Did you watch the Golden Globes last night? I did an impromptu live discussion on my facebook page of the show and it was so fun! I think now that it’s award season, I’ll have to do it more!

I have to say, I was very impressed with the women last night. The gowns, the make up, the hair. I wish I could say the same for the men. They were all way too tan. Oh well, they can’t all be as suave as Leonardo DiCaprio I guess.

Alright, here are my favorite looks of the night!
Img

The cut and color of Reese’s dress are perfect. The blood red looked great against her skin and hair. Normally, I would prefer a slicked pony with a structured gown like this, but she looked fresh and beautiful as she was. I couldnt find a photo of her without her hands on her waist, which was a shame because she was a hippy goddess in that red number, and her hands took away from that.

Img

Kate Beckinsale’s gown was such a great color on her. I loved the sharp neckline and her updo was the perfect choice.

Img

Nicole Richie walked onto the red carpet with straight up dinosaur hair, and I was feeling it. You know she had 20lbs of hair extensions in there, and it was beautiful. I want to recreate this look with some wave. Hot!

Img

Zooey Deschanel killed it. She looked so cool out there with her one of a kind Prada gown and her retro hair. I couldn’t find a great profile shot, but she had some kind of sideburn chops that completed the look. I think she may have been wearing a wig, because her hair is normally a lot longer, and I doubt she cut it.

Img

I always love Michelle Williams, but it wasn’t until she walked up onstage to accept her award that I saw how subtly slinky she looked in this gown. She could not be cooler. Showing hardly any skin and almost no jewelry, and she still looks gorgeous. Also, her speech about being a mom had me tearing up. She’s a lady. Oh yeah, and I loved that she brought her best friends Busy as her date.

Img
Claire Danes and Emily Blunt tied for first as my favorite gowns. I could not find a photo of Emily’s gown anywhere though! They both chose dresses that looked perfect with their hair color.

I’ve realized that my favorite gowns are usually sleeveless. I don’t like strapless on me, so I think I naturally lean towards a little fabric up top. There were so many hits on the red carpet, I could have gone on and on. Felicity Huffman? Tilda Swinton? Laura Dern? They all looked awesome. Who am I missing?

I have recently realized that a lot of people share my same opinion about NYE…it’s not that cool. In fact, I’m not really going to do anything if it requires me leaving my apartment building or neighborhood. It’s cold, it’s packed with tourists and it’s hard to get a cab. So when Jen told me a few weeks ago that she wanted to throw a party, I was very excited because she is my neighbor just two floors down. Talk about “Friends” right?

After listing the reasons I hate NYE above, now I’ll list the reasons I love it:
Fancy hair, Fancy make up (I always wear fake eyelashes), Fancy clothes.

So after work, I came home to get fancy. Jen and AmandaBlair came up and I asked them if I could do their hair. I was feeling a half up theme for the night. I did a cute little “hair bow” flare on myself, which felt quite festive, then I did ABs and halfway through her hair I heard a Gwen Stefani song, so at the last second I did a little Gwen Stefani swirl in the back. It was mostly 1960s with just the slightest twinge of a 40s flare. For Jen I did a quickie half up fat twist but with a braid flare instead of a swirl flare. I love a little hair flare, hooray!

Since we are just a few steps away from each other, Jake and I set up a photobooth in our apartment for Joe and Jen’s party guests to come up and partake in. It was pretty fun. We put up tinsel and had props to play with. We had a great time getting our sills out! I even had fun cleaning up all the tinsel the next day.

One perk to being at home is that I was able to do an outfit/hairfit change halfway through the party. Do you every have the urge to do an outfit or hairfit change? I went from my fancy golden girl grandma vintage top, to my flapper princess dress.

How was your NYE?

Also, Ta Da!
Thank goodness my heel didn’t destroy my silk dress!

For our “Pins” segment, I’ll be covering a broader area than just pins. I’m including all the things I use to secure different styles. Before you get started, you want a pin case. This one below is great. I didn’t use my own picture because my pin case isn’t organized very well right now.
You can get this one here.

I like to bring a big clip to hold the hair while I’m blow drying/curling. This clip holds the thickest of the sections and never falls.

I make sure to always have lots of two prong clips for setting. Also, if you are doing a shoot or a show (or even a wedding) the make up artist will want to front of the hair pinned away so it doesn’t get in the way during the make up application. A lot of times I’ve used a piece of tissue between the hair and the clip to prevent a mark, but there are also special clips just for that purpose if you don’t want to deal with the tissue.

Bungees are the best way to get a smooth pony. They hold the hair tight tight tight! See my bungee tutorial here!

I go through these little bands like crazy. I use them mostly for securing braids and ponies. Make sure you have clear (pictured, but hard to see) for your blonde clients.

Japanese bobbies. I’ve written about these before. Normal bobbies don’t come near these guys. They are expensive, but one box comes with hundreds, and you non hairstylists will likely have a life supply by getting one. You hairstylists will likely have a few months supply. Let’s be real. We go through a lot of bobbies!

Last up is hair pins. I also like Japanese because they are easy to form without being too flexible. They are very comfortable to wear. The longer I do hair, the more I find myself using hairpins instead of bobbies. Go here for a quick hairpin tutorial!

Tomorrow I’ll choose a winner! Also, We have a new tutorial all edited and ready to go. I’ll probably post it Monday, but I just had to tell you!

All photos by Jacob Breinholt for Hairdresser On Fire. Except the top one.

img

Do the Olsens ever experience a style/hair swing and a miss*? I don’t think so. Both of these styles (dresses and hair) are breath-taking. These would be amazing for so many occasions….all fuzzy and romantic in a good way.

Jeal’.

*They probably do.

I did 12 heads of hair the day of Maggie’s wedding. In the weeks approaching the wedding, Maggie asked me a few times if I wanted her to find someone to help me with the hair. I knew I didn’t need one (plus, what if our work clashed?), because we had decided the look for the maids, would be braids.

Maggie gave me a few rules:
No Peasants or Pinheads (meaning, they need volume and don’t make them look like milkmaids!)
All updos, no tails.

Braids were a genius idea, because they are quick and you can do them on any hair type….and I worked with every hair type that day. Fine, processed, thick, silky smooth, curly, virgin hair…etc. Also, because I was doing 12 people, I could only allow about 30 minutes per girl. I started at 6:30 and finished around 2:30. The major time saver, was that I didn’t have to blow dry anyone. I brought lots of products, my kit and my cutting tools anyway, and just did touch ups when needed. (and two bang trims!)

Here are just a few pictures of some of the girls. (who are all my friends. it was so fun!)

And last but not least, an image of the maid of honor fishing the bouquet out of the chandelier. Have you ever seen the bouquet toss end up in the chandelier? It was glorious.

Braids were a beautiful way to have a theme, but avoid being too uniform. You can get so creative with braids. Once you get them down, they can take you anywhere. Just like Reading Rainbow!

Click here to see more about braids!

A few weeks ago I was at Target and I saw this shiny beaded headband in the hair accessories for $2.99. I thought about how it matched the shiny beads on the dress I got for my friend’s wedding and dreamt of some cool 1920s updos I could do with it that day.

Having been honored to be the on sight hairstylist for the entire wedding party, I was pretty busy. After putting the veil on the bride and kissing her and crying, I looked at my watch (also known as a phone) and realized I only had about 20 minutes to get ready for the ceremony. I ran to my room, showered my body, dry shampood my hair, threw on the headband and grabbed pinned grabbed pinned grabbed pinned and repeated. I ended up with this variation of the low messy side bun with a 1920s twist. The headband and the messy bun having a wider span and being less “low” helped with the 20s look the most. The red lipstick helped fake that I had lots of make up on, when really if you looked closely you’d see that there were giant patches of half smeared in foundation! haha. World’s greatest faker!

I was completely 100% ready for the wedding in less than 15 minutes. Showered, haired and make-uped. I can scarcely believe it myself.

When we walked into the chapel, I sat down next to my friend Bobby and he turned to me and said “You look like you’re straight out of Boardwalk Empire!”. And I screamed (in my head because I was in a church) with delight. My vision of a 1920s ‘do back in the hair department at my local Target in the Bronx had somehow been successful with only a 3 minute time slot.

I was able to cry and hug friends and dance like crazy at the reception with no worries.

I should write a book called “the art of fake-spending a lot of time on stuff”.

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!

Recently when I did the Half Up and Full Up Fat Twist tutorials, I told you that I’d do a hair pin tutorial. They are really great alternatives to bobby pins, and they don’t give you as much of a headache! So, we did this quick little video last night to show those of you who couldn’t figure out the pin situation.

Remember, this is a Hair Pin tutorial! If it had been a bun tutorial, I would have spent a little more time making it look nice. Haha

PS we didn’t go to DC.