As mentioned on my mom’s hair makeover post, I also got my hair cut at Gene Juarez and I’m loving my new hair! I always go through the same phase with my hair where I want my hair to be really long and then the second it gets long I just want to cut it off. I’ve learned my lesson to not to cut too short (my round face can’t handle too short of a cut!) so I usually just take a few inches off but enough to make a difference. My stylist really listened to what I wanted and added in some layers but also left enough length to show off my balayage which I still love.
Before we did the cut, I also had a scalp treatment which I’ve never had before but highly recommend! It was the Phytodess Scalp Treatment which combines essential oils and natural clay to decongest and soothe your scalp. It was basically a mask but for your scalp. The scalp treatment was only about 15 minutes and then I had the Kérastase Rejuvenation treatment which targets the hair surface and core to help solidify and rejuvenate hair. I loved having these treatments before my hair cut to really help get my hair and scalp healthy again. I could really tell the difference a day after my cut how much more bouncy and shiny my hair was.
How fun is this bell sleeve tie top? I’m loving top with fun sleeves these days. It’s the perfect spring transition top. The one thing about these giant sleeves is eating or washing hands is kind of annoying. But I guess small price to pay for a cute top 🙂
I just love my shorter ‘do. It’s still long enough for a ponytail and is easy for me to curl. I also really loved the whole experience at Gene Juarez. Everyone there is so sweet and I feel like everyone from the receptionist to your stylist, genuinely wants you to have the best experience there.
I recently got my hair cut at Gene Juarez and I love my hair and the whole salon experience there. I’m not revealing my new hair yet as today’s post is about my mom! I treated my mom for mother’s day to a cut and hair treatment. She just got it done and looks so cute, I had to show it off!
We both went in for the Kerastase Rejuvenation Conditioning Treatment which basically brings life back to your hair. My mom has had years of dying her hair so it’s a bit more weak and brittle and I felt like it would be great for her hair. She really enjoyed the treatment and since I did it myself as well, I highly recommend it!
They have a few other conditioning treatments that you can add on to your service, I would love to try the “Shine” for my next visit. See all the different treatments you can do HERE.
And here’s my mom’s before and after! Doesn’t she look so cute with her new hair? I love that she didn’t cut off too much but the layers and volume really go well with her face.
My mom is the cutest, she loves social media, especially snapchat and always sends me the cutest snaps. When she watches my daughter, they post the funniest snapchats! Anyway, here’s a cute snap she sent me later on. I just love the layers in the front. Her hair looks so good!
I love buying my mom gifts for mother’s day and I really enjoyed gifting her this, not only for the hair cut but the salon experience. They treated my mom so well and the stylist recommended some great products that would work well for her hair. She was so happy with her whole experience which makes me happy.
Look how cute my mom is! I just love spending time with her and my daughter just adores her grandma.
If you’d like to treat your mom, now is an awesome time to get a gift card for your mom as they are offering a bonus (that you can use for yourself!) Buy a $150 gift card and get a $15 bonus. Buy a $300 gift card and get a $40 bonus. It goes all the way up to a $1,000 giftcard and you’ll get a $165 bonus! Such a great way to treat yourself and your mom! You can buy the gift card HERE or head over to your nearest salon!
I definitely go through phases when I want to color my hair and experiment versus leaving it alone. Last summer I made the best decision to go to Spoke & Weal at their Los Angeles location to have my hair balayage highlighted and just recently got a refresh this January. Low maintenance color and cuts are definitely my thing. I’m not a huge fan of sitting in the salon for 4 hours, but I’m willing to do it every few months.
That said, I’m only able to extend my color that long because a) I ask for balayage specifically, which is the most natural kind of highlight service since each highlight is hand painted and blended, and b) I am strict about preserving my color with the right products.
Evo Fabuloso Platinum Blonde Colour Intensifying Conditioner is my top pick for fighting brassiness, the worst look for months old highlights. It’s a super pigmented and dense purple conditioner that you leave on for a few minutes that combats orange tones (hello, color theory) and maintains a level of coolness to the raw warmth of bleached hair. You can also use a matching purple shampoo, but I find them less effective personally since they stay on the hair for less time. Instead, I use the coordinating Evo Fabuloso Pro Preserve Colour Maintenance Shampoo to prevent damage from the cleansing process in the first place. It’s a mild shampoo that doesn’t strip color.
For styling, I like using the Evo Love Touch Shine Spray to condition and detangle hair. But for serious damage repair, like after the bleach session, I can’t say enough good things about Olaplex, which magically bonds broken parts of hair together. Use once every month or so for noticeable results.
What tips do you have for maintaining your hair color?
If you follow me on instagram you may have seen my insta-stories while I was at Gary Manuel last week getting my hair done! If you don’t know what balayage is, here’s the definition: a technique for highlighting the hair in which the dye is painted
on in such a way as to create a graduated, natural-looking effect.
Before I got this done I spent a lot of time googling “Asian Balayage” because I wanted to make sure that I liked the look and to have a specific look in mind to let them know what I was looking for. I always recommend doing that when you are doing any sort of treatment/change to your hair just so you know what you like before you actually go in and get it done. I really liked it because it gives it such a pretty ombre and a natural “sunkissed” look. The best part about balayage is that unlike highlights, when it grows out, it’s barely noticeable since you aren’t dying the top part of your hair. When it grows out, it just looks very natural. My previous balayage was fine but it had been about 6 months so I was ready for some more color.
Derik, my stylist, was amazing. He really took the time to figure out what I wanted and made it happen exactly as how I asked. And not only that he was just so nice and friendly. You know how sometimes when you go to a stylist you’ve never worked with before and you can either awkwardly talk about the weather or it’s just silence? It wasn’t like that at all. He was just so warm and friendly, I had such a great time the whole time I was there. His intern was working on my hair as well and she was just so sweet. I really appreciate it as I’ve been to so many of these “fancy” salons and haven’t had the best experiences with the people working there but when you are spending so much time there it’s really important to enjoy the atmosphere while you are there!
Anyway, back to the hair. So, I wanted to go a bit lighter than my previous balayage and we talked about if I wanted a more warm or more cool look to the color. I didn’t end up getting a cut, which I should have seeing as the ends of my hair are kind of dead but I will be back for that on another day. The not so great part about balayage is that it takes awhile, I was at the salon for a little over 3 hours. But I’m not complaining, it was so worth it! They only use Aveda products at the salon and what I love is that Aveda color is 96% naturally derived, so it’s not just a bunch of chemicals that will damage your hair. I’m such a fan of Aveda products and all of my favorite hair products that I currently use are Aveda.
When I sat down in the chair and we were going over what I wanted I told Derik that when I left the house I joked with my husband that I’d be back with pink hair. Derik took one look at me and said “Want to do it?” I didn’t plan for it but I’ve always really wanted colorful hair and never had the nerve to do it so I said yes and he made a plan for it! He kept it in the back underneath my hair so it’s hidden but I have to tell you that I really, really love it. I love seeing the peek of it and now I often wear my hair half up just so you can see it more. It’s so much fun and my daughter is in love with it, she always asks to see mommy’s pink hair.
Here’s a few snaps from the day that I got my hair done. I love their space, the light was amazing and it was just a very good vibe. Everyone was so friendly and seems like everyone has a fun time in
there!
Look at all the Aveda products! They have everything! And if you know Aveda, you know that everything smells so good so the moment you step in the salon it just smells amazing! I totally forgot to ask what products they used on my hair but I have quite a few of their products at home and I’m currently loving their Smooth Infusion (so great as a prep for styling your hair), the Split End Repair (much needed!) and the Shampure Dry Shampoo.
They even have a photobooth in the salon! Derik and I had to take a pic together. How fun right? I took like 5 more in there just for fun. LOL! Don’t tell a fashion blogger that there’s a photobooth and not expect us to take a ton of photos 🙂
I went to the downtown Seattle location but they also have one in South Lake Union which is a gorgeous space as well.
And can we just talk about these floors? So pretty!
My outfit details: JACKETSWEATER (similar) JEANSBOOTS
Here is how it looks curled. Since I usually wear my hair curled I wanted a look that would be pretty both curled and straight and I love them both. The end of my hair is very blonde but it’s a very warm caramel blonde and I love that you can see all the different shades when my hair is curled.
I am so happy with my hair and love that I did this. I usually am quite boring with my hair so this just feels so fun and exciting to me! By the way, I used the instyler to curl my hair. I mentioned it in my Gifts I’m Giving video but just had to tell you that I’m really loving it. Normally I use a clipless curling iron which I love the look of but man of man it takes me so long to curl my hair and not only that my arm starts to hurt! The instyler takes all the work out of it and I get these pretty waves.
I loved my entire experience with Gary Manuel and really appreciate the team at Aveda for setting this up for me. I highly recommend them for all your hair needs. You can find their store info here and if you want a balayage, make sure to ask for Derik!
I usually use my flat iron to curl my hair (see my video tutorial) but lately I’ve been wanting sleek straight hair instead of my usual curls. I usually just blow dry my hair straight and leave it but it’s been so bleh lately and no matter how much teasing I did, I’d never get the volume that I get when I curl my hair. I finally put two and two together and thought about giving my hair volume the same way that I curl my hair but just leaving it straight instead. Whenever I thought about using my flat iron to straighten my hair, I always had the idea of just taking it straight down and getting straight hair that way. It never occurred to me (until now) that all you need to do is to just lift up at the roots before gliding it down which is where the volume comes from. Really, it’s that simple! And this may be something that a ton of you already know but since I just recently discovered it and now love doing my hair like this I thought I’d share my tutorial. It only takes a few simple steps to have sleek and voluminous straight hair.
Make sure to spray your hair with the heat protectant spray before you start. (I skipped showing you the bottom 2 layers as it was easier to photograph the top 2. The technique is the same)
The trick is after you lift at the roots, bring it down in a curve, kind of like you are drawing the letter C.
At this point, you should have a lot more volume all around and sometimes I just stop at this step depending on how cooperative my hair is that day.
I need the dry shampoo for the texture in my hair to hold the tease but if you don’t need it, you can skip it. The teasing should be very light as you already have the volume there, you just want to bring it up a little and smooth it out.
I completely wasn’t thinking and didn’t take pictures of the sides and the back of my hair for comparison but if the pictures don’t show it well, it really does give good volume all around. I know it’s not revolutionary or anything but for someone with very thick hair that gets weighed down a lot, this has been a great and easy way for me to style my hair and keep the volume without a lot of product and teasing. I hope it’s helpful for some of you too!
I’m wearing a J Crew top and our brand new Luxe Chain Crystal Necklace – it’s my favorite piece, I wear it all the time!
If you follow me on twitter or my facebook, you already know that I did a major chop to the hair. (Thank you all for the supportive words and advice on the haircut – I really was upset about it but you guys made me feel better.) I loved my long hair but after my digital perms, my hair has gotten increasingly unhealthy. So I decided that I needed to just try and get my hair healthy again and chopped a good amount off to get rid of the split ends and dryness. Plus, I had already been thinking about changing up my hair just to try something new. I think I was in shock the day that I got it cut and my hairstylist seemed so excited by the fact that I was trying something different (I usually have her do the exact same thing every time) so my reaction was just “OK I cut my hair” but the next day I woke up and looked at my hair in the mirror and thought “WHAT HAVE I DONE?!!” A bit dramatic, I know, but it has been a good 10 years since my hair was this short and my long hair has kind of become my security blanket so I just got so used to it. Plus, curling my hair and doing my hair in the mornings is something that generally relaxes me and that I truly enjoy so when I took a look at my short hair and I couldn’t do the things I was used to doing, and everything I was doing made it look even more terrible, I kind of freaked out. Then I went on twitter and freaked out. Then I went on youtube to desperately try to find short hair style tutorials and came up with crapola (it’s really hard to weed out good/bad videos on youtube when doing a general search, most are bad) and then freaked out again. ACK! OK so I finally calmed down, took my curling iron out and did a little work to make it look somewhat OK. I just did a little wave to it so here is what it looks like now.
Since I cut off the remaining part of my digital perm, my hair is now stick straight. I don’t like the look of it super straight but texture like this, I can deal. I’m still learning how to style it as this length is hard for me to work with but I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it. Ask me in a week and I’ll (hopefully) love it. Anyway, if you have tips on working with short hair or if you can recommend any good youtube videos please share! (I especially can’t figure out how to put up my hair and make it look good at this length) Like I said, it’s been so long since my hair was this short so I can’t even remember how I used to style it. The funny thing is, I’ve never been one to freak out about hair cuts. I had one friend that literally cried every time she got her hair cut and I’d just roll my eyes at the ridiculousness of it but this change for me was enough for me to understand her tears! I guess I knew it was going to be short but it just didn’t hit me until I was trying to style it like I’ve been doing for the past few years and nothing was working!
To help get my hair back to being healthy, I’ve been using the Ojon Restorative Hair Treatment for the past few months and it’s does work great but the smell is quite interesting and the smell stays in my hair for at least another day after using it. My husband hates the smell (I put the hair mask in and watch TV or work on the computer while it works it’s magic and hubs can smell it from wherever I’m sitting), I don’t mind it but I don’t love it either. So if you don’t like strong smelling stuff I highly advise against using this. I also alternate using this with the Shiseido Tsubaki Hair Mask which smells much nicer and I like the consistency of it when it goes into my hair. Since I’ve been using both of them I can’t tell which one is more effective but I’ve seen an improvement in the softness of my hair and less dryness and breakage. I’m hoping now that I’ve cut out all of the unhealthier part of my hair I’ll continue using this stuff and my hair will continue to grow nice and healthy.
I also got new shampoo and conditioner about a month ago (can you tell I’m obsessed with having healthy hair?) and got the Alterna Caviar Anti-Aging Moisture Shampoo and conditioner
because it promised “stronger, healthier, younger-looking hair”. I’m a sucker for products that promise stuff like this but I do think it’s helping.
Oh and then I got mesmerized watching Wen by Chaz Dean on QVC and they do such a convincing job that it made me want to buy the Wen by Chaz Dean Cleansing Conditioners as his models all had super amazing hair. I refrained from buying it since I use way too many products at the moment but I may have to try this next! Do any of you have experience with this product? I read the reviews on QVC.com and people seem to like it but would love to know if any of you have used it before and if it really works!
The other day Groupon had a deal at a salon for a Hair Gloss Treatment which the salon describes as:
A colorless shine that gives hair a mirror gloss reflection. Clear Gloss is ideal for all hair types. It seals the cuticle for reflective shine with conditioning benefits. This treatment is especially effective after any in salon chemical service like color, straightening or permanent waves. Clear Gloss enhance any natural hair color and revive any tint, but also provide radiant shine and deep conditioning to each strand. Best of all, it’s peroxide-free, alcohol-free and ammonia-free.
It sounds good right? I had to buy it. Once I get it done, I’ll report back and let you guys know how it turned out!
My flat iron curls definitely don’t work on this hairstyle because it’s too short so I need to figure out a new way to use it. On the above look I used both my T3 curling iron and Conair clipless curling iron to get the wave/texture I was looking for.
This is the first time in my life that I got a hair cut that I regretted but with the advice of so many great ladies yesterday, I’m just going to give it time to “settle” and learn how to work with it. If I still hate it in a month, I’m booking an appointment to go get some extensions! 🙂
I think I’ve gotten requests from readers to do a hair curling video every week over the past year and I keep on making excuses as to why I couldn’t do one. Well! I finally decided to suck it up and do one. Not gonna lie, I’m a bit afraid to do tutorials because I’m no expert at make up or hair, I just know how to do my own. I’m not pretending to be a hair stylist or nothing, it’s just what I’ve learned is the best way to style my hair. But I made the video because I love you guys. 🙂 Anyway, hope you like it and helps out in some way for your own hair! I do apologize it’s kind of a long video, I actually edited so much out of it but there’s just no way to curl my hair in 5 minutes!
Thank you to Hazuki from Yuko for sending me this! It really has helped my split ends and I really like that it helps protect my hair from the heat of the blow dryer and curling iron.
It’s not cheap but I’ve justified the cost by using it almost every day for a year and a half! It slides through my hair really smoothly, especially with the way I curl my hair. The ones I’ve used previously kind of would stick to my hair and tug at it when I slid it through my hair.
Also check out my All About Hair post for some of the other products that I use.
In the video I’m wearing the Yumi Kim Kalie Top in Ebony Rose. (It’s on sale for $50 now! Go get it!) Loves this print, I bought it in the Cissy dress as well and wore it to our company holiday dinner party. Oh and since I get a lot of questions about Yumi Kim sizing, I wear an XS and it fits TTS except for some of their flowy tops which are a bit on the big side (but I guess since it’s flowy, it’s fine.) The necklace is the Tiffany & Co. Lock Charm (it comes in every letter of the alphabet). Bracelet is from Madewell and ring is the double finger ring by Erica Anenberg.
