At the risk of sounding boastful, I have really good hair. It’s incredibly thick and can take a lot when it comes to color (my strands have run the gamut from platinum to a dark burgundy brown). Every stylist or colorist who touches my hair is blown away at the sheer mass of it, so needless to say, I’ve been rather experimental over the years. Before your eye rolls commence, I’m not here to brag. My hair is far from effortless. I have a dry, coarse texture with a natural wave that operates with reckless abandon, so I never let it air dry—it’s way too wild for that.

Styling takes forever, and most of the time it takes a day or two for my hair to settle before I’m into it (I like when it develops a natural bend and a bit of oil). To wit, I get bored easily, which means I become fixated (and possibly overambitious) when it comes to trendy cuts. Enter: French-girl bangs. You know the kind—a thick full fringe that lays across one’s forehead just so. You’ve surely witnessed them more and more recently on a range of It girls and celebrities alike. My personal inspiration was this photo of German model Julia Stegner.

Like I said, I become fixated, but I remained a bit apprehensive about taking the plunge back into banghood. I had them a few years back, but it was the side-swept kind, not this bold fringe. The topic was percolating from my lips with almost every conversation I had. Every time I showed the photo of Julia, everyone, and I mean everyone, said “You have to do it!”

I had an appointment already booked just a few weeks after sourcing inspo, and when the day came, my hairstylist Chaie from the Benjamin salon in Los Angeles (they come to New York every eight weeks for a pop-up) was so excited to transform my mane. It was exhilarating—until it wasn’t (and to no fault of Chaie’s, I might add).

As is the case for many people who get bangs, my newly trimmed strands took a while to settle. They kept fanning out, and they fought me on laying forward and flat. I had a bang trim scheduled just four weeks after the initial chop, and when I returned to Chaie, I asked her to cut them thicker for added weight—their original wispiness was preventing them from laying properly, in my opinion. After Chaie styled them post-trim, they looked amazing. But every time I styled them afterward, it was a fail.

A few more weeks went by, and amid my struggle, I consulted friends, other hairstylists I knew, and even YouTube tutorials, but to no avail. They were either looking overdone or cuckoo when I let them dry naturally—the antithesis of the laissez-faire Frenchness I dreamt of emanating. After another few weeks, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt disheartened—I was putting in so much effort and just not getting the results I wanted. The verdict: Let the grow-out begin.

At my next hair appointment, I informed Chaie that the bangs had to go. Despite telling me they were the best thing we ever did for my hair after the initial cut, she was understanding of how problematic they had become for me. I watched her meticulously reshape them so that they blended better with the rest of my hair, and I asked her a few questions along the way in terms of the grow-out process.

Chaie explained that when clients decide they want to get bangs, she first analyzes if bangs will suit them. If they do, she’ll ask for and inspiration photo and gauge if the look they’re going for is realistic for their texture, face shape, and lifestyle. Okay, well, I nailed that part. “I’ll cut it with the idea in mind but customized to each client’s needs,” she explained. She says she knew bangs would suit me, but she anticipated a lot of extra work with styling due to my texture. My hair’s waviness proved far too aggressive for the shortened stands. Plus I have a cowlick, which also impeded my bang success.

She went on to explain the importance of consulting with your hairstylist before you commit to a major change so they can educate you enough on upkeep. But we talked about it, and I was committed! Since I had bangs before, I didn’t anticipate them being this troublesome. Chaie explained, “Hair changes, so if it worked when you were younger, it might be different as an adult.” Okay, yes. Lesson learned there.

As for the regrowth process, Chaie says she always has a “hair plan” in mind for when a client decides to grow out bangs. This will ensure they look good regardless of what stage they’re in. “The side-swept bang is the first step, so I’ll cut them according to how you part your hair," explains Chaie. “I’ll texturize the bangs or thin them out so it doesn’t look bulky, and then blend them or add face-framing layers so it’s not obvious that you’re growing out your bangs.”

Chaie says hair accessories are another great tool for growing out bangs. “Clips, headbands, and bandanas can help hide them, and are super stylish. Products like a wax are really important, too, so that bangs become more tamed or manageable.” While I saw the same stylist throughout my bang process, not everyone is the same, especially if they tried a new stylist, disliked the result, and want to see someone else.

Chaie says if you see a new stylist while you’re in the process of growing out your bangs, tell them right away so he or she can map out a cut for you. “It starts in the consult—I always ask if they’re growing out their bangs or keeping them. There is no awkward stage of growing out bangs if the hairstylist has a hair plan for you.” Patience is definitely key when growing out bangs or hair in general, and healthy hair is very important for faster regrowth, says Chaie.

In terms of styling bangs while you’re growing them out, Chaie says bang trims are key. “When someone is growing hair out, they should see their hairstylist more frequently. Everyone has a different pace when it comes to hair growth, but getting haircuts, trims, or baby cuts (literally almost cutting nothing) to get rid of the dead ends or split ends really helps.”

Specifically in my case, Chaie says I need to dry it right away after washing to work out the wave and cowlick. If the wave is lingering, she says to tap it a tiny bit with a flat iron for a smoother finish, but at a reasonable heat. “If you’re using the right tools and setting the temperature to 360 degrees, your hair should be good.”

Chaie says the use of professional shampoo and conditioner is the foundation of great hair, as well as brushing your hair from scalp to ends. “It’s as simple as what our grandmas always told us: Brush your hair a hundred times.” She also recommends collagen, biotin, prenatal vitamins, fish oil, or hair supplements, as they are vital to encouraging hair growth. A healthy diet with lots of water will help, too. “When you see your hairstylist, ask if the salon offers scalp or hair treatments or masks. These will aid in nourishing hair during the regrowth process.”

Bangs may have not have worked for me this time around, but I’m not here to discourage. I love bangs and still envy them on so many people. Chaie agrees, “I believe everyone can have bangs as long as they’re done right. Although it requires extra work, they’re fun to have, and they frame the face nicely. The best thing about hair is that it grows—if your hairstylist has a hair plan for you, then growing out something you don’t like in the end will never be a problem.”

There you have it—everything you need to know if you’re considering getting bangs.

This article is from Byrdie

How a clunky, retro hair dryer suddenly went viral
Devices like the Revlon One-Step have been around since the ’70s. What made this one a bestseller?

What’s this thing?

The Revlon One-Step Hair Dryer & Volumizer, but we’ll just refer to it as the Revlon One-Step. It’s essentially a hot brush, a kind of hair tool that’s been around since at least the 1970s, that dries hair and styles it at the same time. Air emerges from holes in the brush, and the rounded shape guides hair so that it smoothes; it looks similar to straightening brushes and hot combs sometimes used on natural black hair.
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The selling point: Few of us are really all that great at using a brush and a dryer to blow out our hair like a professional stylist would. Sure, there are some people who can successfully accomplish this, but those people are wizards. This tool smoothes hair while drying using a combination of nylon and tufted bristles; ideally, you’ll end up with mostly straight hair with a little flick at the ends. The retail price is a relatively reasonable $59.99, but you can find it online for as low as $35.99, and there’s a less expensive paddle brush version, too. It’s currently the No. 1 bestseller in Amazon’s beauty section.

Why am I hearing about it?

The Revlon One-Step has existed since at least 2016, but the hype bubbled up only within the past year, and there’s a very specific reason why.

In late 2018, Dyson, of vacuum cleaner fame, released a product called the Airwrap. Having already launched the now-cultish $400 Supersonic hair dryer two years before, Dyson had made a name for itself as the fancy, tech-y hair tool brand. This time, the Airwrap promised to replace multiple hair tools: a dryer, a curling wand, and a flatiron, in one device with multiple heads — as long as you coughed up $550.

Luckily, there was already another product on the market that did basically the same thing for a tenth of the price. According to Google Trends, the Revlon One-Step started picking up search interest in November of 2018. That’s when popular beauty vlogger Milana Burykin uploaded a review of the Dyson Airwrap comparing it to the Revlon One-Step by styling one side of her head with one tool and the other side with the other tool.

Burykin, who goes by the name Milabu on YouTube and has more than a million subscribers, said in her review that she was “very impressed” by the One-Step and that she loved both products. At the end of her tutorial, the two sides of her head were virtually indistinguishable, even though one side cost 10 times more to style. The video garnered more than 3.5 million views and is currently her fourth-most-popular ever.

Search interest continued to pick up over the course of the 2018 holiday season, gaining press coverage in Allure, Elle UK, Popsugar, and Yahoo and becoming an Amazon bestseller. It’s certainly likely that post-holiday word of mouth played a role here, too, thanks to people using new products and recommending them to others. In June 2019, The Cut called it “the $60 Amazon hair dryer that changed my life”; the Today show featured it in September. By November, it had more than 5,000 reviews on Amazon. Now, in January 2020, that number is closer to 20,000, and its Google search interest continues to rise.

The internet had discovered a dupe. In the beauty community, dupes are products that are similar to each other, and are useful to know when one product is prohibitively more expensive than another (or if it’s sold out or discontinued). Most people can’t justify spending hundreds of dollars on a hair tool, but $60 is a far more manageable expense.

Is it actually worth the hype?

“You know that meme that’s like, ‘nobody’: and then ‘me: [shouting about X thing]?’ That ‘X thing’ for me is this blow-dryer,” says Madison Malone Kircher, a reporter at New York magazine.

She means that literally: On December 27, Kircher went on the product recommendation podcast Gee Thanks, Just Bought It to evangelize about the Revlon One-Step. So far, podcast host Caroline Moss says that episode has been responsible for selling nearly 200 of them.

Kircher bought it because she wanted the Airwrap but didn’t want to spend “ten zillion dollars,” and after watching enough Airwrap YouTube tutorials, the algorithm started serving her videos for the Revlon One-Step. She’d never been able to properly work a round brush and a blow dryer at the same time, and the Revlon One-Step tutorials made the process look easy enough, with good results. In October, she finally bought one on Amazon. “I get way better volume overall, I find it’s easier to tame my forehead cowlicks, and it gives my ends a nice flip,” she says.

To be clear, the Revlon One-Step is not an item you’ll see at your next salon appointment. Hairstylists don’t need these kinds of tools because they’re trained in the art of the blowout. Joey Silvestera, founder of New York salon Blackstones, says that while he’s never used one, beauty companies have been trying to produce decent all-in-one dryers for the past decade, but the airflow technology and ergonomics have improved with the Dyson Airwrap and the Revlon One-Step.

By virtue of being a hot tool, though, the Revlon One-Step is not “good” for your hair, just as blow-drying, curling, or straightening are not “good” for your hair. “Heat on wet or dry hair is still damaging,” he says. “There’s no silver bullet. These companies are great at marketing their products as so easy, but they can be misused by overuse. The biggest mistake that people make is overdrying their hair and not protecting the hair enough.” Too much heat on hair can cause breakage, which translates into frizz. “If you looked at it under a microscope, you’d see the outer layer of cortex flailing, like a corn with stalks coming off rather than a smooth shaft.” To mitigate that damage, Silvestera recommends practicing on low heat on the back of your hair near the nape of the neck.

One of the more annoying aspects is that you can’t — or rather, shouldn’t — use the Revlon One-Step on soaking wet hair. Instead, Silvestera advises that you wait until your hair is at least 50 percent dry, and to use a strong heat protectant while hair is still damp to avoid too much damage.

Many reviewers, including those on YouTube, have noted how much hair gets torn out and trapped in the brush with repeated use. Others say that because there are only three settings — high, low, and cool — there’s little customizability, and that the high setting gets so hot that it’s easy to burn your fingers (or your hair). One Target reviewer also maintained that theirs started smoking and even caught on fire; another on Amazon said that after a few months, the device began smoking and sparking.

For average hair-havers, though, it’s “idiotproof,” as Kircher says. I tried a friend’s, and the One-Step left my hair the sort of silky that I usually can only get at a salon. Full disclosure: I eventually bought my own.

Does it “work”? Sure! Will it change your life? Maybe! Is it free of technological flaws? Certainly not! Like many much-hyped items, the people who love it really love it, which is likely why it tends to rise in search interest around the holidays: People want to buy it for their friends and family, too. The Revlon One-Step proves person-to-person marketing might just be the most effective kind there is.
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This article is from Vox

The topic of Haircolor and Cancer is still in the headlines. I shared a Medium article in December and the information below is from the recent American Board of Certified Haircolorists newsletter I just received.

I hope this help with any questions or concerns you might have.

IS HAIRCOLOR CAUSING CANCER?

Over the last month we have had several colorists reach out regarding some news reports claiming haircolor was causing cancer. Our good friend Gary Call at KIN had some helpful insight and talking points to share for the stylist and the client.

Have you seen the headlines? "Hair Dyes And Straighteners Linked To Higher Cancer Risk". Once again our salon services are under attack and there will be LOTS of discussion in your chair over the next little while. It is important to arm yourself with some facts to help temper the discussion. Here are some talking points that are direct quotes from a couple of articles:

"Researchers don't know which ingredients in the products might be of concern. The study did not look at the specific ingredients in the products women were using, only at whether they had used the product and whether they developed breast cancer." - If they don't know what ingredients are causing the problem there is no way for the public or professional to begin to manage the issue.

"All women in the Sister Study were already at high risk for breast cancer since they had a sister who had breast cancer." - The study group was composed of women who were already at risk, and in many cases are already carefully watching their health and concerned about possible genetic connections.

"The study findings should be understood in context, says Dr. Otis Brawley, a medical oncologist with Johns Hopkins University. The actual risk found for use of these hair treatments is quite low, he adds, especially compared with other known carcinogens like tobacco or radiation. "This is a very weak signal that these things might be causing cancer in the population," he says." - Note the important part is always left out of the headline - "This is a very weak signal that these things might be causing cancer!"

"Sometimes science just cannot give us the answers that we want it to give us," - yes we need to be aware, but everything in life is done at some sort of risk. Should we just stay home on the couch and hide? But of course there is risk to that too - inactivity, lack of human contact, lack of sunshine, and snacking as a result of being a couch potato are also risky behaviours!

"I would also point out that the combination of obesity, consuming too many calories and lack of physical activity has a much higher relative risk for breast cancer in both black and white women," said Brawley, a former Chief Medical and Scientific Officer of the American Cancer Society." - there are numereous lifestyle choices that affect our health. Look at the entire picture when making personal decisions.

Michael Jones, Senior Staff Scientist in Epidemiology at The Institute of Cancer Research, said: "It is too early to make a firm recommendation on the basis of one study, and further research is needed. The whole literature needs to be evaluated by expert groups, bringing together the evidence to make recommendations" he told Newsweek. He adds there are limitations to the study.

"The Sisters Study is a good prospective cohort study—but women were recruited to the study because they had a sister with breast cancer, so the conclusions wouldn't necessarily hold true for women in the wider population, hence the need for further confirmation."

In the end, keep an open mind, look beyond the headlines and be informed. This will cause LOTS of salon discussion. The purpose of our professional licensing, and the real desire of everyone I know in the Beauty Industry is to protect and preserve the health and well being of every client. The positive benefits of cosmetic beauty enhancement on the improved life experiences and self image of our clients will always be weighed against any possible health risks and each person should make the decisions the feel are best for them.
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Once again, this is NOT a reason to stop receiving any service in the salon, but it is a reason to do some homework and become aware of the myriad of sources of information bombarding us and our clients daily. Technology and instant awareness can be a gift and a curse!