Tag: hair styles

After 8 months at Sea: Style secrets to always have good hair

~ Emmie ~ Leave a comment

It’s been too long since I’ve posted in here. And I’m sorry. I don’t know why I haven’t checked in with y’all. Truth is I’ve been learning so much about hair and make-up since I’ve been away. Where have I been? I’ve just finished my first 8 months contract as a hairdresser on board the MSC Meraviglia, a cruise ship extraordinaire! I glamorously (and sometimes not so glamourously) sailed to Bahamas from NY all winter and then sailed the Mediterranean in the spring. My ship had a huge spa dedicated to the art of relaxation, self care and beauty….and I’m here to dish out style tips that saved me on this amazing work journey and kept it on the glamourous looking side. Because travelling and working requires practical hairstyles, that look glam. I’ll talk about the ones below because they balance functionality, with professional polish, and style. And they’re also so easy!

  • Embrace the frizz: I was in the middle of the ocean, and the air was salty, damp and misty. There was no way to have pristine, perfect glossy hair. Unless my hair was coated and weighted down in oil and wax. Or if I were firing up the heat tools every morning to style, which not only did I not have time for, would have fried my hair. I instead heat styled after shampooing only once a week! Then I added a light application of dry waxes and hair oils day to day to keep my ends looking less damaged. That meant I was rocking about 15% frizz on a daily basis. But that’s totally acceptable because the hair looks effortless that way and the frizz was forgivable, because it was still light and bouncy.
This is me in my uniform on a typical day onboard. I feel pretty and ready to work with my half updo hair!
  • We all use thin hair elastics to do braids or hold a pony, or half updo. But the trick to making it look polished? Don’t show the tiny elastics. That’s right. Always cover it up with a ribbon or any polished fascinator or flip it to cover with your own hair with a pony inverter. Same goes for bobby pins. Hide them as anchors under the hair.
This elastic was a simple black one. But what was the elevation? I flipped it to hide it.
  • No low pony tails with a bushel of frizzy ends: For some reason, low pony tails looked very lazy and sloppy on the ship. I think it’s the fact that when hair is pulled back it loses volume and the face looks severe. Then after the elastic, the tail end of the hair style poofs, asthe sea air adds frizz and makes too much undefined volume. It doesn’t looked balanced or tidy, as one may think. The solution I always did was if I was to wear a pony tail, it had to be high pony tail and with straight, sleek hair. it just looked a lot cooler that way!
Higher pony tails with slick hair avoids the frumpiness of low ponies and frizz
  • Professional looking buns are made with french pins: A french pin is an amazing hair tool. It’s not hard to use, and it looks chic and not overly formal. The way I used it was with a pony tail tied with a thin elastic, and the ends wrapped around. In the same sentiment: never use claw clips or scrunchies to hold buns. Claw clips damage hair with their teeth and scrunchies look sloppy.
A beautiful bun without any fuss or overly ornate claw clips with a french pin
A simple french pin is the way to fasten a bun and make it look chique
A simple french pin is the way to fasten a bun and make it look chique
  • Check the back with a mirror in front of a mirror to avoid unknowingly wearing cowlicks: This tip was an important one for me. My hair at the back has a cowlick split that always parts vertically. It’s not pretty. And should be fixed. It’s also a game changer to always know how your hair looks to other people from the back! Ways to fix a cowlick? a bun, a braid, a partial pony, or lots of hair spray!!!
  • Soften up the appearance of pulled back hair in ponytails or buns by leaving out face framing pieces: Women in the workplace and seafaring have to look able bodied without hair falling everywhere, but we also want to look pretty. On a ship pulled back hair signals order and control. But nothing adds more softness and femininity than to leave out some strands at the front of the face to look less rigid and uniform.

And the most important take away from these tips are that none of the styles look overly done up. They just look thoughtfully stylish. And trust me, as a seafarer, there was never enough time in the morning between downing the cup of crew mess coffee and running to report to work. So all the styles mentioned above take less than 5 minutes. That’s the true beauty of any hair routine, in that it looks effortless because it was. More styling tips to come stay posted about the fashion vibes I rocked on the ship!

Short bangs look cute in a weird kinda way…

~ Emmie ~ Leave a comment

Bangs are really strange things.  Trimming them, and a shaping them and styling them can be a headache.  Which is why a lot of people outgrow their bangs at every opportunity they get.  But the reason I like them is that they actually prevent balding and thinning at that part of the scalp near the forehead where your hair naturally parts.  No bangs for some reason stresses out this point on your head.  Another bonus of bangs is that when you are tired of them, there are ways of concealing that you have bangs with hairspray and bobby pins so you still get to keep your styling options open.  It is much harder to fake bangs than it is to hide them.

Alyssa Milano. She looks the right balance between
Alyssa Milano. She looks the right balance between “polished, fun ‘do”, and “crazy girl who went too far with the scissors”.

I have been cutting my hair now for the past two years.  One of the simplest cuts that I have always found kind of quirky and cute was this really short, a bit chunky or uneven bangs cut that made one look as if you were a 4 year old child that was playing hairdresser with herself with the safety scissors she found in her kindergarten classroom.  It’s fun, unpretentious and youthful in a playful way.  This look is basically a regular bang cut, but what I do is aim to make it a little bit too short, in an awkward way.  If you happen to be like me, and do not work in a corporate office, I think this is something that you can try out.  And if it is too strange and unpolished for you, it’s just hair and it will always grow back.

On my recent bang trim, I was actually going for a bit of a longer, wispy bang length this time, but still ended up with shorter bangs than I wanted! 😦  So now I am still wearing the short bangs cut that I had sported the previous trim/cut.  But really experimenting with different shapes and lengths of bangs is super cool and easy to do.

Here is a video on Youtube that really helped me figure out how to trim/cut bangs.  Mind you this is on how to cut asymmetrical bangs but you can always modify the training of the video into any shape of bang that you may want!

Tips for cutting bangs:

1. Don’t cut them wet.  They will always dry a lot shorter than what you thought they would be.

2. Cut modestly…because it is actually super easy to over cut them in length when you add in the thinning and texturing process.

3. Experiment and try to visualize different bang lengths on your face.  If you see an edgy model with super short bangs, imagine them on your self and think about whether it would suit you.  Having a preset desired length and shape will definitely guarantee more success on achieving the amount of funky shortness or simple longness in your bangs you may want to show off…

This is my freshly cut slightly
This is my freshly cut slightly “too-short” bangs. That’s right Zoey Deschanel, I too can look “a-dork-able”

The mystery of the “top knot” bun

~ Emmie ~ Leave a comment

As a  child I remember loving the Nancy Drew series…nothing intrigued me more than a good mystery and following it out as the teen-aged sleuth Nancy solved it.  The current mystery I have been trying to solve is about why every girl has been sporting a hair style known as the “top knot” these days. So I recently made an effort to make one of these things and two tired arms later, from combing my hair in an upwards direction, I finally understand.

In case you didn’t know, a top knot is a really, really high bun.  The kind that is so high, the round “bun” part is actually on the top of your head, and all your hair is pulled upwards along the face.  I had to ask myself why it has become so popular, and the go-to style for casual elegance and put-togetherness amongst women everywhere.   Because for some reason, a regular lower bun is granny-like, and unglamourous, maybe even too cerebral? But the higher top knot is alluring, fashionable and fun. Why is this great divide happening between where on the head you gather the bun?

After some thought, here is what I think:

~ Top knots are like an instant face lift.  Pulling the hair up, and out of your face has a gravity defying character that flatters and lightens up facial features such as the eyes, fore head and cheek temples.  It pulls everything up a bit.

~putting a bun at the top the head is dramatic, and adds height to a person.  It e-longens the face, making it seem slimmer and more delicate

~Because the bun part is on the top of the head, it doesn’t stick out in the back and doesn’t interfere with the line of the back of the head.  It’s smooth all the way down to the neck and swan like.

I gather and comb my hair up into a high pony tail. fasten with an elastic.
I gather and comb my hair up into a high pony tail. fasten with an elastic.

coil the hair in a bun shape around the base of the pony tail. Tuck in ends underneath the bun. arms tired yet? Mine were.
coil the hair in a bun shape around the base of the pony tail. Tuck in ends underneath the bun. arms tired yet? Mine were.

The second part of this mystery?  Why are top knots so hard to do in hair?  I have thick, ultra straight hair that really wants to go down in direction. The idea of making it go up is foreign.   My arms always get so tired combing my long hair in an upwards position, to wind into a bun.  But a few things really help tame hair so that it will get into place for top knots:

These are french pins. They do not pull or tease hair. They work by weaving through different layers of hair!
These are french pins. They do not pull or tease hair. They work by weaving through different layers of hair!

-have slightly dirty hair, or hair that has not been washed, using dry shampoo helps.  I find the added texture in your hair makes it grip as you are pushing it up.

-use french pins because they work, and do not pinch and pull hair the way bobby pins do. (French pins are awesome and so easy to use.  Ask me if anyone needs a tutorial!)

-Forget hair donuts (those spongy, foam donut shaped bun fillers used to make top knots), they are way too unnatural looking and uniform, if you get them to work–not everyone has thick enough hair to cover the hair donuts!

Am I right about why there is all this rage over the top knot?  What has been your go to hair style that never lets you down whenever you wear it?