Let’s Talk About Balance

A popular topic around beauty blogs and magazines is that of face shapes and determining which cuts/makeup/etc.etc.etc. is right for you.  Now, I am a little bit untraditional.  I didn’t grow up feeling like I had to look more Caucasian or like Barbie.  I felt no pressure to wear makeup or even really to style my hair, although trying to keep my skin healthy and have a good cut was important to me.  I never remember people telling me that I needed to look a particular way.

Modern style isn’t about looking a uniform way.  It isn’t about everyone having one haircut, or one of five haircuts.  People are even willing to embrace their natural texture.  And yet, sometimes the verbiage I hear when discussing face shapes in the salon is very outdated.

First off, I don’t believe in using hair to conceal.  I believe in using hair to balance.  It sounds like a meaningless linguistic difference, but really I think it denotes an important shift in mindset.  If we believe our faces behold some defect, and our mission is to disguise ourselves, that puts a limit on the joy you can get from your haircut because you feel like, “Well, I really want ______, but because of _____ I have to have _____ instead.”  Even if someone using this formulation does like their haircut, they probably would like it more if they didn’t feel like it was one of their only choices.  Besides, sometimes when the only goal is to conceal, it backfires and just points more attention towards whatever is being hidden.  The most exaggerated version of this is the extreme combover.

When we talk about balance it is all about creating harmony with the client.  And it isn’t just about face shape.  It is about individual facial features, overall body shape, size, overall style and personality.  It’s about drawing attention to the positives and working with overall (objective) shapes in order to create something visually appealing.  It isn’t about oval being good and square being bad it is about creating a cut that is holistic, that embraces the client’s individuality.  Some women look darn good with a strong jawline and whether the woman wants a strong shape or a soft shape depends more on where she is in her career and with her life than on something being “right.”  Sometimes obsessing about face shape will cause you to miss a golden opportunity in highlighting gorgeous eyes.  And you can give the perfect cut to create an illusion of slightly more height on a petite woman, but if it doesn’t fit her personality, what is the point?

It’s not about one style looking bad, it is about another looking better.

I believe that cuts and color services should be flattering, but I don’t believe in black and white rules.  I don’t believe in approaching a service with a list of things I can’t do.  I believe that as a hairstylist, my vision for my client should be both attentive to their overall aesthetic and sensitive to who they are as person and where they are in their life.  I believe that part of my job is to instill pride and comfort in one’s own body, in one’s own identity.

My Most Memorable Haircuts I

Yesterday I asked my Facebook friends about their most memorable haircuts, either given or received, and I heard back a lot of beautiful, inspiring stories. Big hearts and so much passion. Because I tend to be long winded I thought I would jot down my own response here rather than on my own status.

I follow my gut, and a lot of times it leads me to strange places that I never would’ve imagined. A prime example is probably my most memorable haircut to date, because it was so odd and made me think a lot about hair in the populations that don’t make it to the salon regularly.

A Palestinian businessman came into the salon once at the end of my shift and I stayed to cut his hair. He had tight curls and a thick accent (I think he understood me quite well, but I had some difficulty understanding certain words from him) and just wanted his hair cut in some common American style. For men, especially curly hair, I can’t say there is one style that is suited for everyone, and while in the US a businessman with curly hair would probably cut his hair quite short, but I hate getting rid of the curl if it isn’t socially mandated.

We talked a lot about Palestine and where he currently was living, Qatar, and all the sorts of ethnic food we both like and the places we have both traveled to. He talked about how in the Middle East a man would never get his hair cut by a woman. He talked about his wife back home and what a wonderful mother she was and about his children… Which brought me to why he was in Pittsburgh. One of his sons was very ill, an illness I did not fully understand, but had multiple organs failing. They had flown 16 hours with a nurse and doctor to get to the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. His wife was home with the rest of the children and pregnant with another.

At the end of his haircut he asked me if I could cut his son’s hair. He gave me the hospital phone number and I said I could see what I could do. Long story short, a few days later, shortly before he was due to fly back to a hospital in the Middle East, I went to the Children’s Hospital and the man game down to the lobby to check me into the floor his son was on. When I got in I was a little shocked to see the five year old with a bandage wrapped completely around his abdomen. He could not talk. The father said he had been quite a talker before the illness. But he was a beautiful child… there’s just something incredible about a kid with enormous brown eyes and thick, black lashes. Gorgeous skin and rich brown hair that brushed his shoulders in the back and obscured his eyes in the front. He was watching Cars dubbed over in Arabic and rocking back and forth during the entire haircut. I reached over the bars of his bed and his father held his head still so I could cut his hair.

Kid’s cuts can be difficult, especially if the kid is strong and busy bodied like this boy. The cut was not perfect but it didn’t need to be. The fact is, five inches off and a shape cut in and the difference was remarkable. He was a beautiful boy before but after the haircut he was beginning to look healthy again. To see him play without needing to swat hair out of his face and to look at those big brown eyes without a curtain of hair in the way… It was a very profound moment for me.

Why Short(er) Hair Actually is More Flattering on a Lot of People

So, a lot of the celebrities this year have inspired women to consider going shorter with their hair. Yet, most women in my chair just sigh and say, “If I had the perfect oval face shape,” or “If I lost twenty pounds,” and on and on. The bottom line is that women are afraid of no longer looking feminine because in other ways they don’t feel like they match up to the feminine ideal.

I am an advocate of shorter hair on women so I am just thrilled about Karlie Kloss, Anne Hathaway and other celebrity stunners that have gone significantly shorter. In the case that having a feminine ideal is unavoidable, which it seems to be for most of our society, at least these ladies are rounding out that image, because let’s face it, most of us can’t get that Victoria Secret hair. Even most of the Angels can’t without the help of extensions and celebrity stylists working magic.

One thing that just kills me as a hairdresser is to see women hanging on to hair way past their shoulder blades when it is only five strands at the bottom, damaged to hell and back and laying limp. I don’t let anyone leave my chair like this, but I see it all the time in public. No one could possibly take a step back and think, “This hair cut is extremely flattering on me.”

This year, the trends are shoulders and above. Of course, really long hair is always in when it is gorgeous long hair, but I try to get the average client to clavicle length if their locks are less than ephemeral. The reason for this is because it frames the face and décolleté better and you have more freedom with layers. It is easier to get a balanced shape and for most clients they are able to do more with the styling.

Bobs (anything between the shoulder and the jawline) are wonderful on so many more women than realize it. They can add so much body to limp hair and they are also wonderful because they grow out well and you can change them in a lot of subtle ways without having long grow out phases. Longer bobs can still be styled in most of the same ways you can style longer hair, such as curling and things like that. You can’t do as much with updos, but I don’t really understand why people want to punish themselves day to day so that they can have an updo once every three years. It seems like it might have to do with fairy tale fantasies? I don’t know. All I know is, I would rather look fabulous every day than a couple times per decade.

A lot of women are insistent that they could never do anything above the jawline but I am here to tell you that you are probably wrong. If there are any issues with the cheek/jaw area long hair my be making the issue worse by visually dragging it down. Shorter hair can’t hide anything but it can de-emphasize areas by drawing attention upwards, lifting, and bringing focus to the eyes. That is truly what I love most about short hairstyles. They are always customized to really compliment a face and draw attention to the eyes, which is almost always the most unique and expressive part of a woman.

A lot of women look incredible with long hair. Some could with a lot of styling, but never style it (and who can blame them?). I love seeing long braids and cascading waves, but when i see people just letting hair hang and collect damage, my spine aches. Some just probably weren’t meant to have repunzel hair. And that is ok! I just hate to hear people say they can’t do something and blame their bones, their weight, society or anything else! You can do what you want and look spectacular and I am just here to help.

Short Ombré With Just a Hint of Violet

Hello Everyone! Check out my new hair color by Lizzie Davis, cut by Derek Piekarski. I am going away from blonde, but still want some dimension and I want to let my ends stay light since I worked so hard to get them there. I wanted just a hint of violet with a mostly brown color and I wanted my near black roots to be blended.

Midshaft: ColorTouch .15 oz 5/66, .65 oz 6/7 with 1.2 oz Intensive Emulsion (13 vol)
Tips: Illumina .2 oz 9/7, .1 oz 9/60 with .3 oz Emulsion (6 vol)

Permanence Does Not Make Art: Why Hairdressing is One of the Purest Forms of Expression

First off, say hello to my fresh new cut by Derek Piekarski. He has been a great teacher to me over the years and it is always an honor to get a cut from him. Secondly, onto what this post is about, which is a difficult thing for me to summarize so I am just going to dive right into the middle.

Clients often ask me if I still paint, knowing that I studied art in college. Funny they always assume that I like to paint. I really never was much of a painter, unless you count the rough splashes of color (like above) that I incorporate into my word art, or the once-a-year, seven-hour-straight session where I lean over a canvas in some ungodly position until I have something that resembles enough of something. I was more into found art, using real materials, never representations. It is amazing I never ended up with any diseases from all the crap I dug out of hillsides and dumpsters. My work was always difficult to explain and frankly I found it exhausting and irritating to explain most of the time. Because if I wanted to explain it in words, I would have just wrote a poem. I could enjoy talking about my art if someone else could start a conversation with some indications that they understood or were trying to understand, but I don’t believe art should be “easy” necessarily and I don’t think I should ever have to sweat through an uncomfortable explanation for someone to just raise their eyebrows, say “Oh,” and walk away shrugging.

I write this post after just recently finishing a piece that I had started last summer. It was a word art piece, which is shown partially above. I began the piece when I was having a lot of negative feelings (and a bad attitude!) and was considering a lot of life changes. It also incorporated my current haircut at that point in time. It was a rough portrait with poetic rants filling large spaces with tiny writing. I thought I would never finish it, but I did just this past week.

I cannot look at it without feeling anger and disappointment.

The paint is dry. The ink is dry. I cannot change it. My words are stuck. Those feelings are stuck. It is static and unnerving. The overall silhouette is too blocky and odd. I wish I could start over. I try to tell myself it is just a portrait of a time and that it does not represent me anymore, but after so much work, how can I not feel any positive connection to it?

I look at the piece and think, I hope I never feel this way about my career. I hope I never take a step back and say, Whoa, where did I lose myself?

Art like this is too static. Therefore it can never be a pure form of self expression. The best it can show is a piece of a person, and often times it is so zoomed in that it becomes distorted. We are not statues, we waver, we fluctuate, we dissolve and then regroup. We change, we grow, we move.

Our hair says a lot about us. A good cut can reflect many different moods depending on subtle differences in styling and no one can deny how much a drastic change in a cut can push along change in a person’s life. Hair is remarkable because it can always be current and in line with a person’s feelings or attitudes during a particular time in their life.

When I cut hair, it is all about being in the present with the individual in my chair. It is freeing to know that they are not stuck with one style forever. And whatever style I give them will change form on its own. Hair is one of the most fascinating mediums because it does have such a life of its own. It moves its own way, curls its own way, there are always unique and different considerations. On some people, my job is more a game of compromising my desires with the desires of the hair.

It is exhilarating to be able to create a full piece of art in under an hour. And to know that that exact same head of hair will transform and grow in a month. There will be something new to work with, something new to create. The person will be in a different place in their life, even if the change is subtle. It is art that can move in the wind, art that can go swimming, skydiving, motorcycling, anything. It can interact with the world and the world can interact with it. Not like my lousy portrait that gives the same cold stare no matter what is thrown its way. No, hair is different, and it has the potential to be the best possible expression of a person’s life. Because it has life.