As we hurtle towards Labor Day, the sweaty summer season is only going to get well, sweatier. Here at EcoSalon, we’ve given you wardrobe and make up ideas to beat the heat, but how about some tips to tame your tendrils?
There has been a notable anti-straightening iron movement for the past few years in hair in favor of more natural-looking textures. The loose and beachy waves du jour are the perfect accessory to summer’s carefree looks, but when it gets truly hot and sticky out there, even the most perfect waves experience wipeout.
It’s tempting to want to chop it all off. But there’s an undeniable predilection for repunzel-like long locks right now. Thanks to layered cuts that add movement and volume to longer hair and celebrities, like Demi Moore, turning the ridiculous notion of age-appropriate hair length on its head, hair that reaches the mid-back is beautiful for all.
If you’re determined to remain sane and hang on to your mane in this summer’s epic battle of hair versus humidity, how about trying herringbone or fishtail braids – a sophisticated, on-trend solution to keeping your hair out of your face.
There are lots of tutorials on how to do fishtail braids online, I liked this sexily-voiced one. The trick to keeping the effect cool girl – not school girl – is to wear them deliberately loose and messy, teasing out volume on top and a few strands to frame your face.
A side swept style complements every face shape by helping to offset unsymmetrical features. A deep, statement making, retro part will perform the same trick. For a finished look, pull a piece of hair from the underside of the tail and wrap it around the elastic as many times as you can, securing it with a bobby pin or adorn jauntily with eco hair accessories.
I’ll attest to finding it a bit fiddly at first – it’s one of those things that gets easier with practice, which is just as well because come fall, those braids are getting decidedly more polished (check out hair guru Orlando Pita’s guide to creating Doo Ri’s fall catwalk look seen above) along with a return to sleeker hair textures.
It seems that fashion’s frisky self-referential cycle has become so short that even the pin straight hair of the mid-nineties, straightened then to accompany Tom Ford’s seventies redux, is now considered vintage and ripe for reinterpretation. So before you arm up with your straightening arsenal – dryer, irons, paddle brush – dressed in high-waisted flared pants and once again wrestle your locks into long, straight, face drapes à la Jerry Hall (pre Mick), it’s time to embrace your natural texture, twisted, twirled and braided into summer’s hottest trend, tended tendrils.