My Haircut + Anti-Breakage Hair Tips

As I've mentioned already, I finally got a haircut last week after not having had one since last summer. My hair was hella long, which is my favorite way to have my hair... but it of course had plenty of split ends. Breaking hair is also a big problem for me, so I was also interested in chatting with my hair stylist about that to see if he'd have any recommendations for how to improve the problem.

Here's how my hair was looking when I went in to see James at Acacia Hair Boutique in Downtown Vancouver last Thursday:

Now, just to give full disclosure - yes, my hair looks like absolute shit above BUT a) it was partially wet in that photo and had just been taken out of a haphazard braid, b) it hadn't been shampooed since the Monday prior, c) I had just power-walked 2 miles in the rain to get to the salon. So try not to judge me too much based on the completely ratchet look I've got going on in that Before pic.

Originally my plan was to ask for some long layers - I brought in this picture of Kristin Cavallari as a reference:



I've been getting layers cut into my hair for years but have never been especially thrilled with how they've turned out.  I always kind of felt like they weren't very noticeable, whereas you really can't miss the layers in the picture of K. Cav above! Maybe my hair wasn't right for layers?

James didn't think so - with my breakage problems, he recommended keeping the hair all one length if I wanted to keep it long. He also recommended a few other things to help the breaking:

• I already use the Davines Mellow Anti-Breakage Lustrous Conditioner 1-2x/week, but don't currently use the Davines shampoo to go along with it. James recommended that I switch to using the complementary Davines shampoo, in order to get the full benefits of the conditioner I was already using. Note - they don't sell Davines products at Acacia, so it's not like he was telling me that in order to sell me an expensive shampoo!
• Normally I let my hair air-dry every single day - honestly, I can't remember the last time I blow-dried it. You'd think that would be a good thing for my hair - no heat products, right? But in actuality, since wet hair is naturally more prone to damage/breaking, the longer that it remained wet each day, the longer it was left "vulnerable"! So he recommended that I start making a point to blow dry my hair each day, making sure to use a heat protectant spray first. He said if I did this for a month, I'd probably notice an improvement.
• Finally, James suggests using an oil to help protect and nourish my poor, poor fragile strands. He'd used on my hair a Kevin Murphy oil treatment product called Young Again, which - I can't even stress enough - left my hair feeling incredible at the end of the appointment. I couldn't stop touching my hair, and when I asked James if that was due to the shampoo he'd used on me or due to another product, he said it was this oil! By the way, he also dished that you can make your own treatment at home using coconut oil. You can find lots of tutorials about that online!

So here's how much better my hair looked when James was finished with it:

He said it was incredibly satisfying for him to chop my hair - hair stylists must really get a buzz off of taking a woman's hair from bootleg to beautiful.

I couldn't resist buying a $40 bottle of the Kevin Murphy Young Again oil treatment before leaving Acacia. I learned after purchasing the Davines conditioner back in the fall that it's totally worth it to spend some money up front and invest in your hair with nice products every once in awhile. The $33 conditioner seemed expensive in October... but here we are on March 31 and I'm still making my way through it. Makes a $33 conditioner seem a little less frightening, right? I'm assuming the same will be true of this $40 oil treatment - it's going to last me awhile.

What are some of your favorite hair care tips?

Do you currently use any oil products for your hair?

Any other tips for me on how to improve the strength of my hair? I'm all ears!!

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Getting Gussied Up: Wedding Hair & Makeup

On the morning of the August 3 wedding of my good friend Jenna, I joined the other bridesmaids and the beautiful bride-to-be at Salon Bellisimo in Newburyport, MA to get our hurrr and makeup did.

We showed up with a few carfuls of women and were greeted enthusiastically by the team of stylists and makeup artists who were there to make us all look super fly. Basically everyone in the room was enthusiastic that morning, so there was a lot of estrogen and good vibes flowing.

And champagne - there was champagne flowing too!

Yes, to kick off our session of "ladies gettin' lovely" at the salon, there was a table of champagne/prosecco and OJ/cranberry juice for mimosas, fruit, and a box of assorted bagels with cream cheese. It was really a lovely spread:

Jenna's mother Elaine even brought us a platter of some fantastic homemade mini-quiches that she had whipped up for us that morning!

The stylists promptly got to work cycling all of us through their hair and makeup chairs.

.  jenna getting some falsies!  .

Jenna let us figure out for ourselves what we wanted to have done with our hair and told us to do whatever we felt comfortable with. I wear my hair in a simple side braid about 90% of the time - it's an easy peasy hairstyle and I'm not one to use a hair dryer or straightener very often. I thought it would be nice for the wedding if I went with a "fancier" version of my normal braid, so I asked for a fishtail braid. Here were the two inspiration pictures that I brought with me:

My stylist, Stephanie, claimed to be a little uncertain about how to do a fishtail... but she totally knew what she was doing. She did a fantastic job, too, and even gave me an awesome bump in the back for some v-v-volume. #BumpIt

.  bout to get that bump, bitchessssss  .

Jenna had some fun extensions added to her hair, which were then curled into big fabulous curls. 

The stylists at Salon Bellisimo masterfully maneuvered all us women through the lines of hair stylists and makeup artists, weaving us in and out of each other seamlessly. By the end of it, we all looked really freaking fabulous. I barely wear any makeup usually (beyond mascara/lip balm), so getting my face professionally done with airbrush makeup was pretty fun.

Here we all are right before we left the salon - Lauren (holding the veil in the middle) is also a professional makeup artist so she did her own makeup after we left the salon. Abigail (second from the left) was also doing her own makeup later that day.

.  this photo was taken by (and belongs to) the salon owner, lorna  .
.  me, abigail, theresa, lauren, jenna, sarah, kara  .

#NailsDoneHairDoneEverythingBig

Salon Bellisimo
113 Merrimac St
Newburyport, MA
978.463.0004 // http://www.salonbellisimo.net/

One more wedding post coming soon - this one about the actual wedding!

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