We've had an entire year of good hair (well, there were a couple days...), with product recs ranging from an infomercial cult favorite, to, uh... bread? Plus discussions on the trials and tribulations of going blond, how to grow out your hair, and then why to chop it off...
Changing it up
Olivia Wilde: “I spent the first couple years of my career as a very blond blonde. And then I went brunette for a role, and suddenly all my offers changed—the types of roles people approached me about totally changed. When I was really blond, it was always like, ‘The really pretty girl,’ or ‘The sexy hot chick.’ At that point in my career, it was all lame pilots—those were the types of roles I was going for. And then, when I was on The O.C., it was like, ‘She’s punk-y!’ I had a purple streak in my hair, and I was the ‘punky girl.’ And then when I went brunette, the roles went to more, ‘She’s a waitress with a heart of gold, and a tough life,’ or ‘She’s a doctor.’ And I always wondered—would I have been offered those roles had I still been blond? I don’t think so. I think the perception of brunettes being more intellectual persists. Even though it makes no sense! I mean, Hillary Clinton is very, very blond! And when I went from being blond for a long time to brunette, I felt like I was invisible, because you’d walk into a room, and nobody immediately looks at you. When you’re blond, it’s like you have a giant highlighter on your head; people can’t help but stare. And red gets a very different reaction. I feel like redheads are perceived immediately to be kind of sassy and sultry, or at least uniquely...I don’t know, just a little more sassy.” [ The Face: Olivia Wilde]
Jeanette Lai Thomas: “I’ve had my hair cut like this—sort of asymmetrical—for the last few weeks. I was just like, ‘I don’t know if I can do it, but fuck it. It’s just hair. It’ll grow back.’ That’s my theory with hair. I’m really adventurous because it’s just hair. It’ll grow back. Last year, I had full blond hair, and I had this ombré thing before that. The blond was hard to maintain, because I’m not good at the whole ‘sit down, do my nails, go to the salon’ thing. Having to get my roots done, which is basically three hours wasted, was just really hard.” [The Top Shelf: Jeanette Lai Thomas, Jewelry Designer, Moratorium]
Eugene Souleiman: “Everything is very defined[in hair styling] this season. Even if it’s not precise, it’s really defined, so if it’s about messy hair, it’s intentionally fucked-up hair. It's not about prettiness; we’re in a time where we want women to look more 'intelligent.' It feels like things have really evolved from that vulgarity of over-accessorizing, lots of gold, hardware, shoes looking like cars, handbags looking like banks. We’ve moved on, but we’re going back to something that’s more human. I want you to look at these girls and think, ‘Oh, yeah, they kind of look like a person. They don’t look like a drag queen.’ That overly done-up look is like a men’s version of what a woman should look like, and women really don’t look like that and they don’t want to look like that.” [Rochas Fall 2013]
Arianna Huffington: “I get my hair blow-dried. I have someone who comes here and will do it, so I can keep working; I find it saves time. I have a phenomenal hair colorist, Louis Licari. I like how it looks now with a lot of highlights; it’s a bit more honey-ish. And we changed the part—it was going from left to right, and now it’s going from right to left. It’s funny, the day after my hair stylist did it, I walked into the office and everyone thought I had done something dramatic, and all we’d done was change the part; it completely changes your look. But now this is it. I’ve reached the end of my hair reincarnations.” [The Top Shelf: Arianna & Christina Huffington]
Soo Joo Park: “My hair doesn’t really make me feel very different, but I know that I get perceived as a different person. People think that I’m more more eccentric, open, or adventurous, but it’s really just the hair… I’ve always been pretty liberal and free-spirited and easygoing. I’m still really into the blond, but I know that it’s going to give up on me soon. It’s already suffering from severe breakage from all the shows and the styling, so we’re going to have to think about another exciting direction. I’m not really sure what it will be.” [The Face: Soo Joo Park, Model]
Amy Astley: “I haven’t colored my hair in 18 months. I quit cold turkey. I think I stopped because I began to see pictures of myself with the flash where I thought, ‘When did I turn into one shade of white blond? I don’t like it at all.’ It also had to do with my age; I don’t want to be an older woman with super fake hair. I don’t have a fake face, I don’t have a fake body—I’ve totally rejected all of that. And I was very, very inspired by a quote I read last May, at the Prada exhibit at the Met—I still have it somewhere—where Mrs. Prada said, in regards to aging, that as women get older, they try to tame themselves, when they should be more wild. I kept thinking about that quote, and about Mrs. Prada’s look and the look of women whom I find interesting and whom I think have integrity. I was just feeling like, ‘Yeah, I don’t need to have bright, fake, blond hair. That’s it!’' [As Told to ITG: My Hair Color, My Self]
Michael Angelo: “When I hear women who would look great—could look better—with short hair say silly things like, ‘My husband wants me to keep it long,' or 'Guys like long hair,’ I say, ‘Can we talk about that? What does your husband do for you because you like it? Or are you just kissing ass?’ I think how we present ourselves, our fashion, our hair, our makeup, is an exterior expression of how we feel about ourselves on the inside. When women cut their hair short and they feel attractive, I think they’re saying, ‘I’m on my terms, I’m not letting typical male desires dictate my choices,’ and that’s intimidating as hell to a lot of men, because there are a lot of men out there who still are raised to think that they can tell women what to do. And then you have to think, Well, if that's why you're afraid of cutting it, do you want a man who wants a woman who’s not confident? When it’s done best, beauty is about infusing confidence; that’s what’s beautiful to me. Think about Madonna in “Papa Don’t Preach' when she emerged with that short, sassy platinum cut and you watched the way she moved. It was sexy, but it wasn’t 'feminine.' It wasn’t Victoria’s Secret, or that sense of 'Come and overtake me.' It was like, ' I’m going to do the fucking here.' Plus, there’s so much more you can do with short hair to flatter the face. Long hair is just sort of long. You can strategize with short hair, start sculpting someone’s head... Even when we dress someone for an event, the first thing we do is put the hair up; it’s instant glamour. I guess it’s just, for some guys, the idea of hair finally coming down, to be played with is still just such a draw.” [The Extras: The Long and the Short of It]
Jimmy Paul: “Short hair may be technically androgynous, but if you think about Linda Evangelista or Audrey Hepburn, in fact it heightens their sexuality and femininity, in a way. It also highlights that incredible bone structure. Think about *Funny Face](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050419/), when Audrey has longer hair, she looks dowdy—and she didn’t have beautiful hair, Hepburn—they have it down in her face when she’s 'plain' and working at the bookstore, and then they cut it short and all of a sudden—[gasp]—you see the neck, the bone structure, you see it.” [The Extras: The Long and the Short of It]
Technique
Rumi Neely: “This is probably the most ritual-type thing that I do: if I want my hair to be sort of ropey and beachy—I learned this on a shoot with Free People, from the hairstylist—I put it up in two small buns for ten or fifteen minutes, and then just undo the buns. It makes the perfect waves... It’s super easy to do, and my friends can laugh at me while my hair looks like Chun-Li’s, so it’s fun for everyone.” [The Top Shelf: Rumi Neely, Fashion Toast]
Liv Tyler: “Here's one trick that I’m pretty religious about: when I’m showering, I’ll turn the water to cold for the last couple minutes, which a hairstylist friend told me closes the hair cuticle. It makes your hair really shiny and beautiful. And I always feel like it makes you a little bit skinnier. [Laughs]' [The Top Shelf: Liv Tyler]
Chloe Nørgaard: “I only wash it, at most, three times a week, because if you wash it every day, your hair’s going to be screwed.” [The Face: Chloe Nørgaard, Model]
Rumi Neely: “I shampoo every day; it’s awful. But I don’t feel like I’m fully ready for the day if I don’t shampoo. People are like, ‘What’re you doing? You’re ruining your life!’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know, I put on waterproof mascara every day, too, and my lashes seem fine, so...’ The concept of dry shampoo is really appealing, like, ‘I’m not going to wash my hair!’ But, I just like washing my hair.” [The Top Shelf: Rumi Neely, Fashion Toast]
Guido: “The volume is key to the luxe of it—normally, grungy hair is quite thin, but we are being careful to avoid 'sexy beach hair.' Instead, it's a nonchalant, almost sloppy sexiness that feels more late-'90s. And instead of height, the hair has volume.” [The Backstage: Alexander Wang Spring 2014]
Favorite products
Catherine Walsh: “After I wash and towel-dry my hair—I never blow-dry it—I put in Nivea Creme. It doesn’t work on all hair types, but mine is very thick, and it adds a nice sheen and separated texture. I don’t like when gray hair looks dry. So, after I get out of the shower, I use the cream all over my body, then I take as much in my hands as if I was just going to moisturize my hands, rub it between my palms, and I use it to shape my hair. It doesn’t feel like anything is in your hair—it’s not stiff like other styling products. And then I use it to shape my eyebrows. I should become a shareholder for Nivea.” [The Top Shelf: Catherine Walsh, Senior Vice President, Coty]
Phoebe Tonkin: “The best conditioner I've found—and I've tried, again, every hair conditioner and mask—is Wen’s Cleansing Conditioner. My hair is quite dry, and without Wen, it would be frizzy and oily. I used to use a million products to try to correct it—shampoo, conditioner, mask, and oils. But now I just use Wen. I leave the conditioner on for 10 minutes three or four times a week. It’s so good that it’s become the sort of thing I send to my friends for their birthdays. Like, ‘I know this is a weird gift, but it’s going to change your life. Happy Birthday.’ [Laughs]” [The Top Shelf: Phoebe Tonkin, Actress]
Anja Rubik: “The best thing is liquid panthenol. It normally comes in a foam form for burns, but in liquid form, it stimulates hair growth. It’s actually used in hospitals for chemotherapy patients who lose their hair and have sensitive scalps. My friend recommended that I use it, and my hair grows so much faster now. I put mine in a little spray pump so I can just apply to the roots after I wash my hair and rub it in. I like to leave it in to give my hair a slight lift, which I like, because I have a small head.” [The Top Shelf: Anja Rubik, Model]
Rumi Neely: “I do love Oribe Dry Texturizing Spray. This stuff is one step to Gisele hair. You just shake it and spray it and muss it around. I use it when I really care about how my hair looks on a certain day, because it’s hard to brush out and you’ve got to commit to having that in your hair.” [The Top Shelf: Rumi Neely, Fashion Toast]
Oribe: “[When I'm creating new products] I always think, 'Someone is going to touch this woman later.' The last thing you want is some creepy product in your hair. That’s my main issue with dry shampoo—it’s like wearing a wig. I like clean, washed hair that smells good and has great texture.” [The Professional: Oribe, Hairstylist]
Treatments
Anya Ziourova: “[When I was younger] I would wash my hair with a mixture of oatmeal bread and milk and a raw egg. This sounds really crazy, but you mash it all together, rub it over your hair, and you leave it on for ten minutes. Then, you wash it off. And your hair becomes really healthy and it actually grows quicker.” [The Top Shelf: Anya Ziourova, Fashion Director, Tatler Russia & Allure Russia]
Andreea Diaconu: “For thin, brittle hair you should be doing an olive oil plus castor oil plus vitamin A oil—from a liquid capsule—mix, which my mom adds petroleum jelly, not gasoline!!!, to. (Also don't let that castor oil fall onto your skin—hair will grow where it's not supposed to. Castor oil also works for eyebrows, etc. “ [The Face: Andreea in Balenciaga]
Sigrid Agren: “I have very fine, dry hair, so I work on maintaining moisture and getting volume. Before I wash my hair, I put a little oil, coconut or whatever I have, on the ends and lengths, but never on the roots. Sometimes I’ll even leave it in overnight when my hair is really dry.” [Sigrid's Victoria's Secret Fashion Essentials]
