Intrigue of Short Hair

by HAIR'S HOW

Vivienne Mackinder distributes her time between her salon, photo shoots and New York, Paris and London Fashion Weeks.In addition, she cooperates with entertainment shows and MTV and VH-1 Fashion Awards. The HairdesignerTV.com website is Vivienne's most innovative project. This is the world's first online advanced training program for stylists. Vivienne is also the founder and pro-ducer of the Not Just a Stylist documentary series. She has been awarded with the presti-gious International Beauty Show Prize in the tough "Editors Choice Awards" category three times and has won North American Hairstyling Awards six times. This year, NAHA presented her the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Short hair is more versatile than you would think. So often clients have a fear of short hair saying, “I don’t want to look boyish, my boyfriend/husband will not like it!” Or that “short hair is limited with style options.” See photo example of ‘one short bob’ and how versa-tile it is! One girl, five looks; all derived from a short bob.
The big question is discovering whether short or long fits your lifestyle through a good consulation.
There is so much to say about the art of a great consultation, but I feel the total image should be our focus, not just the head. My number one goal when designing a hairstyle is to give the client a style that “completes” who the client is and “does not compete” with who she is.
The ultimate goal is to enhance a clients best features while disguising less attrac-tive features. The general rule in any style is to create an oval face shape, as this is the most well balanced shape. Another rule is to work with soft asym-metry, for example: a sweeping fringe or side parting in the hair, as the face is not symmetrical and often a totally sym-metrical style shows the imperfections of the face. It is so important to take the client’s hair away from her face during the consultation to look at the face shape. Think of the hair as a frame around the face, the shorter and tighter the hairstyle the stronger the look drawing more atten-tion to the face shape. For the clients with longer hair, they can hide behind their hair. Remember, long hair hanging around the face can pull down on the features, while shorter hair cut to the jaw or check bones will lift the face.
At this time one of my classic favorites is a graduated bob cut with the razor, as it is the most versatile of shapes and great for alternative editorial styling. One celebrity hairstyle that is a great example of a ‘soft-razor layered graduated bob’ is Keira Knightley.

1. Layered bob cut with the razor to create soft edges perfect forstyling
2. Root curled with the curling iron — to resemble Peruvian Lambs wool
3. Wet finger waves
4. Curling iron set from roots to ends
5. Root curled and hair extensions added and razor blended into the cut