Hair IS 90% of our selfies!! It’s also a subject I get the MOST questions about, so let’s discuss!
I actually talk about hair so much my friend Grayson thought I was a hair stylist the first few times we hung out! I took that as a compliment that I had good hair! We still laugh about it and she still asks me to style her hair when we’re on trips together!!
Typically the first question I get is who does my hair and how did I find her…WHICH is a whole separate discussion that I wrote a blog on in the Spring of 2015. (It’s in the Archives section.)
I’ll give you the quick version of that horror story…
At this time, which was 2014 going into 2015, I was platinum blonde and my hair was about to my shoulders. My stylist had taken me in as client for another stylist that moved and she had touched up my roots several times successfully.
We also dyed a halo extension band, by Halo Couture, to match my platinum hair. I would wear it occasionally for some extra length. I had my friend’s mom, who is a stylist out of town order mine for me. (I think you have to have a retailer’s license and/or hair license to order this brand, BUT there are tons out there just read reviews!! People love to be honest about hair products or tools in the streets!! If it’s crap they gonna buy a billboard and tell you honey, DO NOT WORRY! They will not rest until the choir at church knows something is SUBPAR.)
What is a halo?
It’s a string of hair, which can be “real” natural hair or synthetic hair. The hair is attached to a clear band, I describe as a fishing line type of stretchy string. You place the band on your head, like a headband (see picture below on the right) then pull your hair over that strip to hide and blend the fake hair with your real hair.
Remember to brush and blend ladies!!
But Lyv, your hair isn’t anywhere close to the color hair on the halo you’re using… WHY THANK YEW FOR NOTICING!!!!!
The picture on the left is the first time my hair got messed up. The stylist sent me home like everything was fine and I was my usual platinum blonde self. If I have said it once, let me say again in case the church choir didn’t hear me…HELLEN KELLAR CAN SEE THAT MY HAIR IS PURPLE AND GRAY?!?!? WHY DID YOU SEND ME HOME LIKE DIS?! THIS IS NOT RIGHT?!?! MY HUSBAND HAS EYES!!! DID YOU NOT THINK HE WAS GONNA TELL ME MY ASS WAS LEWKING BUSTED.
Ok…the second picture on the right is when she “fixed” my hair.
LAWD JESUS. i thought we were gonna have to werk an exercism up in this salon BECAUSE MY FEET WAS BURNING FROM THE DEVIL CRAWLING UP MY ASS TO LEAN OVER MY SHOULDER AND TELL YOU WHAT MY HAIR REALLY LOOKS LIKE!!!
Also, this was 2 days before my best friends wedding. Literally, 24 hours before I had to leave town for the rehearsal dinner. I was the maid of honor and I was pulling the damn kids down the isle in a damn go cart or some shit I can’t even remember what it’s called, ALL I KNEW IS THAT EVERYONE WAS GONNA BE LOOKING AT THE BACK OF MY HEAD AND THE KIDSSSSS!!!!!!
ONE LAST THING…Can someone ask me to pull a box of dogs down the isle the next time you need me in a wedding?! I don’t have small children. I’m not well equipped for that sort of thing unless I have a good 20 minutes alone with them beforehand to demonstrate my bribery skills and collection of sparkly TINGS. If you throw me into their small person space as a stranger we’re all screwed, because they smell fear even when it’s hiding behind fake eyelashes.
Otis has a tux ready, just saying.
SO, somebody at the salon turned my hair to a shade of yellow I knew I could at least turn platinum myself if I washed my hair 36 times with purple shampoo, so I said thanks and left.
My hair was ruined. It was broken, dried to hell and back. If a strong gust of wind came it would break and I could hear it crying in the wind as it blew away.
A friend from Charleston recommended I go see Lindsey Crider for help and damage control.
This lioness gingersnap, Lindsey Crider, rescued my hair in 2015.
Lindsey has been a stylist and color specialist for 16 years. She is currently a Gold Key Educator with KEVIN.MURPHY.
I think I own every KEVIN.MURPHY product!! I am insanely addicted to how good they smell and obviously how well they work!
Lindsey’s current favorite KEVIN.MURPHY go-to product is the SESSION.SPRAY FLEX.
During my first consultation with Lindsey, she expressed the importance of having realistic color expectations.
Social media, especially Instagram where we often draw hair inspiration from, can create the false perception that “everything” can be done to “everyone’s” hair.
Lindsey got me on a KEVIN.MURPHY product regimen and would do various treatments each time I came in to repair the quality of my hair. If you look at the first two pictures below, the first one is from our first session together and the next is maybe 2 times later. Of course the lighting makes a difference, but look at how my hair has it’s natural body and volume back (Guns N Roses shirt). It was like pine straw on the left and she brought it back to a softer life.
I live religiously by the KEVIN.MURPHY REPAIR collection.
I figured for sure I would not be able to do any color treatment to my hair for a LONG time. HA! Wrong. Lindsey put some low lights in to blend my root down and for about a year we played with whatever color we wanted to. Mostly just doing ombre styles, but eventually I did a rose mauve toner all over. It turned out to be a super pretty color and a completely new shade every time I washed it!
Each change of color would last at most two months.
Once my hair got healthy we decided to rock it out for Fantasy Fest in Key West.
We used tape in hair extensions and Pravana vivids for the hair color.
I ordered 3 packs of 24 inch color #60 off Amazon. Girl Amazon has everything! Even your new hair!
Lindsey dyed the extensions and then dyed my hair WITHOUT the extensions in. She then placed the extensions in once all the color processing was done and all the hair was dry.
This picture was taken in October of 2016.
This was two months later in mid December.
All of the color naturally washed out except for that neon green BUT it didn’t look bad.
When it faded to these tones I liked it best stick straight and for me, having naturally curly hair styling that lewk became cumbersome.
As far as my experience with this brand of hair extensions, for the price, these were pretty good. They didn’t tangle too bad and the quality held up nicely. I linked them earlier for your reference.
It looks like the same brand offers clip-in extensions and I’d be interested to try those out as well. Based on reviews I have read, the BELLAMI clip-in hair extensions seem to be the best out there. I’ll link those below to look into for later.
I messed up and ordered a different kind the last time we did tape in extensions and they were SHIT. Ripped my hair out, tangled into a rats nest, just a disaster. I’ll list that brand in a bit so you avoid those!
When we took the extensions out I was ready to not have ANYTHING touching my neck!! Extensions are naturally heavy and I was ready to feel light as a feather.
Thus began the era of “Blunt Bob Lyv”.
When we first cut it short I kept low lights for dimension. I LOVE my hair short. Most women kind of feel like they draw their “super powers” from having long hair and I feel that way when it’s freshly short!
A few months later we went full platinum and this LEWK became my identity!!
Sometimes I would use my purple shampoo to make it a little gray and edgy…the platinum blunt bob was my SHITTTTT! Even in a camo Nomad vest I’m rocking the hell outta that sharp edge. BOOM!
Your haircut should make you feel like that! And if it doesn’t then call Lindsey she gonna sort it out on what is best for yew!
Ladies, if you’re a platinum blonde purple shampoo can be your friend and enemy. When I was super blonde I would use it every other wash (I was my hair about twice a week) and then use my normal KEVIN.MURPHY shampoo after.
BUT, like most women, i got bored.
Typically, right before the Miami boat show I will switch up my hair style to something a little out of the norm and adventurous. The Miami culture is so diverse you can walk around with a neon green mohawk and nobody bats an eye. I settled for bangs and extensions.
I can’t find the brand of these, I’ll have to stalk Chris’s Amazon account and report back! But they SUCKED!
I kept these in for about a month and then guess what…
I took them out and got my powers back.
And I have been battling growing my hair out ever since this last CHOP!
Don’t worry we will circle back to the chop eventually, it’s my thing and we have not given up on it.
Even Mary at the Pilates Studio was like, it’s time to try something different Lyv, SO we’re trying something different and growing it out.
When I did style my hair STICK STRAIGHT sometimes it would get too flat and this Sexy Hair Powder Play Volumizing Texture Powder would give my roots that little boost they needed.
I went Starburst Pink for about a month and that naturally faded back to blonde. We put back in low lights because I don’t intend to keep it platinum blonde all summer. I wanted more of a beachy blonde vibe this summer as it is typically curly more often than straight thanks to the South Carolina humidity.
So this is me.
This is my natural hair color and texture. I achieve this by lightly shaking my hair and scrunching the excess water out with a towel when I get out of the shower. I spray the KEVIN.MURPHY SHIMMER.ME BLONDE on my ends and defuse my hair.
The more often I wear my hair curly the better it styles. When I’ve been on a period where I wore it straight a lot and it’s not curling nicely, I will wand a few pieces to blend in the crazy hair with the hair that is behaving and curling correctly. Curly hair never behaves though! I guess that’s why God gave it to me.
I finish the lewk with a few more spritzes of the SHIMMER.ME BLONDE.
We recently did a photoshoot in Charleston for promotional material for an event I’m hosting at the Biergarten in honor of National Outfit of the Day. The picture quality on some of these isn’t the best because they’re screenshots of sneak peeks Laura sent me to TEASE me with while she edits the shots and I’m DYINGGG at the pigtails!!! The last time I put extensions in (the bangs look for Miami) I had a lot left over but I knew I didn’t want to put them in and wear them in everyday life. So Lindsey had the idea to put them in just for the day for this shoot to execute this bubble poof pig tail lewk!!
With tape in extensions you stick together two extremely tacky strips of hair over your real hair. For the shoot she just lightly placed them on my hair. The next morning we sprayed the solution to take them out. (which I think is like an alcohol based solution that makes the tackiness go away while it’s wet.)
Lindsey put this total transformation of a LEWK together in about 20 minutes!!! The extensions were platinum blonde and my hair isn’t that blonde right now so we used dry shampoo to lighten my hair and blend them together.
These are my favorite dry shampoos!
To see more of Lindsey’s portfolio and her recent internationally published work visit her Instagram here…
You can always check her schedule at Kaliko Salon directly by visiting her profile on the Style Seat network.
Invest in your hair, you wear it everyday.
And maybe someone else’s hair norm isn’t your own. Have you wanted to try something new and exciting? Trying something different doesn’t have to be permanent.
Believe me! I know from experience.
So push your shoulders back and tease up those roots a little bit, because being you ROX!
-Lyv
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