Looking for a New You

With spring coming there are a lot people out there looking for a new them for summer. The first place to start, and one of the most difficult decisions to make, is your hair. Listed below are factors that you should think about before entering the salon to have that done.

1. Your face shape- One thing that a stylist should look at when suggesting any style to you is the shape of your face. We are taught, as stylist, that the perfect facial shape is oval. It is our job to take the facial shape that you have and make it as oval as we possible can by using your hair to hide or enhance certain areas of your face. I have taken that a step farther.

As an artist I was also taught that certain parts of your body are, or should be, the same size as the other parts. For example, I am sure that you have heard that your forearm is the same length as your foot. Toe to heel should match wrist to elbow. If not, do not feel you are imperfect, it is just a comparison.

1.Bangs- There is another one that is used that you may not know is that your face should be the same size as your hand. Bottom of the palm to bottom of your chin, tip of your middle finger to the hairline above your forehead. If your forehead is bigger, this would tell me that you would do well with bangs long enough, or short enough, to reach the tip of that finger. Usually you already know if you feel that your forehead is larger than you like. This would tell you how bangs could re-shape your face. What this does is creates a shortening of your face.

Now what type of bangs do you need? Sometimes this is a personal choice and sometimes it is something that demands a little more attention. What you really want to look at is the shape of the hairline.

If you have what is called a widows peak, where there is a dramatic point towards the center of the forehead along the hairline then you would most likely want to look at a full bang. One that sits all the way across the forehead. Any type of side bang may enhance that dramatic line that seems to plunge backwards on the head.

If you have a straight hairline, one that doesn’t have any dips or dramatic changes then you could wear any type of a bang that you wanted as long as you are not dealing with cowlicks or changes in hair growth along the hairline.

To cover different hairline shapes, cowlicks or scars the main thing I tell my clients is to night fight it, go with it. In other words if you have an extreme cowlick that causes your hair to fall one direction, don’t try to make it go the other way. The only way to change hair growth patterns is to perm it, break down the hair shaft and redirect it. You can not train it to do what you want no matter how many times you try or no matter what anyone else says. Plus, once the perm grows out about a 1/4 of an inch, you are right back at dealing with it again. So, use it to your benefit. Let it enhance your style. If you want to cover other oddities in your hair or scars you can do that as long as you are not going against your hair growth pattern.

2. Length-The length of your hair does effect how your face and body appear as a whole.

If you have broad shoulders and your hair is cut above them, then they will appear broader. You would want something that would at least fall on your shoulders to break up the width.

Another feature that you need to take in mind is a long neck. I remember back in high school I had a short haircut, v-necks were in that year and I have a long neck. I looked just like a giraffe. If you have a long neck but prefer shorter cuts then consider some fringe or flipped up edge that would fall in the middle of your neck, again to break up that long visual line.

If you have long hair and a broader body you need to consider where your length is falling and the shape of the bottom edge. You want a straight line at the bottom if you are thinner, this adds visual width to your body. If you are a wider person you would want it more angled or rounded at the corners to decrease the width. What I mean by bottom edge is this: if you look at someone who has all one length hair you can see where their hair stops at the bottom. The total length. That is the edge I am talking about. By straight across I mean more of a square type cut that if all the hair is put behind the shoulders there is a perfectly straight line along the bottom, curved would be just that. It would start to curve up towards the shoulders, rounded would be the same thing. Just remember, if that curve is too dramatic, as the hair grows it will become even more dramatic. The center of the back hair line seems to grow faster than any other part of the head. Some people think it’s the bangs but that is only because they tend to get in your eyes and you can’t really see the center of the back of your own head.

3. Sides-When looking at the sides of your hair and what to do with them you need to consider whether your face is round, long, square or something else.

With a round face you want to create more length along the sides of the face so you would want shorter sides or a hairstyle that tucked behind the ears. The same thing with a longer face, you want to break up that line, not add to it.

            With a square face you need to create roundness, so a fuller type of a side would be good, just make sure it it not just straight. If you have long hair you can add layers to the sides in the front to create more fullness and break up that line.

4. Layers-Now that we are discussing layers let find out what they can do for you. All of the suggestions at this point are for straight hair. We will talk about wavy and curly differences later in this article.

            If your hair is fine they can take unnecessary weight off the hair shaft and help it to lift away from the head. Making the hair look fuller and more shaped. If you look at the roots of your hair, the part at the scalp, you can determine your hair growth pattern by pushing up on your hair and see which direction the hair root goes. If it goes up then most likely if you add some layers you will also add body to your hair. If they still point down then you will have more flow along the layers but you will most likely not be adding too much body. Remember that if you have fine hair it gets weighed down easily.

            If you have coarse hair it could cause the hair to stick out too much. Sometimes coarse hair does better with the weight on it. You need to check the hair growth pattern as I described in the fine hair paragraph above. Also remember that the growth pattern on coarse hair is stronger than the one on fine hair. It is a stronger, heavy hair shaft and will take more work to get movement.

Medium hair would fall between the two and needs to be checked the same way for growth patterns.

5. Fullness-Most people would like to have full, thick hair. It seems to be a sign that the hair is healthy. But that is not always true and doesn’t mean that fullness would be good on you. Again, look at your face and body shapes to determine whether you want to minimize the shapes or not. What you want to remember is that fuller hair will add width, less full hair will detract it.

Thank you for stopping by and reading this article. Please read part two of this article where we will talk about your hair type, skin tones, chemical services and more. If you have any questions or suggestions you can leave them in the comments below or email me at hmweimar@yahoo.com. I will personally respond.