Planning a new hairdo for the colder months? Celebrity hairstylist and holistic hairdresser, Stuart Phillips gave us the low down on how to achieve the new season’s styles at home.
When it comes to switching up your style for winter, it doesn’t always need to be dramatic. By all means, chop and colour your hair, but you can also make an impact simply by the way in which you choose to style it. Stuart Phillips, London based hairdresser and stylist told us how we can easily copy the trends of the season at home.
Centre Partings
Centre Partings are back in fashion again from the 90’s. The centre parting is a good style that works with various types of hair, including if your hair is thick, fine or curly, it literally works with all hair types. The only real thing you need to consider is ‘will it suit the shape of your face’ that is an important question! The style will work with oval face shapes as well as round and square. It will work with a heart-shaped face but as long as you have some hair around your neck to widen out your jaw-line.
Sometimes the simpler the style, the more difficult it can be to create it on yourself. So, to help you achieve this style, it is advised you freshly wash your hair and depending on your hair type I would use a suitable product before you blow-dry into a centre parting.
For thick hair I would recommend a leave-in conditioner, for curly or unruly hair more of a serum-based product and for fine hair something that is very light hold, but will help produce more of a satin shine, meaning that some of my clients that have fine hair tends to be a little greasy, so I recommend not to use a heavy product that will enhance this.
Before you start to blow-dry, I would first place the centre parting in, although this can prove a little awkward to achieve, meaning if you wanted the parting to be straight. The good news is I have some advice on how to achieve this! I would first comb in a centre parting and then blow-dry the rest of your hair to that parting, although you would first need to get your parting straight.
How-to:
- First comb your hair back
- Looking in the mirror I would place your left index finger (if your right-handed, pointing down towards the floor) in the middle of your head right on your hairline, using your nose as a reference point to the centre of your head, then slide your finger up about a cm and with your other hand place the comb just below your finger.
- You now have it exactly in the middle, then to help keep your comb going back in a straight and steady line, I would replace your left index finger at the bottom back part of the comb, then with both hands moving backwards, you can successfully comb in the perfect centre parting.
- To make sure that you do not lose your parting I would use some clips while you blow-dry. If you do lose the parting you will just need to repeat the procedure above.
When I do perfect centre partings for my clients, they normally comment saying they wish that they could achieve this themselves, so I teach them this, in exactly the same way as I described above.
Low Ponytail
The low ponytail is now big on the runways in 2019 and the high ponytail is officially out.I have always personally preferred the look of the low ponytails, for starters it is far more versatile, as you can wear it sleeked or just gently tied back, keeping some of your lose hairs tucked behind your ears. It will also work with almost any type of fringe.
For evening wear, I really like the beautiful side ponytail with the silky shiny finish.
It also works well with all kinds of face shapes, it just depends on how you dress it out, because if you have a low hairline you may want to backcomb the fringe area back and away from your face, or you have the choice of a side or a centre partings or no parting at all. You can dress it up with hair jewellery or keep it casual depending on where you are going. ‘I really do love the look of the low ponytails.
Disco Glam Waves
Disco Glam Waves are fun waves that can be achieved in various ways.
The way it was done in the 80’s was with crimping irons, then it was brushed out and slightly backcombed. Although, not everyone has crimpers, if not and you can get your hands on some large, or better still very large hot curling irons you will be able to achieve a similar effect.
How-to:
- I would first wash your hair, then work in a small amount of mouse. If you have wavy or straight hair then I would either use a vent brush or denim brush (not a round brush) and rough dry your hair by gently brushing it back and forth.
- Once your hair is dried, starting at the back take a section from just above your ear all the way around your head. Then take a big horizontal section and place the hot curling irons as close to your roots as possible (without burning yourself) and bend it around the large barrel of the irons, wait anywhere between 5-10 seconds depending on the thickness of your hair. Then replace the tongs just below the area that you waved, but this time turns the irons around the other way, so if you placed your hair around the barrel, then this time place your hair under the barrel, keep repeating this until you reach the ends of your hair.
- Then take a second section next to that and repeat the whole procedure again.
- Once you have worked your way around your head, comb more hair down and repeat again.
- The fewer sections you take the better it will come out, so basically, fit as much hair as you can around the barrel of the irons.
- Once you have finished creating your fab disco waves, I would gently brush your hair with a large-tooth comb or a vent brush and finish with some hairspray, or for a shiny look, you could add some serum.
You could even keep the top few inches with a crisper wave, then the rest you could brush out more and possibly put a little backcomb to it as well
Hair Bands & Broaches
Hair accessories are going from strength to strength and have been seen on various red carpets, including Chanel, Paco Rabanne and Versace. There are many kinds of hair accessories to choose from, from crystal hair slides, feathers, bows and broaches to name a few.
The great thing is you could wear these in your hair as casually or as glamorous as you like.
Super Slick
Super Slick Hair is one of the most popular hair looks of the season so far, even some of the guys in my salon are asking for this style too. I say super slick but there are some casual versions of this look too, being slick to a point but not as tight to the head. For suitability of this style, just like any short hairstyles, you would need to make sure that once it’s slicked back or to the side that it will suit your face, I say similar to a shorter style because being slick back tight, can have a similar effect on your face. In fact, some models and actors claim that by slicking their hair back it can have a tight pulling effect of the face, making them look younger
This style will work on all lengths of hair, for example, if your hair is medium length and not quite long enough to slick it back into a low ponytail, you could wear it slicked and tucked behind your ears, you could even do similar with longer hair.
You will first need to first make a decision in what you feel would suit you better, a side or a middle parting. Side partings are generally softer for your face, so that would generally suit more people than in the middle. Also, to do this style on yourself is a little bit of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, as it’s simply knowing what to do, but the actual doing can be a little tricky, but it is doable!
How-to:
- If you have long hair and you would like to create a slicked-back low ponytail, the way to achieve this simple but very effective style, after washing your hair, place some medium to strong hold gel throughout and comb through.
- As you are combing your hair make sure that you keep a good tension on the comb and keep coming into your other hand keeping it as low to your hairline as possible. Do not open the receiving hand too wide, just enough to keep grabbing your hair from the continuous combing into that hand.
- Once you are happy in the mirror and it all looks nice and sleek, keep the tension on the hair as you place on your covered hairband, or better still one of those elastic ones with a hook at both ends that you literally wrap around your ponytail. To wrap one of those little beauties on, first, hook one side into the back end of the ponytail, (so it’s hiding at the back) then wrap it around the base as many times as you can and then hook the other end to the back of the ponytail too.
- To hide either of the hair bands, pull away a small piece of hair from the base of the ponytail with a tail comb, or something else that’s pointy and wrap that strip of hair around the hairband.
- To hold that small piece of hair into place, push a little grip that is the same colour as your hair over that strip of hair and into the pony tail itself, you may need two grips to hold its place.
- If you would like the sleek back ponytail to look shinier, I would gentle smooth in some serum, or a shine spray, then continue to wipe any loose hairs back, so it ends up looking ‘super sleek’
- Finish off with some strong hold hairspray.
Feature image: GLAMOUR UK
