New York Magazine’s blog “The Cut” did a little write up about my salon last week. They interviewed my fellow stylists/colorists and myself about our beauty routine and called us “The Hot Girl Factory”. I don’t mind a description like that one single bit!

There’s a cool little slideshow of all my amazingly stylish Whittemore Teammates, go here to see the photos and read the whole story!

Photos by Elizabeth Lippman

Story by Christina Han

PS I’m wearing this lipstick in the picture.

Hello there! Today’s peek into my kit is all about my tools!

First up, I like to be prepared for the possibility of hair cutting. What if they are desperate for a bang trim? What if their ends are trashed? At a wedding recently, I ended up using my razor for two different bride’s maids..otherwise their heavy bangs would have been flopping in their face the whole day! I almost didn’t bring my cutting tools and boy am I glad I did. So add your shears, razor (this one!), and a cutting comb (carbon!) to your check off list of what to bring.

Also, at least one rat tail comb (this one!) and possibly a teasing comb (not pictured, but like this) if that’s your thing.

Next, I like to bring an assortment of brushes! I love my Mason Pearson for doing pin straight blow dries, smoothing out up dos, brushing out curls, etc. I love my pocket size Mason Pearson for bangs and little jobs. I sometimes use my Masons for teasing too! For round brushes, I like the Ibiza, and use two sizes, small and medium. I never need any other sizes.

A good blow dryer with nozzle is so important. On many jobs I don’t even use a flat iron or curling iron, just a good blow dry. I have been using the Twin Turbo for about 7 years. I only took a break once when someone gave me an FHI. Once that broke I was right back to the Twin Turbo. I actually have two. It’s the perfect air flow and the even perfecter heat.

Curling irons in a variety of sizes. I have about 4 Hot Tools marcel irons. 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch, 1 inch and 1 1/2 inch. I use the 3/4 and the 1 inch the most.

This are the most commonly used tools. Depending on the job you might need a defuser, a flat iron, foam for forming, clippers, etc.

Anything you other stylists out there swear by?

Photos by Jake Breinholt for Hairdresser on Fire.

What do you think about the shaved sides look?

I think it can look so cool on the right girl. I’ve seen some major hits and also some extreme misses with this trend for sure. I can’t say that I’m really tempted to do this look on myself for several reasons, the biggest being that I like my hair as big as possible, so every strand has a very important job.

Recently Jake did a photo shoot with Radcollector. The concept was what a girlfriend does while her boyfriend is away. Apparently she wears his clothes and jumps on his bed, haha.

Anyway, this girl is hot. And to top it off, she has STEPS!

I love the one of her shaved head/top knot combo!

So, are you brave enough for the shaved side look?

All photos by Jacob Breinholt for Radcollector

I’m so excited about this tutorial. The video is a little long, but with it being a more complicated (but totally do-able) style, I felt like I needed to do more visual. If you have time, pinning all of the curls to set will really give it a lot of extra hold. Also, spraying a light hold hairspray (and letting it dry) before you comb it out will also help this style hold longer. Use Vinyl glam on your ends to make it all nice and shiny-beautiful. I meant to demonstrate pin curls during the video, but I forgot! I’ll do those soon, because those are a great finishing touch to your retro styles. Please put any questions in the comment box.

That concludes the list of things I forgot to say/do in the video! And PS, don’t laugh at the headless hairstylist! haha, fine you can..

Thanks to Jake for making the video, and Kat for modeling for me! Also, anyone notice my mention of the Mason Pearson brush? This video was done a whole month ago! Great timing on the question, Amanda!

I hope you enjoy our first tutorial and the little photo shoot we did in beautiful Charleston right after. Please, could Kat be any more beautiful?

Thanks to Jake for filming and editing, and for shooting the stills. Thanks to Kat for being the most perfectly gorgeous model ever and THANK YOU, HDOF readers for being patient! We have a few more in the works, I’m really looking forward to getting better at these, Haha! Meaning, please excuse my awkwardness during the intro, I somehow managed to make it look like I’m reading cue cards. I’m not. And I swear my voice sounds different in my head than it does on video, does anyone else feel like that? Next time I’ll practice saying “Unique New York” 100 times before hand.

**note**if you run the flat iron down more quickly, you’ll get less curl and more of a bend effect. Same goes for not turning the flat iron and just cocking your wrist all the way down, you’ll get a slight wave if you prefer that to what we do in the video. Keep in mind that the flat iron waves are meant to be shaken out and played with!

forgive me for the not so nice post I am about to write…

I don’t understand it. The first thing it seems you do to prepare for being the new “bachelorette” is to get some really bad extensions. Now, I don’t watch the Bachelor/ette, but the show is unavoidable with it’s commercials, media coveriage and the fact that my favorite show is “the soup”. It seems like everywhere I turn, Alli’s yellow-y, straw-like extensions are staring me down. In Alli’s defense, it was probably the show’s idea as part of the dolling up phase, and they were probably provided for her. They also probably had all the budget in the world to spend on them, so why so straw-like? Why such poor blending?

And I know this image has nothing to do with the rest of the post. I even think this is when she still had her real hair…I just can’t handle the styling of this picture. Why is she wearing dirty Chuck Taylors? Why is she wearing such an ill-fitting wedding dress? Why is there a velvet-y curtain behind her? I saw this photo in several magazines promoting the show. I don’t get it….

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