I did some hair at a music video shoot all day on Sunday. It was for a British DJ named Dego. The video was supposed to be set in the late 1950s/early 60s. I love that kind of hair, so I was thrilled to join in on the action. I only brought my phone with me, so these crappy pictures are all I have to show for it, but the producer took a few stills and I’m hoping to get them soon!

The is the lead girl, Gizem. The pretty blonde in the background, Stephanie had smooth soft waves after I combed out her set. I also did several mens’ hair, which was basically the Pete Campbell/Don Draper look. You know, loads of greasiness combed through with a side part.

This was the make up girl, Pam. She had pink, purple, orange and yellow hair. So I asked if I could Halo her.

I can’t wait for the music video to come out so I can show you all!

Thank you all for being so patient with this tutorial. So many people have asked about it, and I feel bad that it took so long!

I wanted to mention, that this style was 100% thought up by me. I’ve never seen this style before, nor anything like it. But the day after we filmed this video, another blogger (non hairstylist) posted a picture tutorial that is semi-similar to this one. I just wanted to clear that up since I had previously told you that I invented this for Jen on Tony night. Which is still true.

As always, send pictures!

On Saturday Jake had to run 20 miles for his marathon training. Sometimes I run marathons too, but right now I’m not feeling it at all. I let Jake have fun on his 3 hour run while Jen and I went to the Food Truck Festival in Southstreet Seaport. I love having a friend who eats all the same things I do, because that means that since we are sharing, we can try out double the food trucks, but split the calories/cost in half. Smarties we are. I’m sure no one on the face of the Earth has ever thought of sharing food before.

So, here we are with my first ever Lobster Roll. It was wonderful. Gourmet food trucks are kind of a trend right now in NYC (everywhere?) and I love it! This food truck ships their lobster fresh from Maine. Not a bad first LobRoll.

There were dozens and dozens of trucks, but it was hard to get a good shot. Here are a few!

I love to tie a scarf in a bow on my head during the summer. I do it now and then when the dirtiness of my hair isn’t fooling anyone.

So, while it might seem like my weekend achievement was downing a LobRoll, it was actually creating a beautiful 5 strand french braid on Jen. I plan on doing a tutorial for this, but keep in mind this is even harder to do than the Halo Braid….well, the french part. Once you are no longer frenching 5 strands, it’s quite doable. But the french part has me swearing and hushing anyone in the room who might be distracting my tangled fingers.

The 5 strander is really quite lovely though. I was pretty excited to run over to the blog to show all my hairies!

My go-to hair style for running/exercising is definitely a mermaid braid and a pony tail. The mermaid braid keeps my fringe out of my face and looks cute so I only feel red faced, sweaty and smelly instead of adding ugly haired to that too. I have some great stretchy headbands from Aasics that work great too, but I always prefer the mermaid braid.
Jake took this photo of me during a 5 mile race in central park last Saturday. It was at 9 am and it was H O T hot.

I also snapped this photo with my phone when we were walking to the starting line. Can you believe this is in the middle of the city? So beautiful! (Not too far in from the 102nd street entrance on the west side.)

A couple fellow Whittemore House stylists and I represented our salon at the new Ash shoe store opening party last night. We set up a little booth to do braids and feather clips for all the party guests. It was a really fun night and the guests were so cool. I thought they’d all be picky about what they wanted, but not a single person sat down with a plan. They all said “do whatever you want!”. I love creative freedom!

That’s SNL’s Vanessa Bayer on the left. I did her little mermaid braid and feather. She was the sweetest.

Angela and Chauntel working hard!

Another one of my braided creations

I love this action shot of the texture spray!

There were a couple of other celebrities there. A few of the 90210 girls like Shanae Grimes and Jessica Stroup. But the guest of honor was Solange Knowles, who was nice enough to pose with the Whittemore girls.

It was pretty cool to look out into the party and see every kind of braid imaginable. Also, it’s always nice to get out of the salon once in a while.

Photography:  J. Breinholt

I guess Jen is my muse.

She comes over to hang out, and next thing I know, I’m asking if I can do her hair. And she is saying yes. One thing leads to another and before we realize it, she has a full on ‘do and I’m a little out of breath and drinking gatorade to replentish my electrolytes. Having a fit of creativity can take a lot out of you.

Enough about me. Let me brag about Jen for a minute! Well, she was part of the lighting team for the biggest Broadway show of the moment “The Book of Mormon”, which swept the Tonys last night. It won in most of the categories it was nominated in, including best Lighting Design! Go Jen! (Have you seen this show? I have! If you’ve seen it, you know why it’s winning everything. It’s unlike anything else on Broadway. So clever, so funny, so unique, so well done, and slightly inappropriate!)

So Jen had awesome Tony party hair. I was awakened this morning by texts of Jen’s night. She was standing next to the host of the night, Neil Patrick Harris, and she was holding the Tony for Best Lighting design. I’m so proud of her!

On to the hair!

This only took about 15 minutes, which I find is all I need with Jen’s hair. I think it’s because it is so much like mine (aside from color and current length) that I feel like I’ve stepped out of my own body and am just doing my own real body’s hair. I think if Jen reads this, she is going to say no next time I ask, because after re-reading, that just sounded weird.

Anyway, fun times playing with hair! And fun times winning Tonys!

Did you guys watch?

And on a side note, here is a photo of Jen and I together at the Book of Mormon opening night party a few months ago. Fun night dancing next to Paul Rudd and much of the cast from SNL.

I work at the salon Tuesday through Friday, but I did some extracurricular hair yesterday just for fun! Jen, my good friend who is now my neighbor, had a birthday yesterday, so I told her to come upstairs to the 5th floor for some birthday hair presents. She said she was about to have a day of celebrating with her boyfriend, so I wanted to do something that would be out of her way and easy for daytime, but also pretty for nighttime.

We did a little braid swooping from the back to the side. I didn’t invent this guy, I’ve seen it around and done it on myself a few times. It looked great on Jen. She has amazing hair!

After Jen, I went to Long Island to do a wedding hair trial for my best friend, Sarah. I obviously can’t show pictures of that (yet), but she looked stunning. We then went to a gown fitting for both of us (I’m the maid of honor!). It was so great to be able to see the gown with the hair, in fact, it’s really pretty important to know what the gown looks like, so that the hair can be balanced. If you are getting married and doing a hair trial, try to bring your stylist a photo of your gown or at least of one similar!

Anyway, the wedding is July 9th! I can’t wait. Now I just need to figure out how I’ll do my own hair! For sure up in that July heat!

(this is what happens when I take my own pictures. horrible!)

Here is the long awaited halo braid tutorial. It is the easiest thing ever, just not on yourself! I feel like I’m upside down with tangled arms and confused fingers when I do it on myself. But with two mirrors and tired arms I can get it done pretty nicely! Maybe practice on your roommates, friends, wives and children before you start on yourself! Have fun and as always, send me pictures!