Q by Heather: I’d like to get your take on “cowlicks”.  I have hair that looks very similar to yours, maybe a little thinner, and I have HUGE issues with the whorl at my crown.  It’s fine when I wear it curly, but when I go straight it seems that no matter how I blowdry or tease, after a very short time you can see my hair start to split in the back….it drives me nuts!  I end up having to wash my hair way more often than I’d like because it’s the only way I can get it under control after sleeping on it.  Any suggestions?

A by Reagan: Heather, you’re on the right track! There are a few tricks to dealing with cowlicks that I have found very helpful. The first trick is to leave the hair in that area a little longer. You don’t want to be cutting short layers or fringes where there are cowlicks. The extra length with help weigh down the hair, making it more manageable. My next tip is to comb and blow dry that area first, while the hair is still quite wet. Make sure you are blow drying against the grain of the hair, this will help to manipulate that little tuft to lay down a little more. My final tip, is instead of shampooing your whole head in the morning just spray down that area and start over. My favorite blow dryer is the Twin Turbo, give that a shot. They range from $90-$150 on Amazon. And for the millionth time, use a nozzle!!

Cowlicks are such needy little things, right? They love all the attention like that one girl from highschool! haha. Good luck!

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.

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!

Hey everyone! I just wanted to say thank you for liking my Facebook fan page! Over the weekend, we hit 1,000 likes! I’m so happy!

I want to do a giveaway soon to thank you all!

Hooray!

While I’m on the topic, look at Brittney’s cute summertime side pony! She posted it on the HDOF page wall the other day. She looks perfectly summery!

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!

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!)

Guys, I’m so proud.

Brianne’s is perfectly messy!

Emma’s

I love the pretty loose back!

Aileen practiced on her roommate!

And then wanted to do it on herself but ran into trouble, so she improvised! (she did a “twist halo” to make things easier. GENIUS!)

Thanks so much for sending your pics over!

If you send me pics, make sure you specify if you do not want them posted on the blog. Cool?

Here is a quick little video with tips on how to blow dry your own bangs. I’m still not used to the video thing yet, and most of all, my voice is totally different from what it sounds like in my head. I always thought I had a southern accent! Who knew?