re: Hair Resolved (January)

Okay! January is waaay over, which means it is time to move onto February's goal. But, before I do, I suspect that you are all biting your nails and hoping that I am going to tell you how January's hair resolution went. DON'T WORRY! I'm even posting a few photos to show you my two favorite go-to styles I discovered during the month.

Behold:

The Towering TOPKNOT


(aka a bun on steroids)

I have a decent amount of hair right now, but somehow the high buns I was trying out weren't achieving the kind of Umph that I desired. That's when my sister and friend Grace introduced me to the idea of padding one's hair with loofah sponges. That's right! All you do is hide a plasticy loofah sponge inside your hair, bobby pin your hair to/around it to cover it up, and enjoy Amy Winehouse-ish heights. Somehow admitting that I stuff my bun is less embarrassing than trying to stuff my bra in middle school ... but its basically the same idea.

You can buy special loofahs for buns (that look like little weird donuts) like this one here. Tadah!


The Burgeoning BOUFFANT




I had the talented Rubi Jones give me a lesson on this perfect pouf, and she did such a good job making my hair naturally bump it that I've pretty much kept a version of this hairstyle for the last two weeks.

To achieve this look, you just need some dry shampoo to dirty up your hair, and to master the basics of backcombing. There are a million tutorials out there like this one to help you on your way.

re: Resolved

I know we're already more than two weeks into 2012, but I still thought I'd talk a little about my New Year's resolutions. I have a big ol' list of things to improve in my life, as always, but I thought that this year maybe I'd pick 12 things and every month focus on making just one of them happen.

So, for January's goal, I decided to DO MY HAIR.


Don't pretend to be disappointed in my for not saying something about world peace.

Lately I've realized that my hair has gotten long. Like, loooonnnnggg. Longer than it had even been in highschool, when it was requisite to have enough hair to prove that you were a girl because the baggy men's flannels and shapeless jeans we were all wearing didn't do our girlish figures any favors, and the Kurt Cobains of the world were giving us a shaggy run for our money.

The thing is, no matter what the length, I have never really done much with my hair. I blame too many years of reading Seventeen magazine, taking quizzes on how high-maintenance I was and reading about how boys don't like girls that take too long to do their hair. Somehow I never realized that that doesn't mean you don't do anything with your hair, but maybe you just don't cry when you have to go camping and don't have a place to plug in your curling iron.

So, here I am. A full head of hair, and I've been wearing it down and stringy or in a pony tail for years, staring at photos of pretty girls with shiny bangs and cute styles, and thinking all along that they somehow must have "better" hair than I do, as if they had the luck to have been born with a milkmaid style french braid on their heads. Since I never practiced doing much with my hair, when I actually wanted something different up top, I'd have no idea how to execute it (which is why the only way that you would have known that I was at prom is that I was wearing a velvet dress. My hair looks just like it did every other day of the week).

Well, I say, NO MORE.

My goal isn't even going to be to do something daring every day, but to reacquaint myself with my round brush and give a few non-ponytail styles a try so that I have a few more go-to looks in my arsenal besides "I just woke up". That way when I have some place to go where I actually want my hair to look nice, maybe I'll know what to do with it instead of fumbling around like it is my first time touching a straightening iron.

There are so many tutorials out there on doing hair these days that there is officially no excuse. I've already watched six different girls on youtube trying to teach me how to to make a modern beehive using just a poky comb, a gallon of hairspray and 64 bobby pins.


Part of the reason that I started my year with this goal is because all this perfectly good hair getting pony-tailed every day seems like a metaphor for a lot of things in life. We often have all the materials at the ready, but we don't reach our full potential because we don't take the time or make the effort to achieve a little more.

Hows that for a little motivation in 2012?