Live Freely in Color

For many of us, playing with our hair color is more than just about looking great: it is about affirming who we are and what we want. To give you the freedom to try out any color you like Kérastase has combined its deep understanding of hair with L’Oréal’s scientific expertise to create Chroma Absolu, a care range that looks after your hair from the inside out, shielding it from the damage caused by color treatments. Find out how hair science is working for color.

Blue, pink, purple, red, warm brown, or jet black: a color treatment can instantly transform your look and attitude. It is a way of expressing yourself, but color can also have consequences for your hair, from unwanted frizz to dullness and breakage.

To fix these issues, Kérastase has harnessed its hair care knowledge to create Chroma Absolu, a range of products that let you live freely in color. The goal is to combine healthy hair with beautiful, lasting color.

Understanding the damage caused by color

Step one was to understand the reasons why color services can sometimes damage the hair fiber.

Drawing on their proven experience with hair, including its structure and behavior, researchers at L’Oréal identified the three enemies of color:

• Water, which penetrates more easily into color-treated hair, causing protein disruption and color fading.

• Light: UV rays deteriorate dyes and natural pigment and lead to lipid loss, causing dullness and weakness.

• Combing: styling gestures deplete hair’s protein matter over time, causing breakage, dullness, and frizzy appearance.

Three levels of damage caused by color services

• At the hair’s core, fiber porosity causes breakage and split ends and accelerates fading.

• Within the fiber, color-induced frizz causes dryness, rough touch, and a dull “fried” look.

• Hair oxidation on the surface causes unwanted red and copper tones. 

Soin Acide Chroma Gloss

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Soin Acide Chroma Gloss: an innovative fluid-to-cream formula

With its innovative gel formula, which turns into cream on contact with water, Soin Acide Chroma Gloss offers deep penetration to hydrate, strengthen, and reduce fiber porosity. The resurfacing treatment creates more intense color, brighter shine, and gets rid of unwanted frizz.

The result of this research is a complete hair care range, including a shampoo, a heat-protectant serum, and an innovative resurfacing treatment, designed for all color-treated hair types and with observable effects on hair health and color intensity.

The result of this research is a complete hair care range , including a shampoo , a heat-protectant serum , and an innovative resurfacing treatment, designed for all color-treated hair types and w ith observable effects on hair health and color intensity .

The Ultimate Guide to Bangs

The Ultimate Guide to Bangs

BY JESSICA PRINCE ELRICH

AUGUST 11, 2016

Bangs can instantly transform your face and make any haircut look cooler, declares hairstylist Harry Josh. That's great and all, but it doesn't change the fact that chopping off that much length in one snip is scary. If you've been dreaming of getting bangs, Josh offers this bit of consolation: "There’s some form of face-framing bang that will work on almost everyone." Whether you prefer to ease in with sideswept fringe à la Jean Shrimpton, or go for a bold and shaggy version like model Freja Beha Erichsen, our tips from top hairstylists reveal everything you need to know about finding, styling, and maintaining your best match. And if you have bangs and you're tired of them, we've also got advice on how to grow them out.

Flatter Your Face Shape

Like any accessory, bangs should enhance your features, not overwhelm them. For long and narrow faces, “blunt fringe that hits below the brows will make your face look fuller,” explains hairstylist Garren. If your face is round or square, try bangs just above the brows, he says. When it comes to heart-shaped faces, the decision is yours—short, long, or arched all suit you.

Mind the Maintenance

Schedule a professional bang trim every six weeks, Josh advises. 

The Beginner Bang: Sideswept

This is the style for women who want to ease into bangs, says hairstylist Chris McMillan. Easy to blend with the layers around your face, these low-maintenance bangs work on any hair length and grow out fairly fast. They’re also rather simple to style: If your hair is straight, spritz your bangs with water and blow-dry them as you pull down the hair with your fingers, suggests McMillan. If it’s wavy, use a small round-barrel brush, drying them in the opposite direction from the way they fall, he says. As your hair cools, smooth them to the correct side to keep them from falling flat.

The Dramatic Bang: Short and Tousled

Wearing very short bangs (translation: two to three inches) à la Amber Valletta in the ‘90s takes some guts, but the look is edgy. Warning: If you have very curly hair or won't be blow-drying daily, this length isn’t for you. When your bangs are too short to wrap around a brush, McMillan advises pulling them straight down with your fingers and blasting them with your blow-dryer. Once dry, comb them down or use a dab of pomade for a tousled Joan Jett–inspired texture.

The Traditional Bang: Long and Straight

The trick with blunt, geometric bangs is to make sure they’re never ruler-straight or too thick in the middle, says McMillan. Instead, they should fall about a half inch longer at the temples than in the middle for a slight, inverted U shape. As for the most flattering length, McMillan advises anything landing between the tops of the brows down to the tips of the lashes.

Use Caution on Curls

Curly bangs were born in the ‘80s, and there’s certainly been a resurgence of girls wanting to rock this style, says Josh. Think Jennifer Beals in Flashdance. “The key is to cut them dry, in their natural state,” says hairstylist Paul Hanlon. As for styling, “comb the bangs down and apply styling gel,” adds Garren. On days you want to wear them straight, use a mini-flatiron to smooth them out.

Forehead Adjustments

To minimize a small forehead, bangs should be as long as possible and start farther back on the head than normal. A large forehead can be hidden with bangs that are cut to be longer at the temples than they are at the middle, explains hairstylist John Sahag.

Growing Out Gracefully

When growing out your bangs, there will always be an awkward period that lasts at least four to six weeks, says Josh. The key is to get them to blend into the sides of your hair, which can be accomplished with periodic salon trims. “You’re not cutting the length, just thinning it out so the bangs are not so blocky as they grow out,” Josh says. Accessorizing with clips is another option: “Make a deep side part and insert a clip at the hairline, just above one eyebrow,” says hairstylist Serge Normant. "It’s a surprisingly sexy look.” Once the bangs are long enough to pull over your eyes, pull them straight back and anchor them at the crown with the help of a bobby pin.

How Slick Hair Became the Supermodel’s Answer to Beach Waves

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There’s hardly a better signifier of a sunny day well spent than a finger-combed mess of windswept waves, but leave it to the street style set to spark a party-ready hair trend that adds a bit of polished yin to all that beachy summer yang: slicked-back hair that conjures up lazy poolside chic and ’80s-inspired power glamour in equal measure—while requiring little more than a fine-toothed comb and a dollop of gel to perfect.

It all began with Kendall Jenner and Joan Smalls, whose minimalist hair at Canneslast month looked like they had taken a quick dip in the Riviera before diving into their gowns, while Toni Garrn recently took the style into hard-edged Helmut Newton territory with a liquid off-the-shoulder dress in Monaco.

But for all its ocean-fresh appeal, the clean sweep feels just as right for an evening in the city: Josephine Skriver and Stella Maxwell wore the style on the red carpet in Manhattan this week, proving the look pairs just as nicely with clean skin and a floor-length dress as a smudge of eyeliner and an androgynous tux.

Just in time for a steamy Saturday night, here’s to summer’s coolest shortcuts to high-impact hair.

JUNE 11, 2016 8:00 AM by SOPHIE SCHULTE-HILLEN

The History of Flower Crowns and the Women Who Wore Them: From Frida Kahlo to Kate Moss

Few accessories have aroused such commentary, for and against, than the flower crown, so trendy of late among the neo-hippie festival crowd. Despite detractors, these decorative headpieces, whose history in mythology and art can be traced back to ancient civilizations, show no signs of fading from favor. Not only was actress Fan Bingbing a flower-crowned vision on the red carpet at Cannes this week, but, thanks to a new exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden, Fridamania (appreciation of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, who often wore flowers in her hair) is raging.

It’s a look that has roots. In agrarian societies, tied to the land and the seasons, flower crowns had great symbolic meaning. Worn for practical and ceremonial reasons, they could illustrate status and accomplishment (Olympic olive wreaths). The language of flowers and herbs was well-known, with each carrying its own meaning (“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembering. Please remember, love. And there are pansies, they’re for thoughts,” says Ophelia in Hamlet.) Full of significance, floral headdresses were woven into the social and dress traditions of places as distant as Russia and Hawaii.

With increasing industrialization the flower crown became a romantic sign of the simple “country” life (longed for, in a stylized version, by Marie Antoinette) and increasingly appreciated for its decorative value. While brides continued the ceremonial traditions of flower-wearing, it was the earth-mother hippies who have most influenced the accessory’s current incarnation. Finding themselves partying rather than plowing, these flower children would truss their slept-in hair with wildflowers to signify their connection to nature.

View image slideshow here.