Like Your Hair Stylist? Get Her Number

Do you like/love your hair stylist? Then here's a word of advice: Get her cell phone number now.

Why? Because you'll be thanking me when, one day, you call your salon to make an appointment with your favorite stylist, the one who knows how to cut your bangs just exactly right, and are told that she "no longer works here." And that, "No, we're sorry, we have no idea how you can reach her."

Have you seen
this stylist?

That's what happened to me two weeks ago. I don't know if Christie, my amazing stylist of the past two years, quit or was let go, but my salon is completely mum on how I can find her now. And I don't have Christie's personal contact information.  I've tried to find her via Google, Facebook, Yahoo and word of mouth, to no avail. I found a two-year-old MySpace profile, but it doesn't look like she's using it anymore.

If I can't find her, and she didn't have time to get her customers' contact information before she left the salon, that means I have to start the painful process of finding a new stylist once again. *sigh*

So, don't end up in my position! As soon as you finish reading this post, call your salon, talk to your stylist, and get a cell number or email address where she/he can be reached if they ever leave their current employer.

Speaking of leaving... I will be going out of town on business this week through the end of next week, so I will be taking a blog hiatus until December 18th.

Until then, many happy hair days during the holidays!

Love,
Bethany

Hair Doesn't Matter

Hair doesn’t matter.

What? Me, a woman so obsessed with hair that I started a blog to talk about my daily preoccupation with the state of my own locks – I am now telling you that hair doesn’t matter.

Well, it doesn’t.

You’re not your hair. You aren’t defined by it, and no one loves you based on whether you have beautiful hair or not.

So, why am I saying this today? For a few reasons. First, we will all sit down to celebrate Thanksgiving Day later this week, and hopefully we’ll take a little time that day to think about the things that really matter. Second, November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, and so I’ve been thinking a lot about a friend, Kate, who succumbed to this awful disease last year.

Kate had gorgeous hair. It was the first thing I noticed about her when I met her. But as I got to know her, I also discovered what a wonderful person and friend she was. She was funny. She always had time to listen. She was my "techy" friend who convinced me to get an iPod and to start a Twitter account. We loved shopping and meeting for lunch and working out together. Our dogs had play dates together. When I was single, she'd bring her husband to my house to fix things. When I was hurt in a car accident, she helped me with things I couldn't do, like grocery shopping.

When she told me she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I knew it wasn't good. But for the first year-and-a-half of her diagnosis, it was easy to believe that Kate would beat that disease because she kept her hair. She was on a “smart” chemo, one that attacked the “bad” fast-growing cells like cancer, and left the “good” fast-growing cells, like hair, alone.

But eventually, that smart chemo stopped worked. As she was leaving her oncologist’s office, after hearing this news, another patient, a woman with stage 1 breast cancer and no hair, stopped her in the hallway. "You’re so lucky!” the woman proclaimed. “You still have all your hair! I’d switch places with you in a second!”

The woman’s husband must have caught the look on Kate’s face because he urged his wife on before Kate was forced to respond.

Kate shared this with me later that same day. She was always so brave, but this was one of the few times I saw her crumble. “I’d trade my hair for my life if I knew I’d have a life,” she said. It broke my heart.

We all complain about something related to our looks, don’t we? Our nails, our skin, our weight, our hair. I love that as women we care about what we look like, but I want all of us – myself included – to remember that we shouldn’t measure our worth by our looks. We are more than the sum of our body parts.

The things I remember Kate for most are not her physical attributes. They are her generosity of spirit, her bravery, the way she thought of others more than herself even when she knew she was dying, her adventurousness, her accomplishments on behalf of others with cancer. She was beautiful with her hair, but without it, her lovely, wonderful spirit shone through brighter and brighter.

Ladies, you are all wonderfully and beautifully made, created by God. And while I want you to have the best-looking hair you can possibly have, I hope you never judge yourself by it. Instead, think about what those inner qualities are that make you a beautiful person. Make a mental list of those and focus on those more than on the exterior. I promise you, your friends love you because you’re kind, patient, generous, funny or encouraging, not because you have perfect hair. 

I'd like to end this post by mentioning the Pancreatic Cancer Network (www.pancan.org). Kate was very active in this organization, which is dedicated to fighting the disease. If an early detection test could be developed, it would save so many lives! If you or someone you know is battling this cancer, it is a wonderful resource. 

Thank you for continuing to follow my blog! I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you back here next week!

Love,

Bethany

Dry Shampoo: Benefits & Brands

One of my absolute favorite hair care products is dry shampoo. Basically, its a powdery like shampoo that sprays on your hair like an aerosol hairspray would. The powder soaks up any oil on your hair, leaving it cleaner looking and feeling.

Have you ever tried it? If you haven't here are some great reasons why you should:

• Dry shampoo saves you time. All you do is spray it on and cover your hair with a plastic cap before hopping in the shower, then brush it out after your shower, and you're ready to go.
• Dry shampoo helps keep your hair healthy. You're not supposed to wash your hair every day anyway, plus your hair isn't being subjected to heat from your hair dryer and styling tools.
• Dry shampoo saves you money. You won't be using your more expensive shampoo, conditioner and styling products every day if you are using dry shampoo in between washes. Dry shampoo can also help you extend the life of a professional blow-out.

Brands
So, now that I have made the case for using dry shampoo, what kind should you use? I've tried out five different brands for you! Since I have fine, curly, shoulder length hair, I thought it would also be beneficial to get feedback from someone with a different type of hair. My friend Brandi, who has thick, straight, very long hair, volunteered to give her input. We both describe our hair as normal-to-oily. here's what we thought of:

TRESemme Fresh Start Dry Shampoo for Oily/Straight to Normal Hair ($5.99 at CVS)
This was the least favorite for both Brandi & I. I felt like the dry shampoo actually feels wet when I sprayed it on my hair, and my hair never felt less oily or cleaner after I used it. I felt that, if anything, my hair looked dirtier.

Brandi had the same input, but added that she could see clay flakes in her hair after spraying it on. Brandi has blonde hair, which may be why these showed up in her hair. Up til now, this has actually been the brand that Brandi used on a regular basis.

Suave Dry Shampoo Spray ($3.49 at CVS)
We both liked this brand. It sprays on dry, and left very little powdery residue in my hair, which as a brunette, I appreciated. It also had a very nice scent. However, I did feel that I had to spray my hair with this again mid-day to keep the clean look going.

This was Brandi's favorite, and the one that she said she'll be using from now on. She really liked how it smelled and made her hair feel, and it lasted all day for her. You can't beat the price!

Batiste Original Dry Shampoo ($6.99 at Sally's Beauty Supply)
This is the dry shampoo that I've used for 2 years. I like this one because it does a great job of freshening up my hair for the entire day, and at $7, it is a reasonable price. I should note for all you brunettes out there that this does leave a lot of powder residue on your hair, but I believe that's why it works so well on my oily roots. I let it sit on my hair during my shower, and when I take my shower cap off and let my hair down, I massage it into my scalp. If my hair looks grayish anywhere, I brush through it or I may even put a little water on it to get rid of the grayish hue. You may not like having to do all this, so if not, the Suave Dry Shampoo is probably a better choice for you.

Brandi liked this brand the least. She said that it didn't work on her hair and she hated the scent.

Batiste Blush Dry Shampoo ($6.99 at Sally's Beauty Supply)
I added this one because of Brandi's feedback on the smell. The only difference between Batiste original and blush is the scent. It works exactly the same, but has a nicer scent.

Brandi tried this one at my request, and she did like it better, but still prefers the Suave. I now prefer Batiste Blush.






Oscar Blandi ($28 at Sephora) (Not pictured)
I have also tried Oscar Blandi dry shampoo, and I felt that it worked the same as Batiste. However, I don't think that the price is worth it. The only reason I ever spent this much on Blandi dry shampoo was because I had just learned about dry shampoo in my Glamour magazine, and this was the brand that was mentioned. I was traveling on business to Las Vegas, and there was a Sephora right next to the Venetian where I was staying, so I popped in to buy a can. It worked great, but as I said, why spend $28 when you can spend $7 or less and still get great results?

I hope you'll try a dry shampoo this week and see what a great time saver it is! If you do, please let me know by posting a comment to this blog!

Until next week, wishing you great hair days!
Bethany

Easy Up-Dos Using Clip-In Hair Pieces

My apologies, ladies! I promised you a new post for October 23, and it didn't happen. Life took over, and I'm back now with the promised topic: More hairstyles using clip-in hair pieces!

There are so many hairstyles and brands from which to choose, and they are all very easy to apply. Why use clip-in hair pieces instead of your own God-given hair? My top three reasons:

• It's a time saver. Rather than drying and styling your own hair, you can pull your hair, wet or dry, into a ponytail and just clip on an already styled bun, chignon, or ponytail. 
• It's a money saver. Rather than going to a stylist for an expensive up-do, you can re-use your clip-in hair piece over and over again, and it looks just as good!
• It's weather proof. Synthetic hair pieces don't frizz. Over the summer, I wore a clip-in hair piece to work every single day, and I never had a bad hair day.

I'm going to share some photos with you, along with links to where you can buy my favorite clip-in pieces and many more:

The Chignon

You can wear this at the nape of your neck or the crown of your head (which is my preferred look). Here is what the StyleMaker looks like (in Chocolate Copper; $15) before putting it on:

Step 1: Pull your hair into a ponytail.

Step 2: Using the StyleMaker like a ponytail holder, loop the hair piece around your ponytail, but don't pull the ponytail all the way through. 

Step 3: Loop the StyleMaker around a second time, again without pulling your real hair all the way through. 

Step 4: Now adjust your real hair and the StyleMaker, pulling it out a little more if necessary and fluffing/twisting to make it look right. I personally need to secure this piece in my hair with bobby pins so it will stay in place. 

Here's the finished product: Cute, right? 

The Bun

This Dancing With the Stars Glamarama bun (in Chestnut; $20) looks professionally styled, and takes less than two minutes to put on.

Step 1: Pull your own hair into a ponytail on top of your head, but slightly off center.

Step 2: The bun is secured to the top of a large clip, which you open up... 

Step 3: ...and then slide into your hair next to your off-center ponytail. The reason your ponytail should be off-center is so that the bun can be attached in the center of your head. 

Step 4: After you've attached the bun, you will still be able to see the front of the clip that it is secured to. Hide it by taking your off-center ponytail, and.... 

Step 5: ...Pull it around the front of the clip. Tuck the end of your ponytail under the hairpiece's clip by lifting the top arm of the clip and sliding your ponytail under it. 

Here's what it looks like, and it will stay securely in place all day long!  

The Ponytail

The Jessica Simpson Wavy Bump-Up Ponytail (in Chestnut; $29) is a fun way to wear your hair all summer, and no one will ever know it's not your own hair!

Step 1: Pull your own hair back into a ponytail.

The Bump-Up Pony has two things that secure it to your real ponytail: 1) a tiny comb at the top of the piece, and 2) velcro on either side of the comb that secures the piece, when wrapped around your real ponytail, underneath. 

Step 2: Slide the miniature comb under the elastic you have used to pull your real hair into a ponytail. (If you just slide it down into your ponytail, the hair piece could slide off.) 

Step 3: Now wrap the hairpiece around your real ponytail and secure the velcro fastener underneath. 

Step 4: The hairpiece has a small mini ponytail that hangs off of one side. Now take that mini tail and wrap it around the base of your ponytail and the hairpiece. It will probably wrap around 2-3 times. Its purpose is to hid the comb and velcro completely. 

Step 5: Use the bobby pin that is included with the hairpiece to secure the mini ponytail in place. 

Here's the ponytail when finished! Doesn't it look 10 times better than my real ponytail??? 

So there you have it! As the holidays approach, I hope you'll keep these hair pieces in mind and try them out. You won't spend more than $29 to have a gorgeous hairdo!

Like many of you, I'm now in the busiest time of year both personally and professionally. I'm always looking for time savers, so next week, I'm going to share one of my absolute favorite time savers with you: Dry Shampoo!

Wishing you a week of Good Hair Days,

Bethany

p.s. Please leave your comments and let me know you're reading!!!