Elle Canada - The Elle Word

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Red carpet trend alert! The days of overly styled and fussy Oscar hair are over. I lost count of the number of actresses at the Academy Awards on Sunday wearing relaxed, Grecian-style looks (Bérénice Bejo, Melissa McCarthy, Kate Mara), natural styles (Go, Viola!) and soft, touchable waves that wouldn’t look out of place on a Malibu boardwalk (Maya Rudolph, Milla Jovovich, Jessica Chastain).

One of my favourite funny ladies, Kristen Wiig, wore her hair in a super-relaxed style, which I thought was nicely juxtaposed with her formal gown. Hairstylist Mark Townsend—who gave me a killer blowout last year in Toronto—was responsible for the look. He says it was inspired by the silhouette and colour of Wiig’s J Mendel dress. “We wanted Kristen’s hair to be full with voluminous waves and have an edgy and sexy texture,” he said. Read the rest of this entry

Is this not one of the prettiest hair styles you’ve seen in a while? It is in my books. As soon as I saw this picture of an update on the classic French braid, I instantly thought about how many times I could wear it in the summer. Weddings, the office, beach days, summer cocktails on a patio … and thank goodness I’ve decided to grow my hair out longer so I can actually try this hair style out! It’s the braid trend we’ve seen over the past few seasons (remember Alexander Wang’s messy side braid from spring 2010?) with a sweet and sexy spin thanks to this Valentino knockout originally created by Redken Creative Consultant Guido Palau.

Currently loving this pretty take on the French braid at Valentino. Image courtesy of ImaxTree.com

Our tips on how to recreate this pretty braid yourself come courtesy of celebrity stylist Susana Hong who is also a spokesperson for TRESemmé. If you’re not an expert braider (like me), you might need a bit of assistance until you get the hang of it.

“I love it because once you’ve achieved it, it’s pretty low maintenance,” explains Hong.

The look works best on long, straight hair with very few layers. “If you do have curly hair, just blow dry straight but do not use a flat iron because that will flatten the cuticles too much making the hair harder to grip for the braid,” recommends Hong. And nix the flat iron, since it can make hair difficult to work with. “Hair with heavy shorter layers might prove difficult to style for this particular do. Though it can be done, it will take more product and hand strength to ensure the layered ends stay put in the braid,” says Hong.

Short hair tip: “You can use extensions, but the traditional ones that are clipped in most likely won’t work. You can use ‘braid’ hair – hair that is not attached to any sort of weave, it’s just loose hair. You would add that at the start of your braid, but it’s pretty advanced stuff for the average gal. But the best thing about this look is that it doesn’t have to be perfect,” says Hong.

To get the step-by-step on this hair style … Read the rest of this entry

It’s been a busy few days at NYFW and already some key hair trends are starting to emerge for fall. One of the most interesting ones is a return to super straight, flat hair – usually with a dramatic centre parting.  The ’90s are clearly back, but without the grunge and the recession! Oh, no. Wait, scratch that. Well, at the very least, the sleek, pin-straight styles that caused hair straightener sales to fly through the roof are back.

So far, the look has emerged at Prabal Gurung, where Paul Hanlon (working for TIGI) added extensions to create his piecey, slick look (seriously, look at this hair!), Victoria Beckham, where Guido Palau (for Redken) created a glossy, “uptown, rich girl” style, and at one of my favourite shows — Alexander Wang — Palau (again, using Redken products) added hair extensions to the models so that hair could have a clean line cut straight across the bottom. It looked like classic Wang to me — modern and minimal with an edge. Read the rest of this entry

Day 3 at MFW included some looks that went for more drama, including the unique hairstyle and heavy eye makeup at Samuel Dong.

To go with the theatrical, royal collection from Samuel Dong was equally extravagant makeup look. The eyes were the main focus; Amelie Ducharme, Cover Girl Makeup Pro, created the look using Cover Girl Liquidline Blast in blue to draw in the shape. The line comes to a rounded outer corner, as though done with a blunt pencil so the look appeared as though the models had done their own makeup. Once the shape was penciled on, she applied eyeshadow in Shimmering Onyx overtop; it was also used on the outer third of the lower lashes, too. Lashes were played  up with 24 Hours Lash Blast mascara in black (top and bottom lashes). The brows, however, were downplayed by washing them out slightly using Simply Ageless concealer.

On the lips, Ducharme applied Lip Perfection lip liner in Sophisticated 220, followed by Lip Perfection lipstick in Embrace 335. Then to give the lips the look of more volume, she added a highlight in the middle of the lips in Lip Perfection lipstick in Hot 305.

As for the hair, Denis Binet explains that Dong often likes there to be two textures in the hair look, in this case controlled and sleek. To start this look, Binet applied Pantene Classic gel directly from the tube onto the scalp. Then, using a comb, he combed the gel from the roots into the first few inches of hair then pulled the hair into a high, smooth ponytail, leaving a triangular section of hair at the front out of the ponytail. Using a large barrel curling iron on low heat, he wound this section of hair around the iron and left it for 60 seconds. Releasing this curl from the into into his palm, he then sprayed the piece with Sebastian Shaper Zero Gravity, then inserted the plastic cap from the top of a can of mousse into the curl and bobby pinned it into place. It was placed there simply to hold the curl, but the label’s stylist saw it and insisted Binet leave the plastic tops in the front bang for the runway show, which had the hair team MacGyver-ing the hair product caps, slicing off the closes ends of mousse and hairspray covers.

What do you think of these looks? Would you wear your hair or makeup in this way?

If you haven’t received a slew of party invites yet for the holidays, I’m sure you’re about to any day now. I already have a few weekends filled, so that means I need some easy, fresh hair ideas, stat. Like most of you, I need options that I can easily do at the office for après-work fetes and be able to switch up the looks from party to party.

I might attempt these three celebrity hair style options that I have been drooling over the past couple of weeks. And if not, at least they provide some pretty eye candy to look at for inspiration during lunch.

Holiday hair a la Lauren Conrad. Images by Michael Tran/FilmMagic and David Livingston/Getty

Lauren Conrad
This girl is my celebrity hair crush. Yes, I even put her above Jen Aniston, and I talk about her hair a lot. Her hair always has a perfect wave, looks soft and is super healthy. If only I could get my hair in such good shape. I also love that she’s willing to try out quirky and fun twists on classics. Take this look: Love the old Hollywood glam vibe, but if you look at the back, it’s an intricate swirling of wavy hair braids. Definitely will need some help with this hair style, but the end result would be worth it. Read the rest of this entry