Lipstick Masala

Last Spring, I chopped off nearly ten inches of the hair I had so painstakingly grown out for two years. It was a bit drastic, and I wept for my lost locks for days. But, it was a much-needed change. For me, Spring is about reinvention. Even though I trim my hair several times a year, the Spring appointment with my stylist is the one where I experiment with new lengths, shapes and colors. After the last remnants of winter have faded away, I embrace a new look, a new season and a way to set the trend for how I plan to look for the rest of the year.

For those of you that, like me, have grown weary of your signature coif, there are dozens of trends you can try out in the Spring 2010 season. However, before you arrive at your salon with a ripped out magazine page of Reese Witherspoon’s new haircut, you must keep one important detail in mind – your face shape. Thousands of ladies each year are on the receiving end of a disastrous haircut, not because their stylist was snip happy with the scissors, but because they didn’t realize how different their bone structure was from said actress in the magazine photo.

So, ladies, before you venture out to reinvent yourself, here’s a quick breakdown on how to choose the right cut for your face type. You don’t want to spend the rest of the summer in a ponytail hiding the catastrophe that is your new hair ‘do.

Although there are dozens of face types, the four most common face shapes are: long/oval, round, heart and square.
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Below is a contributed post by fellow blogger, Leia. Along with her best friend, she currently runs a fashion site from London that regularly updates readers with the latest high fashion looks and must-haves. As she was one of our first followers here at Lipstick Masala, I am honored that she has kindly taken the time to share some of her favorite beauty techniques with us. If your hair is suffering from winter woes, this post is for you! Leia has outlined some fantastic tips and tricks that have left her hair beautifully thick and silky. Check out her fabulous site over at http://hifashionsl.blogspot.com/!

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For most of us, winter has finally arrived. Whether you love the season or the cold makes you depressed and homesick, one thing is for sure: winter wreaks havoc on your hair! Wind, dry air, and central heating can cause dryness and split ends. Here are some of my tips for keeping your hair luscious when the temperatures drop. Read the rest of this entry »

If you watched tonight’s episode of Gossip Girl (no spoilers follow, I promise), you may have caught Serena’s hairstyle during the movie premiere scenes. For those that missed it, Blake Lively was sporting a softer, drier interpretation of the photo to the right. I know what you’re thinking – when most of us hear the word “braid” we either picture a 6 year old girl or a 60 year old aunty. But the version known as the fishtail or herringbone braid that swept through Hollywood this year has made the word (and hairstyle) trendy once more.

The fishtail braid has been making it’s rounds for a few months now – Fergie rocked the look at the VMAs and the Teen Choice Awards, Diane Kruger at the premiere of Inglorious Basterds. Runways from Milan to New York have displayed the fishtail as the hairstyle of 2009. But, if you didn’t jump on the bandwagon this summer – don’t worry, it’s not too late. The hairstyle is continuing through the Fall, and it’s not even remotely as hard as it looks. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you have wavy hair? Don’t know quite what to do with it sometimes because it’s neither curly nor straight? Then this one is for you. I received an email recently from a reader, let’s call her “A”, asking for advice, and I wish to turn the question to you, my lovely readers. Below are my reply and suggestions, but as this site is a forum for discussion, both Lipstick Masala and “A” would love to learn from all of you. What are the products you love and swear by? Do you just flat iron because nothing else works? Share what products have worked for you so we can all prevent the dreaded “frizz ball” look!

“A”’s Dilemma:

With wavy, sometimes frizzy hair that is both thin and silky, “A” has struggled with what to do with her tresses after a shower at the gym. Blow-drying her hair is not always convenient, so she pulls it into a wet ponytail, a look she isn’t too keen on, especially when she goes out with friends after her exercise session. She asked what product she can use in a pinch that will allow her to simply “wash and go.”

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These days, I find myself more than a little upset with Mother Nature. Her indecisiveness as to whether or not she wishes it to be winter or summer is not only causing me difficulty in choosing outfits every morning, but it’s wreaking havoc on my skin and hair. My confused, irritated scalp is dry and itchy and as I scratch at it relentlessly, it has begun to flake. Furthermore, my strands have turned dull and lifeless in the bewilderment of whether to produce oil or go into lockdown mode. I recently dragged my mother to our nearest ULTA store, where I spent twenty minutes contemplating which hair mask to spend $$$ on. Mom finally just leaned over and said, “Seriously, just put dahi (yogurt) in your hair.” When I inquired further, she informed me that when she was younger, everyone she knew would apply a plain yogurt mask to their hair, resulting in soft, silky, dandruff-free tresses.

Now, as a product of the eighties, I tend to doubt anything natural. My first inclination was to tease my mother and say “ewwww, mom, like, we have companies to MAKE that stuff for us now.” A lot of magazines will also tell you there are no proven benefits to using natural ingredients versus manufactured products. But the truth is, the advice of our mothers and grandmothers do hold a lot of merit. They didn’t have the luxury of free Kérastase treatments and blowouts – their techniques evolved from generations before them and were based on traditional and Ayurvedic medicine and/or an innate understanding of the human anatomy. Upon researching the effectiveness/science behind using yogurt in one’s hair, I realized our mothers were really onto something. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s 8 am. You should have been out of the house fifteen minutes ago, but you slept through your alarm. You are jumping like a madwoman to get one leg into your pants while you furiously brush your teeth and send a message to your colleague on your blackberry. You then run back to your bathroom and groan as you catch a glimpse of your oily bangs in the mirror. There is no time for a cup of coffee let alone a wash and blow-dry. So, what do you do? Do you walk into your meeting your hair plastered against your forehead? No, ladies. Let’s try to avoid greasy hair in the boardroom.

Hair companies have begun en masse to market a product known as “dry shampoo,” basically a glorified form of baby powder that soaks up the oil in your hair/roots upon application. Although the concept has been around for a while, women everywhere have started to spend upwards of 30 dollars on single bottles of this product. After a brief discussion with a group of brilliant ladies on Twitter, I was inspired to pull out my sources to find the best of the wide range of dry shampoos. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo Credit: flickr.com/kiran.198globe7

Most of us Desi girls flat iron our hair, including those who already have straight hair. I have no idea why we do it. It’s as if we were born with a genetic inclination to reach for the flat iron before going out. We know it damages our hair, we know that it makes us look like EVERY other Desi girl out there, but we don’t care, we continue to straighten through summer, winter, and split ends. Hopefully all you girls out there with CHIs (or GHDs for our British beauties) in hand are remembering to protect your hair with some kind of product or serum before applying 400 degrees of heat, if not – STEP AWAY FROM THE FLAT IRON!

Photo Credit: www.the-planets.com

In any case, most of us with drier hair, or hair with oily roots and dry ends, feel as though we need a little extra something after flat-ironing to tame the frizzies and flyaway strands and most importantly to add a little more shine – who doesn’t love more shine? This is especially true in the winter. What most people don’t realize is that our hair is like our skin, it loses major moisture when it’s cold. That’s why our hair gets a lot drier and dull looking in the winter months. Just like we wear extra lotion in the winter months so our hands and legs don’t get chapped and ashy, we need to make sure we’re giving our hair the same additional care (masks, oil treatments etc). However, since most girls don’t know this little tidbit, their hair takes on a straw-like appearance or else just looks completely lackluster, particularly near the ends (like Preity Zinta to the right). There are many long-term solutions to this problem, but if you are going on a big date, a work event, or even just a get together at a friend’s house, you need a quick fix. Read the rest of this entry »