<p>Hi there. Quick question. My blonde hair is short, wavy, and slightly curly. I thought it would be fun to try something new for 2008. I was thinking about growing it out a bit, and having it straight and flippy/floppy (the way it was when I was younger)</p>
<p>My mom says that I don’t have the right kind of hair for that now, but I was wondering if anyone knows a way to get that look? </p>
<p>Thanks!!</p>
<p>Get a flat iron. Make sure it’s a good ceramic one. It can make the curliest hair stick straight. I use one on my curly hair and it stays straight until I wash it again. When I wore my hair curly, I would have to fuss with it every day and wash it more often to get the curl back.</p>
<p>Make sure to use product before straightening your hair with the iron.</p>
<p>Ummm, you are leaving out some important parts… age, sex, current cut, if your mom is still paying… what you mean by flippy/flopppy
As one who just got stunned by D’s haircolor bill to correct huge mistake = sometimes it’s just worth it…</p>
<p>Rusk str8 works great & I agree with ionic hair dryer and flat iron
Straight will be a big change plus make your hair look longer</p>
<p>My hairdresser straightens my long curly hair with a round
hairbrush of various widths and a blow drier. It is very easy for me to replicate at home. I’d be concerned any type of ironing product might hurt my hair (and I have tried them).</p>
<p>If your climate is humid it will be hard to keep straight locks without a perm.</p>
<p>Has anyone tried hair weaving and have comments on that?</p>
<p>Ask you hairdresser to do a relaxer(opp. of a perm) If you don’t want to that make sure buy straightening shampoo and conditioner.</p>
<p>I have curly/wavy thick hair and violinists is right, I have to spend an hr to straighten it and then if it’s raining or humid I am back at being curly within 15 min…ugh!</p>
<p>someone mentioned a good flat iron, and that’s the key. My hair is thick and wavy (although I recently cut it to shoulder length). About a year ago I bought an expensive flat iron (Chi). It made ALL the difference in the world. Cut down my straightening time by less than half, and it holds better in humid weather. </p>
<p>Too bad it took me almost a year to buy a decent (yes, expensive) hair dryer. I can now dry my hair from wet to completely dry in less than five minutes. Good products make all the difference.</p>
<p>^Agreed, invest in a good flat iron. A crappy iron takes forever to do the job, and it isn’t good for your hair. It’s not worth it.</p>
<p>Dragonmom, lol “huge haircolor mistake”. My d wants to get highlights, the other day she pointed to a girl in church with strawberry blonde hair and said, “THAT’s the color I want my highlights.” I said, “Honey, haircoloring is NOT that exact of a science,” but I’m not sure she believed me.</p>
<p>It’s kind of funny - when I was standing in line in an Express store the other day and people watching, I came to realize that a larger majority of young women and women my age color their hair than I ever thought. I wonder how many people on this board my age (47) can say they’ve never used any sort of color/dye/highlighting (I haven’t)? I have strawberry blonde hair, and the grays that have come in tend to blend well with the blonde, so the grays are not noticable. One daughter has my hair color, and the other gets hers colored several times a year. As I was looking at both daughters standing next to each other while I was in line that day, I noticed from the back, their hair looks the exact same. But the woman that does my dyed-hair daughter’s locks also does mine and my other daughters, so she knows what the one daughter wants and seems to perfect it every time. </p>
<p>So the money I save by not needing coloring upkeep is spent on bi-weekly massages!</p>
<p>I have no problems with my D experimenting with her hair: highlights, cuts, perms, braids - you go, girl! Unlike tattoos, hair experiments do not take too long to undo unless there is some damage to the scalp (the worst scenario would be a total buzz cut, but it’ll grow back :))</p>
<p>What makes me wonder why on earth people with beautiful wavy hair would want a hairdo that’s limpy and staright! Trust me, straight hair is not that great, I’ve had it since I was born.</p>
<p>To teri: I’m old enough to be a parent of college kids, but I’ve never had my hair colored. And I have yet to see a single “silver” hair on my head. I decided to postpone any colorings until my natural hair starts turning white, which I think should happen very soon after all the stress I had this past year.</p>
<p>I started coloring my hair in my early 30’s. The “graying” look was not flattering, apparently, as people were always asking me if I was tired or not feeling well. I decided to color my hair until I had “enough” gray to stop.</p>
<p>Now I think I probably have “enough” or will soon, but I can’t figure out a graceful way to stop, short of shaving my head.</p>
<p>*Now I think I probably have “enough” or will soon, but I can’t figure out a graceful way to stop, short of shaving my head.
*</p>
<p>brace yourself to have a bit of growout- enough for the hairstylist to see how much grey you have- then all they have to do is tint your hair that color-
Of course you would be still getting a change over night- but you could see how flattering it is.
I have reddish hair- but over the years it has gotten faded looking so I have been slightly coloring it. The stuff I was using was drying it out so I wanted to stop & I had my hair tinted back to my “natural” color.
A very expensive process- since it was multiple colors with foils and whatnot.
I hated it- everytime I looked in the mirror, I looked about 20 years older than I felt, ( not to mention it made me look like my mom), so I started coloring it again, but this time using not as harsh tints & conditioning my hair more.</p>
<p>an above poster mentioned relaxing as a good option for you…i agree. i’ve gotten my hair relaxed 2 or 3 times, and it works really well for me. apparently it’s similar to a perm (i’ve never gotten one). here’s how they do it:</p>
<p>susan starts with the under layers of my hair (by the nape of my neck) and brushes some goofy smelling chemical on it. then she does the next layer and smushes it onto the first layer and then combs it straight. by the time she gets to the top of my head, all the other layers have been weighed down and combed straight numerous times. then i have to sit and wait for about 30 mins before it is rinsed out. a conditioning treatment is applied, waited, and rinsed again before cutting, blowdrying, and styling my new 'do. </p>
<p>the whole process takes a few hours and can be pretty expensive. she uses a rusk relaxer (which is gentler than other relaxers, or so i’m told) and after all is said and done (relaxer, conditioner, cut, blowdry, style, new shampoo, tip) the bill comes out to be around $200.</p>
<p>while pricey, realize that this one treatment will last around 6 months, depending upon your cut, and doesn’t ever need to be touched up (the weight of your hair will keep new growth straight)</p>
<p>when finished, your hair will essentially look like it’s naturally straight (not poker straight like you can get with a flatiron) but you can still use a flatiron to get that super straight look. another thing that is nice about it is that you can usually get away with just flatironing the top layer rather than your entire head, which means you spend less time getting ready :)</p>
<p>hope this helps! good luck
-kristin</p>
<p>ps: there is another type of chemical straightening called chinese/japanese/something asian-ese that is extremely harsh on your head and i have always been discouraged from choosing it. it runs about $500/treatment and is completely different from chemical relaxing that i just described.</p>
<p>I’d go with a flat iron first just to see if you really like the look. If it’s too much trouble, then the key is to find a good stylist who understands “the wave.” Many do not and they give you styles in which you have to fight “the wave” rather than go with it. “The wave” always wins the fight. My daughter has great hair - strawberry blonde with enough body to hold curl or look good straight. She got a flat iron for Christmas and is enjoying playing with it.</p>
<p>EK4- I spoke with the hairdresse about that. She says that it is possible to color my hair the silver that it wants to be on its own, but that the process of “lifting” the dark color will be really tough on the hair. My non-gray hair was/is dark, as is the color I use now. I wonder if it would work to use progressively lighter shades of hair color for the next year? Oh well, I hope this is the most vexing problem I have for the near future!</p>
<p>My hair is about 50% grey and the rest very dark brown. I like the salt and pepper look for myself. However, for my daughter’s wedding in September, I wanted to tone down the gray, so the hairdresser did lowlights. It’s the opposite of highlights. She darkened random gray hair to my dark brown color (not all of the gray hair). It was much less salt and peppery. Now that it’s growing out, you really don’t notice any roots because there was still some gray left. Don’t know if I explained it exactly right or clearly, so just google lowlights.</p>
<p>EK4- I spoke with the hairdresse about that. She says that it is possible to color my hair the silver that it wants to be on its own, but that the process of “lifting” the dark color will be really tough on the hair.</p>
<p>Depending on how dark it is- you can also do what I did and reverse foil it- so that you are getting “highlights” of grey that blend in with your “natural” color
she could do this a little at a time- to see how your hair withstood it.
Unless you have a really tight cuticle even after tinting, I dont think it will necessarily be too harsh on your hair- especially if you are open to having some of the older ends cut.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice, acinva and EK4. I’ll let you know know what happens next. I’m sure you can’t wait! </p>
<p>BTW, EK4, did you ever find those fancy skorts? :)</p>