Jake and I went on a snowboarding trip over the weekend to Utah. On our trip, I made up a very special new braid to go along with my snow hat. I call this, the Grumpy Old Braid! I have always called these hats “Grumpy Old Men” hats, because that movie from my childhood (that I actually never saw)  is nothing but a bunch of men running around in these hats.

I did this braid as a joke to make my friends laugh, but then I decided it was cute and wore it down the slopes! It was nice to know my hat was never going to fall off, haha!

Instagram pic, if you want to follow me, I’m reagangb!

Here are a few other pictures from our trip!

Wallis had a bday!

Below is my brother Nathan, his wife Melanie and my mate Jenny! It was Nathan’s 30th bday.

The gang with our shred sticks.

Backflips on the tramp at Jake’s parents’ house.

It was such a fun weekend, but when we got home we found that our apartment had been broken into! It has been terrible but thankfully nothing we can’t get over in time. I took a few days off from blogging and it’s good to be back!

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!

It was a dream to work with my husband and friends on the Aussie video shoot yesterday. I hope to do this much more often, and to always be able to have so much say in how the day goes. I chose many of my friends as models, who were all beautiful and so fun to work with, and Jake was there to film all 5 videos and all the stills too.

Here are just a few photos from the day. I’m not pressing my luck by trying to upload any more because blogging has for some reason been pure hell for me this morning. (broken laptop, images not showing up, entire hdof website not showing up..)

I can’t wait for the videos to be all edited and ready to show you!

On Monday Jake, our friend Tadd and I filmed this video. Tadd is a scientist and has this crazy camera that films 1,000 frames per second (or something. that’s what i overheard them saying), so you can see every little detail of the shot. Usually Tadd films bullets being shot under water so that he can study the fluid dynamics (also what i overheard) and sciency things of that sort, but we decided to focus on hair for the night!

Here is what we came up with!

Slow Hair from Jacob Breinholt on Vimeo.

I recently got an email with a question that really had me thinking. She was wondering how I “got so good at hair”. This question had me experience severe flattery syndrome.

But more important than posting this question so that you can all see that someone thinks I’m “so good at hair”, I thought it was actually a really good question to answer for you aspiring stylists. It could even be good for someone struggling in any career field.

Here it goes:

I started out beauty school interested in hair, but not really having any idea of where it could take me. I was in for a rude awakening when I graduated and I didn’t have a full clientele immediately. I spent a long time just doing hair on the side because I wasn’t making enough money, and I had to rely on waitressing as my real source of income. When I moved to NYC, I found out that you can’t work on the cutting floor without assisting experience. I thought I knew so much about hair, but in truth, I wasn’t sectioning the hair off right, I didn’t know the difference between a stationary blade and a moving blade, and there was so much terminology I had never even heard of when it came to hair. I was embarrassed and it took a lot of pride swallowing to realize that beauty school doesn’t count as experience in NYC. Most people assist for 2 or 3 years before getting on the floor.

I chose cutting/styling over color. I still can’t really explain why I did, but I’m glad. There is definitely more money in color, but cutting/styling feels a little more creative. I worked my ass off. I cried, I messed up a few haircuts, I got laughed at by my teacher and I worked terrible long hours handing people hairspray and shampooing clients for the real stylists. I spent so much time leaning over shampoo bowls, that I had to get weekly back adjustments by a chiropractor. But I also learned a lot. I learned which blade was my moving blade, how to section off for different haircuts/head shapes and most importantly I was in an environment that challenged and inspired me.

I still feel insecure sometimes when I watch some of the stylists I work with. I wonder if I’m that good or if I’m that professional, but I think that a little of that is important in any work environment. What if I didn’t feel slightly insecure? I’d go to work every day bored, not trying new things, not looking for constant inspiration. I don’t feel afraid of looking stupid, if a stylist I work with knows more than me, I ask them to teach me. We all have our own styles and we can all learn something from each other. I look through magazines, I play with my friends’ hair, I watch old movies and use what I already know to come up with new things.

Something I’ve learned over the years….especially since I spent over three years in a salon that didn’t challenge or inspire me…is that your talent/creativity will become dormant if you aren’t pushing yourself. If you go to work and cut/blow, cut/blow, cut/blow, without any variation, you will never grow. If you have an extra 15 minutes with client, ask if you can try a new bun or braid on them that you saw in a magazine. You’ll find out that hair is the most fun think that ever was.

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!

I feel like I’ve been talking about Sarah’s wedding for an eternity! Probably because it was definitely the highlight of my summer, and possibly even my year. It was an honor to be a part of Sarah and Matt’s day, and everything turned out perfect.

I wanted to show you all a few pictures of the day, because as in all weddings, hair was of major importance! Because I was Maid of Honor, I felt that I had to look awesome. The bride suggested that because our dresses were one shoulder, it would look nice to have our hair to the side in some way. This gave me a million options…you know how I love those low messy side buns! I decided to stick to the semi-Grecian theme of our gowns, and do some sort of goddess-y coil curls into a chignon. It was easy and stayed through the outside heat during the ceremony and the dancing. We all know I’m an animal on the dance floor, so that says a lot.

Just call me Haira. Get it? Like the Greek goddess Hera?

One of the best parts of the day, was spending the morning with Sarah getting ready. I did her hair Victoria’s secret style and we laughed and chatted with her mom. I think half the fun of a wedding is taking so much time to get all dressed up. I don’t think anyone can say that Sarah didn’t look perfect. There was never a more beautiful bride. Get me some tissues. (I just realized I need someone around that I can say things like “get me some tissues” to.)

Me, Sarah and Gigi. We all assisted together back in the day. If you’ve ever assisted at a big upscale salon you know what we went through together! Definitely a bond we share!

In case you were wondering, I cried like a little child. Being the Maid (Matron) of honor was one of the most special times of my life. Knowing someone like Sarah considers me her best friend means I have pretty much nothing in the world to complain about!

Last night I went to a Blogger party for Lucky Magazine on the Lower East Side. It was at Elsa, which is basically the cutest place I’ve ever been to. They served drinks (Hot Pants Hooch!) and delicious cookies, hummus and toast.

The Bumbies were there. They sit at their little station and type up things about you. Once Jake was at a party and they were there and they said about his friend “You’re so beautiful, I can’t look away.” hah. I got there just as they were leaving, so I didn’t get evaluated. Next time!

Kristy from Full Time Fabulous, Amanda Blair from A to B, and Me!

When we were leaving we asked to take the balloons with us. Then we had a little photo shoot with them. It was fun because everyone got involved and it became the girliest situation Jake has ever been in.

When I was walking back with my balloon to Amanda Blair’s apartment in Murry Hill, my balloon got stuck in a tree and popped. I was bummed because we were getting all kinds of attention. Turns out walking down the street with gigantic yellow balloons is pretty awesome for a Wednesday night. Everyone looked at us with a smile. And we looked at everyone with a smile and a you’re welcome.

Fun Party. I love Lucky!

Today I have a busy day at the salon. I’m filming a little segment for ChineseTV. I hope they let me see the clip when it airs so that I can show you all. Wish me the best with looking good at work today and not doing anything embarrassing on camera, haha!

(All photos by the talented and sexy-hot Jacob Breinholt for Lucky Magazine)

I made it into the Seventeen Magazine beauty blog! One of the writers was at the Ash party last week. Pretty cool.

Click here for the article.

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