Ninja Beauty Secrets—Styling Short Hair, Part 2

Caveat: Please skip this article if you have male pattern baldness as exhibited on the Hamilton-Norwood Scale.

Great hair products are every bit as important as a great hair cut. My favorite shampoo at the moment is Aussie Moist Shampoo. It’s a fantastic shampoo with a gentle conditioner built-in. There are other great shampoos on the market and I strongly recommend Vidal Sassoon if you can get it. In the past, some buffoon sued the company, so the product is no longer available for sale in the United States, but you can still order it from Japan, China, and Hong Kong. Once you use it, I’m sure you’ll agree that Vidal Sassoon is one of the best shampoos in the world. I recommend washing your hair every day with a moisturizing shampoo and conditioning your hair at least once a week with a conditioner. Conditioners are like an extra helping of moisturizer for your hair.
Against what most hair pundits will say, I advocate drying your hair with a hair dryer. I also recommend using the medium or high heat setting and holding the hair dryer a minimum of eight inches away from your head and running the fingers of your hand through your hair as you blow dry for best results. Some hair pundits will tell you to air dry your hair and that’s fine if you don’t care if your hair is wet for a long time and you don’t mind if your hair picks up all the dirt and debris in the atmosphere as you walk around in the morning. My own hair is proof that what I say is true. I’ve been blowdrying my hair for 40 years.

My favorite styling products at the moment are Cibu Sticky Rice Pomade and Sebastian Shaper Plus. Cibu’s pomade is the first pomade I’ve ever tried and I’ve found that it works better, keeps your hair bendable and movable, and smells nicer than any mousse or styling gel I’ve come across. The thing you have to worry about with pomade is piling it on. You don’t want to put too much into your hair because it’s not exactly a nice feeling for someone to run their fingers through your hair and leave with a greasy feeling on their fingers. I’m not entirely pro-Sebastian because there are so many good hairsprays on the market. It’s up to you to find a hairspray that smells agreeable to you. I haven’t found one that I totally like yet, but the Sebastian one is my fave at the moment.

If you want to make your hair look super glossy, try Cibu Tsu Shine Polishing Gloss. Pump just a few drops of this shine serum on your palm, rub it between both palms and run your hands through your hair to separate and define the layers. It’s also great for frizz control and smells nice, too.

Hair highlights are a simple way of adding beauty to natural hair. They can emphasize the focal point of a gorgeous hair cut and can give sophistication to any hair style, adding depth and dimension to hair. Hair highlighting is different from hair coloring. Hair coloring is defined as the coloring of the entire hair and highlighting is defined as the coloring of only a few strands of hair. Hair highlights are often restricted to bright shades with a metallic tint. Hair highlighting with peroxide is often used to create lighter hair shades on dark hair.

Foil highlighting is the most popular highlighting process in salons. Aluminum foil is used to separate and wrap strands of hair so the color is not mixed with other strands. This creates precise, controlled strips of color along the length of your hair. Most celebrities have this form of highlighting.

The beauty of highlighting is often not truly realized until a couple of weeks after the process when the sun hits your hair and lightens the highlights further. Too much sun can damage highlighted hair so take care not to overexpose yourself to the sun. Too much highlighting can result in damaged hair that is split, dry, and frizzy. If your hair ever reaches this state, you’ll need to let it grow out so new, healthy hair takes the place of the old, frizzy stuff.

A competent hair stylist can create beautiful reddish brown highlights out of black hair. An incompetent hair stylist might create bright orange highlights out of the same hair. Some hair types are extremely difficult to work with, such as ratty hair, so hair highlights are not recommended. If your hair is unruly and unmanageable, wigs are probably your best option.

For video instruction on how to create this hair style from beginning to end, please subscribe to KalinaIsato.com and see the video Styling Your Hair, Part 1. You will also be able to access thousands of pictures of me and my friends. Monthly subscribers receive access to additional areas with makeup and style advice unpublished anywhere else.

For more ninja beauty secrets, purchase Natural Makeup Techniques or Secrets to an Awesome Makeover here.

Category: Style, Transgender How To