to your local department stores or check out some of your favorite online retailers and select the clothes that truly seem to ‘click’ with what you’ve written down. Whatever it is, it does you no good to be ashamed of who you really are. Who knows, you may just find true freedom of expression through fashion!