I recently did a collaborative series of workout tutorials with Physique 57, featuring 3 ways to wear your hair in and out of the gym!

I hope you’ll go take a look. They include me, my friend Kristen, my friend Holly, and my friend Ty who photographed the series!

Click here for The Braid at the Barre with Holly

Click Here for the Pony Up with Kristen

And click here for the Zipper Braid at the Barre with Me

Are you folks chomping at the bit for the next episode in the Hairdresser On Fire Holiday Special? I certainly hope you are enjoying them! In this episode, you’ll learn how to do the beautiful and incredibly festive cinnamon roll braid that I demonstrate on my dear friend Karrie. You’ll nail the holiday party season with your hair done in this little number. See for yourself!

Hairdresser on Fire – Holiday Special – Ep. 2 from Joe Varca on Vimeo.

Cinnamon Roll Braid instructions:

Part your hair where you would like to wear it and start French braiding..I like to start my braids on the side that’s parted heavier. As you’re braiding, follow your hairline around your head, only adding hair to the bottom section (I love the effect it give this particular braid). Once you get to the opposite side of your head from where you started (likely behind your ear), you’ll finish off the braid and secure with an elastic. Coil it up around itself creating a “roll” and secure with pins. Tug and pull at the braid, and loosen up those man-catchers!

See episode 1 here, and stay tuned for episode 3 where I give myself the Bardot ponytail!

 And make sure you check out Mairzy Dozy here! Forks in your hair make it sound like your there is a delicious meal on top of your head!

My third tutorial of the back to school series on A Cup of Jo went up yesterday. The little cutie, Stella, looks sweet as can be with this ‘do.

Click here to see how to do it (even if it’s on you and not your little!).

Photo by Alpha Smoot, Styling by Kendra Smoot, hair by me!

PS, the other two:

Heart Braid
Heidi Braids with a bow

Now that we know how cool it looks to pull at our fishtail braids, I thought I’d show you a few ways to wear ‘em!

As many of you know, Harold and Maude is one of my all time favorite movies. Maude is a dream. I aspire to have her courage and timeless youthfulness. Anyway, she wears her hair in two braids piled up on top of her head for most of the movie, I wrote about it here. This style below is really just a fancy Maude style, swapping out the normal braids for pully fishtails braids.

 Here’s how you do it:

1. Do this.
2. Pull both braids up onto the top of your head (one at a time if you prefer)
3. Pin them in place, making sure the ends of your fishtails are tucked underneath each other.
4. Take a cue from Maude. Sing some Cat Stevens. Run from the cops. Get a boyfriend 50 years your junior.

I think this style looks so awesome with the pulled fishtail spin. I wore it to a Physique 57 class and felt super cool while I pathetically tried to lunge and squeeze my thighs in pain for an hour straight.

My friend (and WH co-worker) Kristen and I did a little Braid Bar at Ash Shoes in Soho for Fashion’s Night Out. I had fun because I realized I was giving people a free braid, and I could do anything I wanted on them. It’s always fun to practice and fine tune my braid creativity. Especially when there is good music to swivel my hips along with while my fingers braid.

…

It was fun and I love these events, but I think I might be retiring from Fashion’s Night Out. If you’ve never been, allow me to explain. Soho on Fashion’s Night Out is like Mardi Gras and New Year’s Eve in Times Square’s little baby. With a dash of Spring Break and Halloween. Packed streets, people in costumes and public drunkenness at it’s most eccentric. Next year I’m going to call it an early night and cozy up with Netflix. Far, far away from the crowds.

But at least there was a photo booth for me and Kristen to act foolish in.

Chambray shirt from here!

My favorite kinds of Fishtail braids are messy and pully. Listen, you can’t go wrong with any fishtail, right? I’m only saying the pullier the better.

Here’s how you do it.

1. Do a fishtail braid or two (I’m doing two). If you don’t know how, let me know.
2. Secure with an elastic.
3. By all means, pull on it.
4. Pull a lot more.
5. Keep pulling until you’ve pulled at every part of the braid. It should be nice and wide and also nice and fuzzy.
6. Build your style from there.
7. Stay tuned for a few style ideas. Aka, alternate endings.

Let’s give a round of applause for the worst lighting ever! It’s the best we could do at that time of night.

Welcome to my first anti March blues hair sprucing challenge update! I’ve decided to update twice a week because I feel that once a week would make the post too long and boring. So far March has been cold, windy, gray and rainy for 3 out of 4 days. I’ve needed the extra hair play!

Yay! I like this challenge!

Two velvety rosette clips-Holly’s Apartment, Dress-Think Closet.

Turban-Boutiqe in London, Dress-H&M, Shoes-Jeffrey Campbell

Beaded hair trinket (it’s actually a bracelet!)-swapped, Leather Jacket-Old Urban Outfitters, Top-H&M, Jeans-Urban Outfitters, Shoes-Jeffrey Campbell.

Twist scarf-American Apparel, Kimono Blazer-H&M, Jeans, Urban Outfitters, Shoes-crappy cheap store that sells $10 shoes in my neighborhood, Sunnies-Norma Kamali.

If you are just joining, I hate March. So to cope with the March blues, I’m wearing (and documenting) hair accessories every day this month. Hair Sprucing design by my good friend (and cousin through marriage!) Tiffany Breinholt!

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!