The textured hair on show at Charles Anastase’s A/W10 collection was just so cute.
It had a shape and lightness to it that looked amazing when piled high on the head, as seen on some of the models from the show.
The hair master was Lyndell Mansfield, who is one of my favourite session stylists. This hairstyle is going to be a big trend and falls under my ‘learn it now or regret it later’ category.
As a salon technique, it works just as well on a lady in her 40s or 50s, as it does on a younger woman. I demonstrated it on a recent salon teaching trends trip and the delegates loved it. You start by knotting the hair and then run irons over the top of the knots to heat it. It’s a style that you can do easily on your own hair, and the results are headturning, just follow these five easy steps:

Step one: Take sections, starting with the hair at the nape, and choose your section size. The larger the section, the looser the waves.

Step two: Divide the section into two and take the left-hand side of the hair section across to the right of the head, behind the right-hand section, then take it through the centre like a knot.

Step three: Repeat all the way to the end and secure with a band. Be careful to keep the knot and tension the same. Continue the knotting to the end of the hair.

Step four: Run the iron down each section for an equal amount of time and then let it cool.

Step five: Carefully undo, then brush thoroughly with a Mason Pearson.

I find a little extra hair glued in as a weave works really well too. But remember, practice makes perfect.

My wonderful, talented friend James Molloy has his own blog. I love it because it has so many tips on how to get catwalk looks and it’s written in a simple style that is so easy to follow. Also, he gives an honest unbiased guide to products, and this man knows soooooo much about which products really perform and give great results. One of the great privileges of my job is that I get day-to-day tips from him, and I always find James’ make-up ideas make me feel so much better yet still myself – which is important, don’t you think?
Anyhow, here’s an excerpt from his blog. Enjoy x

Now I’m a bit of a sucker for a smokey eye, especially at a show and this season the girls at the Monique Lhullier show in New York did not disappoint. I’m drawn to the Khaki black but not black tones in this look I call it the smokey eye with extras! It works for me as the rock chick classic take on the dark eye felt a little too done for the summer season, in its place came the dirtied, dappled darks that wrapped the eyes in a mussed up veil of colour that felt more mesmerizing.

 Monique Lhuiller SS10

Here are my tips on getting the look -
1. Start by taking a mid toned flat brown eye shadow and circling the eye using a large blending brush. This eye isn’t about a tight shape and using the brown tone first will give you the blown out edge.
2. You want a real depth of colour on the lid so try an eye Kohl as a base all over the eye. I like M.A.C Smoulder as it has a slightly green tone when blended out.
3. Next take a selection of shadows ranging from black to grey and deep green. Using a tapered blender start to diffuse the colour at the outer corners of the eye and in toward the bridge of the nose. If you shadow starts to go patchy I find that a little loose powder blended over the top will help to fade out the colour.
4. Using a black eye kohl rim the inner water line top and bottom making sure to fill in the inner corners of the eye.
5. Use a smaller shadow brush and bend the green/grey shadows underneath the lower lashes. Don’t be scared to take the colour quite low as it helps to open up the eye and balances the shape.
6. Team this eye with a luxe matte skin. Take time on concealing the under eyes, it’s a heavy look so anything to real and your eyes could look heavy.
 
xx

Back in November I attended a P&G conference and saw Sam McKnight showcase the look he designed for the spring/summer 2010 Mulberry collection. If you drive by a Mulberry store you will see that all the mannequins are dressed with this look.
I just love it, in an over-the-top but luxe cool-cute way, and so at SALON SMART I chose it as a look for one of my models. I call it The Super-Crimp.

1. First I prepped the hair with a styling spray to protect it from the heat of the crimpers. This was blown into the hair with a Mason Pearson brush.
2. Using BaByliss Pro Crimpers and starting from the nape of the neck and at the roots, crimp each section for exactly the same amount of time (I am a 10 second girl myself – this is a hairstyle to be truly anal about!) otherwise the result will vary.
3. Make sure that you “link the crimp” – ie, join the grooves so you don’t leave any straight bits.
4. At the sides, crimp backwards instead of downwards to pull the style off the face.
5. Take a Mason Pearson and brush through continually – the more you brush the bigger the hair and the softer the crimp (no 80′s Toyah Wilcox references, please)
6) Walk into the party head held high… and own the look !

I prepped this with Silvikrin Heat Creations blow-dry spray .

Thank you to Skyler, who patiently crimped this on the day with Sabrina from Hari’s while I chatted PR strategies onstage!

So, with braids everywhere I look, I have revisited a colour trend that I learned a few years back – colour braiding
This involves back-combing sections of the hair and plaiting sections that I secure with a band. I then apply lightener or hair tint to the braids. I’m lifting the hair a few shades lighter, then either leaving them or washing over a colour wash.
This results in a multi-textured colour effect that’s sooo cute on a bob and mid-length haircut – a kind of beachy lightening effect. I am using tint through the top of the braid with lightener on the ends for a softer effect. The added bonus is that the client gets to look on-trend throughout the whole process – braids are so much more hip than foil!
You can practise on a doll’s head and try out different braids and tones; that way you can perfect your technique without any dramas! But actually, it’s pretty failsafe!
Bring that Alexander Wang reference to the colour rooms, I say x

There’s something fabulous about this – or is it just me that thinks so?!

If you cant see the video above, please click here

One of my friends is a super-stylish lady. Even on a hair-up day she looks so groomed and cool. She braids her hair on the scalp, to the side and all the way to the nape of her neck then twists up the back in an un-done chignon. It’s all held in place by randomly inserted Kirby grips. She uses hairspray first to give her hair grip and it shines her hair too.
I found this on YouTube to show how to do this braid. I suggest you take the idea and make it your own .
My influence is Jodie Harrison. She works in fashion styling and beauty and teams this look with a French voque meets london chic style.

If you can’t see the video above, please click here

I recently had a girls’ night out with eight women. As you might expect, much of the fun was had giggling and telling stories in a hotel suite while styling our hair and applying make-up. One of the girls turned up with a side braid. She had been to four hair salons that day and not a single one had been able to style her hair in a fishtail braid. This made me slightly cross and also a little bewildered. After a blow-dry appointment in the final salon, she left with a simple braid that was not at all like the Miu Miu picture or the Fearne Cotton reference that she had taken in to show the stylist.
Undeterred, my friend had gone home and looked up “French braiding” on You Tube. She ended up doing the look herself.
With the side braid being one of this summer’s hottest trends I have decided to post this video I found on You Tube (I tried to shoot one myself in my bathroom, but it was too comical to watch).
I would prep the hair with a mousse and thickening spray (I love Frederick Fekkai Volume and Sebastian Thicken -up). Then, after the braid is complete, pull it out to give it a “rolling in the heather” looseness about it.
A hairdresser who can’t fishtail braid? Tut, tut!  That’s like an Italian chef who can’t make pasta!

The week I lost my lashes.

Have you noticed how lash-obsessed we have become? Lash-obsessed and hair extension-obsessed? We just keep on adding hair… Of course, the lashes are nothing new. In the Sixties, girls put them on as readily as we apply lipgloss.
I was working with a make-up artist last week who informed me that girls used to put them on as they travelled to work on the bus. On the bus?! I’m lucky to get my concealer on right in the back of my Addison Lee car to work, what with all the speed bumps in the road!
With salons offering lash extensions that last up to four weeks, lashes are big beauty business, nowadays. It’s like we have upped the ante so much that a natural lash seems so, well, inadequate sometimes in the world of modern glamour.
Last week I sat in my local nail bar having a deep grey polish applied to my nails in readiness for a shoot the following day where my hands where being featured in a “backstage get- the-look” piece . They were advertising lash extensions, as are most beauty places, so I asked about them and they offered to pop a few on as I waited for my nails to dry under the ultra-violets.
Now, looking back, I should have been wary at this point as whenever my lashes have been done in the past it has taken at least an hour. I closed my eyes in readiness, and thought they would pop on a few in the corners.
Ten minutes later I knew I was in trouble. My eyes were stinging and I could feel glue all over the lids. I couldn’t really open them but squinting into the mirror I could see that I looked like a Priscilla Presley wannabe – gone very wrong. One hour after that I knew I was in big, big trouble. I shall spare you the details but this episode has led to me spending the night in A&E at my local hospital then going to visit an eye specialist and now, four days later, with no eye lashes bar a lonely bottom set. It will take six weeks or more for my lashes to grow back, and my eyes are so painful .
As I sat in A&E I felt vain and stupid. My boyfriend is from Argentina and has the thickest, longest lashes I have ever seen. I gaze longingly at them daily! (He thinks I am just extra-dreamy right now!)
The point to my sad lash tale?
As big as all these beauty trends are, and as quick as salons take them on in response to demand, training and professional care must come too. I’m all for lash-laws now! Check that beauty licence before you step forth!