Beauty for the Economically Challenged

This technique can be done with or without heat. I had heard of this before, but had been doubtful. I think thicker hair will get more of a beachy look, but my friends seemed to like the finished product on me more than I did. So, you can be the judge!

To do this, first use a hair spray or a styling mousse in your hair. Divide your hair down the middle (my hair is divided in the middle, but I left my bangs out, obviously) and braid it into pigtails. make sure the braid is relatively tight at the root, and braid tightly. Then, pull apart the braids a bit and rough them up so they won’t look as uniform when they’re done. Then, you can either sleep in the braids (I suggest slightly damp hair at the beginning if you want to do this) or run your flat-iron over the braids a few times and wait for the braids to cool before taking them out. I did both. I flat-ironed them and then went to bed.

For me, the finished product looked like this:

In this picture, I used the technique on second-day hair and it wasn’t as successful, but you can still see the beachy look that it gives. Don’t get me wrong, you absolutely will get really nice beachy waves with this technique as long as you make sure to really rough it up when you take the braids out. After doing this a few more times, I really do like this technique. My hair is also quite a bit thicker and longer than when these pictures were taken, and it does make some difference. I do recommend this method, especially for those with thicker and/or longer hair than mine. And with some texturizing spray to mattify and mess up the style. You could even dry shampoo the skirt of your hair and that would have a similar effect.

The point of this style is to look carefree, so I often use dry shampoo on my roots and switch my part periodically throughout the day by just brushing my fingers straight through the top and letting it fall however it wants to. It’s a habit of mine to frequently switch the side of my part through the day, I just do it without thinking about it, and it lends itself well to this style.

If you try this, show me pictures! The submit box is open!

xox

Noelle Alysse

As I discussed before, I am starting a series on all the different ways to achieve summer waves: how to do it, how it turns out, and tips and tricks. Since there are so many different, and odd, methods, I wanted to be your source for how it ACTUALLY turns out, so you don’t have to waste your time with trial and error to find the right one!
If there are any methods that you want to see me try, please let me know and I’ll love to do it! 

Side note: This is supposed to be a beauty blog but I find myself looking like a fool in a surprising amount of my posts. I have no makeup on at all because I was right out of the shower and about to go to bed. Oh well. :)

If you’re on Pinterest, you have probably seen this method. I hadn’t heard of it before this year, and I was surprised at how well it turned out. It’s also super easy.

If you see my pictures, you can pretty much see how to do it, but here’s a step-by-step of what I did:

Step 1: At night, apply mousse (I used Garnier Fructis Wonder Waves, I swear by it!) to damp but almost-dry hair. Don’t be shy with the mousse, and make sure to use a kind that doesn’t make your hair all crunchy!

Step 2: Part your hair the way you want it. Put a headband around your head and across your forehead (see picture). Then, slide it upward a little bit. This will lift your roots so that your hair has volume once you take the headband out, instead of being pasted flat to your head.

Step 3: Starting on one side, in the front, take the first strand of hair and wrap it once around the headband. Once this is done, most of the strand should be hanging down again, with just one loop around the headband. Then, add a bit more hair to the strand, and repeat.

Step 4: That’s pretty much what you do with the rest of the hair, until it’s all wrapped up. Start on one side of your part, move backward toward the middle of the back of your head, and then do the other side, so that the two sides meet in the middle in the back of your head.

Step 5: Go to sleep! In the morning, carefully pull the headband upward off of your head and let the hair fall off (it might take some bouncing and patience to get it all off). Run your fingers through if you want, and adjust accordingly. The finished product:

This is after some fluffing and combing through with my fingers. I reallllllllly like this, it’s really beachy and looks effortless to me. This picture was taken on one of those miraculous 80-degree Boston days that we had in early April. Obviously, I was in a very happy mood. Yay.

This one was taken the first time I tried the look. As you can see, my bangs didn’t turn out well so I pinned them back. I was also afraid of how well the curls would hold, so I didn’t brush through them very much. These curls are much softer and less fluffy. I prefer them combed out more and a little more crazy, especially for summer, but I think these are pretty too. It just depends on what you’re looking for. 

Other important tips:

-From doing this a four or five times, I will say that it comes out slightly different each time. For the best success, I suggest wrapping the strands pretty tightly around the headband (like the photos), instead of having big loops. The bigger the loops, the less this method works, and it’s very likely that the back of your head could end up straight. 
-If you have bangs, be mindful of them while wrapping. Think about the way you want them to fall and try to angle the loop so that your bangs will fall at an angle away from your face. If you notice in the picture, I pulled my bangs up above the headband a bit more than the rest of my hair because I didn’t want them to be crazy curly and I wanted them to lay nicely.
-If your hair is much longer than mine, you may have extra hair at the back of your head that won’t fit around the headband. I suggest twisting it into a bun and pinning it. It stinks to use heat on your hair, but if your hair is very long, it might be a good idea to have a curling iron or wand on hand to fix any pieces that didn’t come out. 

I have opened my submit button! If you try this, or any other method, I want to see and I will probably post it on my blog! 
Also, again, if there are any methods that you want me to try and write about, let me know and I will do it!

xox

Noelle Alysse 

I talked to my hairdresser the other day, and he said that really the only thing that I can do for my hair (that I don’t do already) is change to a shampoo/conditioner that is free of all the yucky chemicals that are found in most drugstore shampoos (alcohol, sulfates, etc.). I might consider getting higher end shampoos/conditioners if enough people like a certain one and recommend it. 

So, no matter what shampoo you use, please let me know! Much love and thanks! xox

I got my hair trimmed today and my hairdresser said I should use it, but I want to know if anyone likes it! Let me know!

xox

**picture from google images

It’s only been about two weeks but I’m really happy with this!

I can’t speak for the long-term benefits, but I can’t imagine that there isn’t any, if for no other reason than that it protects your hair all day.

I got this for about $7 at my local CVS in Boston. I use about 1.5-2 pumps of this any day that I take a shower and am planning to air-dry my hair. I pretty much follow the directions on the bottle, which say to apply it to slightly damp hair and let it air-dry. It doesn’t weigh down my hair or make it oily, as long as I’m careful to really disperse it evenly throughout my hair. I pretty much only put it on the skirt of my hair, except when the product is almost completely off of my hands, and then I run my fingers through the top of my head to make sure to get the ends of my bangs.

It makes my hair really soft and nice all day, but what I love most is the way it makes my ends look. I’m really due for a trim, but I’m trying to wait until I can justify spending the $50 to get it done, so my ends don’t look super happy. When I use this, though, my ends are really shiny and they don’t look dull or dead at all. It also seems to give my hair the slightest bit of wave at the bottom, which is really really nice.

This product really smells heavenly too, kind of coconut-y sugary buttery…if that makes sense. But it doesn’t smell like candy or anything gross like that, it’s just really good. I actually don’t even usually like coconut scents but I think this one is really great.

Because of this, I’m really tempted to try the Organix Nourishing Coconut Milk Shampoo and Conditioners…and all the other products too. ;)

The only thing I don’t like about this product is the dispenser. It’s hard to explain but if you’re not careful, some of the oil will drip down the bottle and make it really greasy and sticky and gross, so you have to really make sure to wipe all of the product off of the opening to prevent that.

I give this product an A!

Any questions? Just ask!

xox

Noelle Alysse

Okay, this is going to be a HUGE post, but I’ll try to make it as brief as possible.
To expedite things, I’m going to refer to my Shower Hair Products post, which you can refer to here. 

I generally shower (and wash my hair) every day, with the occasional lazy day sprinkled in here and there. My hair isn’t super oily or anything like that, but it does get some residue on the top/front that doesn’t go away with a normal washing if I haven’t showered for around 36ish hours.

For the everyday shower, I alternate daily between Head & Shoulders Smooth and Silky shampoo and conditioner and Infusium 23 Repair and Renew shampoo and conditioner. I do this because I find that the Head & Shoulders doesn’t clean my hair as well as I would like, but it leaves my hair incredibly healthy, while Infusium 23 cleans my hair really well and also leaves it nice and soft. I shampoo with cold water (and I’m not going to pretend that it’s not awful) because hot water opens up the cuticle of your hair and the shampoo gets in there and causes unnecessary drying and damage.
I always massage my scalp while I shampoo. I don’t scratch up and down with my fingernails, though! I do small circles all over my scalp with my fingertips (but being careful not to let my nails scratch at all-this is damaging). Massaging the scalp encourages blood flow, producing healthier hair and speeding up hair growth.
After I’ve rinsed all of the shampoo out, I switch to hot water to condition, because I want the cuticle to open to get the conditioner in there and really work as best it can. I also squeeze all the excess water out of my hair before I condition, so that the water doesn’t dilute the conditioner. I only condition the skirt of my hair because anything above that doesn’t need it because of the natural oils the body produces. I leave the conditioner in for three minutes or so, and then rinse it out.
At the end of my shower, I rinse my hair again with cold water to seal the cuticle and make my hair as shiny as possible, reduce frizz and all that fun stuff.
When I get out of the shower, I squeeze the water out of my hair and wrap it in a microfiber towel. A regular cotton towel that we use on our body is bad for your hair, just like sleeping on a cotton pillowcase is bad. It roughs up your hair and causes breakage.
Even with a microfiber towel, I do not rub my hair so that it dries. I just twist it on top of my head and let it sit for a little while.
When I take the towel off, I either fingercomb my hair or use a wide-tooth comb, never a brush, but I’m sure you all know why already; wet hair is especially fragile and a brush adds unneeded stress to it.
I air-dry my hair as much as possible, and when I do use heat on it, I always always ALWAYS use a heat protectant! But I’m sure you all knew that already. I’m not going to say which heat protectant that I use, because I haven’t found one that I’m happy with and that doesn’t weigh down my hair, and I don’t want to recommend or even mention something that I don’t like because that’s not what this blog is about!
I like for my hair to pretty much fully dry before I do anything to it (even if that doesn’t include heat) because again, wet hair is fragile!
If I’m running really late, or for whatever reason am going to style my hair wet, I am always careful of a few things:
-Braids. If I’m going to french braid or whatever braid my hair at all, and it’s still wet, I’m careful not to make it tight because all of that pulling and weaving on wet, fragile hair causes stress and breakage. Bad.
-Buns. Again, any twisting and pulling and pinning with wet hair is very damaging.
-Hair elastics. Pulling, twisting. I’m becoming a broken record here. It’s bad! 

Once a week (or, never more than twice) I use a clarifying shampoo in the place of my regular shampoo. I really like Neutrogena Anti-Residue shampoo. It’s really important to wash with cold water with this one because it’s meant to strip everything off your hair, and you really don’t want it to get inside the cuticle. On the day that I use clarifying shampoo, I make sure not to use heat on my hair because it’s stripped of everything and extra fragile. It sometimes takes some thinking ahead, but it’s important.
Clarifying shampoo not only removes residue, it also makes my regular hair products work better because the residue isn’t blocking my hair from getting the products in.  
Once a week, on a different day than I use clarifying shampoo, I use deep conditioner. I really like Neutrogena Triple Moisture Deep Recovery Hair Mask. I use hot water and squeeze the excess water out first. I put this all over my hair, from root to tip, making sure that the tips are really saturated. I pile it all on top of my head and leave it there for the rest of my shower, and rinse it out at the end of my shower. I try not to use heat on the day I deep condition also, just because I don’t want to damage my hair right after treating it, but it doesn’t really matter that much. 

With this regimen, my hair is the healthiest that it has ever been, and I couldn’t be happier. Even though it’s winter, it grows really really fast and is shiny and soft and I love it!

I hope some of you find this helpful!

xox

Noelle Alysse 

In relation to my last post, I thought I would get this inevitable post out of the way. 
So, here are the hair products I use in the shower. 

Shampoo and Conditioner:

I use Head & Shoulders Smooth & Silky shampoo and conditioner.

I just started using it about two and a half months ago when I was doing research on speeding up hair growth, and I agree with the whole “healthy scalp=healthy hair” philosophy. A common misconception is that Head & Shoulders is only for people with dandruff, but that’s not true. It’s important to keep your scalp healthy, no matter what. I also heard from a few different sources that pyrithione zinc helps your hair grow faster, and while I believe that it’s really almost impossible to use any outside sources to really speed up hair growth, this stuff works! My hair has grown SO MUCH since I started using this shampoo, I really can’t believe it and I couldn’t be happier. Not to mention, my hair is noticeably softer and healthier since I started using it. And of course, the most important part: as you probably know, you can find this at any drug store or grocery store, as cheap as $5 or $6 for a bottle. When I’m at school in Boston, I usually have to pay $7 or $8 at the CVS five minutes away from campus, but while I’m at home in Maine, I can get it for $5 or $6 at the grocery store, and I usually stock up then to save the cash. As I said, I absolutely love this product, and I don’t foresee myself changing anytime soon. The only complaint that I have is that it doesn’t clean my hair as well as my previous shampoo (Infusium 23, whichever line I felt I needed), but it still does a fine job and it’s worth it for the growth and health benefits. This brings me to my next product.

 Clarifying Shampoo:

I use Neutrogena Anti-Residue Shampoo.

I don’t know what to say about this stuff other than that I love it! I’ll talk about it more in a post in the near future (my hair routine), but basically, it comes in a really fun bottle because it’s crystal clear and only has the words “Neutrogena Shampoo anti-residue formula” on it. I guess I just find it fun and appropriate that a clarifying shampoo would have such a clean and clear packaging. It also lasts forever, even for me (I’m a product over-user, I use way more than I need, which I realize isn’t helpful for my poor girl status). I’m only half done with my first 6 oz. bottle and I’ve had it since October, and I use it at least once a week. I usually find it for $6 or $7 at CVS on campus, and I’m pretty sure you can find it in most drugstores. I haven’t looked in any grocery stores for it.

Deep Conditioner:

I use Neutrogena Triple Moisture Deep Recovery Hair Mask. 

In my brain, it makes sense that both my clarifying shampoo and my deep conditioner are Neutrogena. But that doesn’t matter. Anyway, I love this deep conditioner also. It comes in a pot, and you scoop it out with your hands, which is interesting to me, but I like it because I can better control how much I use. Another plus with this deep conditioner is that even though my hair is fine, it doesn’t seem to make it flat or volumeless after my shower, no matter how much I put on my roots when I use it. And again, it lasts forever, I’m about halfway through it and I bought it in October, at the same time that I bought the clarifying shampoo. It was $8 at CVS, but they were having a two-for-one on it so I got two for $4 each, yay!

Microfiber Towel:

The one I use is some cheap one from CVS for $5 and I will never for the life of me remember what it’s called, but it works, and it was only $5, so again, yay!

So, don’t believe the hype about salon products. You can get all you need from the drugstore, and it works great! All in all, if I took one trip to CVS and bought all of this, I would have only spent $34. $34 for shampoo, conditioner, clarifying shampoo, deep conditioner, and a microfiber towel. Does it get better?! :)

xox,

Noelle Alysse