Make-Up Monday: Hair Today, Hair Tomorrow

Following S’ recent blog about Vintage Hair, I realised that I am intrigued about people’s haircuts, hair cutting habits and why we don’t think about our hair as much as we do about clothes/make-up.

Celebrities are always reinventing their hair, and because a hairdresser friend cuts my hair, I worry that I get complacent about it. Scarlett Johannsen’s change from blonde glamour to brown poker straight caused quite a tabloid stir:

I got my hair cut last week. I tend to do this every 8-10 weeks and I travel from London to Sussex, to see a friend of mine who just so happens to be a hairdresser. He has been cutting my hair for about five years now and I have stuck with him because he comes to my home. This means I don’t have to endure staring at myself in a large mirror; I don’t know what it is about those mirrors but no matter how much make-up I put on, the person looking back at me is usually dishevelled. It also means I avoid the inevitable questions about my holiday plans.

But when someone has been cutting your hair for this long you can get complacent because you’re in your comfort zone. I have been wearing my wavy hair in a jaw length bob for some time and due to a short attention span, I am constantly changing the way I style and colour it. I do this to reflect the seasons.

Celebrities do this a lot to keep up with the trends and it is a great way to reinvent your ‘look’. Rihanna is a great example:

Rihanna gets cool with her chic, short up do

Then there are celebs like Jennifer Aniston who really are known for their hairstyles, amongst other acting type things

From long...

...to bob.

It should be simple really, we wear our hair every day, so surely we should spend some decent dosh on it and to keep reinventing it in the same way we might our wardrobe. It is that one accessory or piece of clothing that can never be put aside, thinking well maybe I will wear it next season.

 V

Our fourth Come Dine With Me

Another triumph, the fourth instalment of our amateur version of popular tv program Come Dine With Me occurred this week, hosted by our friend Frances. The menu:

Chorizo and mushroom bruschetta

Pan fried duck with potatoes lyonnaise

Chocolate mole tart with apple compote

In what is now a traditional CDWM fail, we wolfed down our starter before anyone could take any pictures. It was delicious though, as was the rest. We are getting some amazing feedings from this.

Potatoes lyonnaise - no cream as we have a lactose intolerant.

Quack.

The chocolate tart.

My attempts to get a pile of tart onto my plate. Inside was gooey chocolate goodness.

As you can see, we really had to force down the chocolate tart.

Dinner party tips: the table was decorated with sprigs of rosemary, which I really liked as you could rub them and get a wonderful smell. It hadn’t occurred to me to do something with smells when it came to setting the table. Frances also chose perfect wines for each course, something well beyond my abilities, and actually made pastry.

All our photos of the guests came out blurry but in this picture you can at least see how I did my hair, which is the MAIN THING. An awesomely cool time was had by all – only two to go now!

S

LFW – Luella takes girliness up to 11

I’ve liked Luella for many a season now and although this collection isn’t as good as her previous ones, by popular communion, it’s still pretty brimming with things I would like to own. I’m crazy for Mad Men-type waisted dresses with girlish details and this heart cut-out is the perfect example of it. Yes, it would date like wildfire but it’s covetable.

The separates have more wear in them and overall this is a really commercial collection. Being commercial can be praise or insult depending on who you talk to but personally I love clothes that summon up that feeling you had as a kid and all you wanted was a glitter nailpolish but your mum was a feminist and wanted you to learn that beauty comes from within. Admittedly it was a good life lesson and that wanting was almost certainly better than the having.

But that’s what Luella does to me. Pure, animal, tweenage desire for stuff. The accessories are the essence of this: pretty little things you want to save your pennies for, buy and treasure, possibly in a display cabinet. On the other hand, Luella is bucking the trend for stripper heels and making demure little shoes with bouquets, and frilly chiffon clutches instead of spiked and studded ones.

One of my favourite parts is the hair, because I have been doing the topknot look anyway and now I have designer justification to add massive bows to it. It will look like I follow trends, which I am ambivalent about. Or maybe I should wear it with denim cutoffs, massive platform heels, holey tights, a drapey vest that shows my bra and something studded and just embrace the whole look of 2009.

S

Packing for Holidays, Part II

It’s just two weeks until I leave work behind for yet another holiday – I am spoiled for them this summer. I only just got back from spending time in this beautiful house near Biarritz:

And for it I ended up packing this little lot:

Some of my favourite t-shirts came along for the ride. I’m a skinny jeans and t-shirt person until Judgement Day (although I wish was a navy trousers and Isabel Marant blazer person). I can’t actually get in my usual skinny jeans from Gap anymore so I am sticking to the much more forgiving jeggings, but the principle is the same. These got ironed before I packed them, just so you know. Above you can see my beloved Luella fox t-shirts, a perfect stripey one from Marimekko, a blue striped one from Gap and blogger’s delight, the thin drapey white t-shirt, which I got from H&M.

My next trip is to Newquay, which isn’t very demanding style-wise, but after that I’m off to Helsinki, where I have to be viewed by my female relatives, especially my ex-model grandmother, and of course stand up to the general standards of Scandinavia. I’m going in for some more fakey blondeness this week (woohoo! I’m addicted to it now, like I understand people get addicted to tattoos) and so yet again I will probably have to readjust my clothes parameters so they make sense against the yellowness. I think that tackier and blowsier my hair, the more I can get away with dowdy, neat bits of clothing, which is what I like. I love it when I see a girl on the tube with a thin gold chain around her neck, wearing something like a navy jumper and jeans and making it look stylish. It’s so beautifully understated. One day perhaps I will have that much self-restraint.

S

Whiter shades of pale

This is my blonde ambition right here:

From Elinkan, a Swedish blogger (well…clearly), who embraces her natural pallor. I would like to get my hair this pale and squeaky clean. Where has this urge to be entirely white all over come from? Looking back at photos of myself with brown hair feels really weird now.

I am getting myself used to have tiny roots because I can’t afford to have them redone every three weeks as I would like. I realise that the above ghostly goodness is probably not possible but I like looking. The blog, which is in Swedish but worth looking at for the pictures (or if you read Swedish I suppose) shows that it is all about the Swedish colours blue and yellow and not red for blondes.

S

Going blonde

Well, I’m now booked in to make the big leap into the colour unknown. By the end of next Tuesday I will, hairdresser permitting, have yellow hair.

I’ve had a few different hair colours in my life – starting off as a cool blonde baby, going brunette as I got older, dying my poor hair red in most of its incarnations from flame to ginger, moving on to jet black hair with a heavy fringe and most recently experimenting with going lighter in gentle increments.

Blonde seems like a natural counterpart to the navy, black and grey I tend to wear a lot now but I understand that with lighter hair you need to wear more makeup and when you factor in my pale skin, there are probably some colours in clothing that are better or worse.

I will report back with pictures when the deed is done and may need some help working out what on earth to wear! My observations on the street lead me to think that purple would be a bad choice.

S

Summer hair

I was comparing hair lengths with my friends on Saturday (this being the sort of thing girls do) and mine was neither trendily short nor beach-babe-ishly long. It was just in the middle. How can I make my hair more interesting? I have been harbouring thoughts of going blonder for some time and I know that I need to get it done professionally to get the right effect. I don’t want to be just any blonde, it needs to be just the right mix of LA yellow and Scandinavian white. I’ve found a picture of pretty much the most perfect blonde hair:

Soft, golden, not dried-out looking. Okay so the maintenance would be a pain but it only has to be for the summer and then maybe I could go golden-brown again in the autumn. Maybe when I get paid next month…

S

Wistful listful

Now that I have a job I can once again start my favourite hobby of daydreaming about stuff I want to buy. Ranging from the expensive dreambuy, through to the little treats, this is my list.

£££

• Ferragamo Varina flat pumps (£225!)
• A brown leather Miu Miu bag. Even if I could afford this ever, they don’t seem to have any pleasing dark brown leather ones at the moment.
• New GHDs.

££

• Lancome Adaptive foundation.
• Clinique facewash.
• Shu Uemura eyelash curlers.
• A haircut that will make me look exactly like last season’s Balmain catwalk models.

£

• Organic semi-skimmed milk. The drink of the gods.

Handle & Spout

During the many years I have been mentally constructing the Perfect Nude Outfit I have always kept an eye out for the special elements that will make up PNO. Today I found this lovely hairband with chiffon flower. One day, when PNO becomes a reality, I hope it can take its place in PNO.

S

Hairband from www.handlespout.com

Hair

Karl Lagerfeld Sping 2009

I’m irritated as today I dropped a second expensive mascara down the back of a radiator and now whenever I do my makeup I can see a designer makeup graveyard down there, winking at me gleefully (gold YSL packaging) while melting all over the pipes. I do love doing my makeup but I’m a bit clumsy at it.

My friend Karla says that you are either a hair, makeup or clothes person at heart, although I’d add that one can be a shoe or a bag afficionado as well, and I’d say I’m definitely a clothes person. However, since my taste in clothes has started leaning towards the more restrained end of things, I’ve become more interested in grooming. It’s a lot more time-consuming than putting together outfits, which is instinctive – it comes from the heart! With hair, you have to spend quite a lot of time for what seems a very subtle result. But when you see someone with that pefect hair it brings a whole outfit together, it makes casual clothes look beautiful. You know that perfect hair, just matte enough but smooth and shiny, falling just the right way? I’d like that but I’ve never had the time or inclination and I might start a New Year’s resolution to do that – it’s free!

S