Casual Up-do’s

I almost never put my hair up but find myself enviously admiring people like my sisters — Organic Freedom and Fun — who do casual up-dos all of the time and look fantastic. Mainly, I don’t do it because as a time conscious Classic, it’s incredibly time consuming and often looks ridiculously bad so I take it down and rue the 20 minutes I’ve wasted trying to put it up. But, Amy has taught me a trick or two to reduce my failure rate.

Teasing! No, not the kind I still enjoy doing to my little brother — who is now 32 years old — but the kind they did back in the ’50s and ’60s. Only, teasing doesn’t need to be crazy big as in beehives or hairsprayed into a helmet — it’s the first step to achieving casual up-do success. During Amy Gerber’s tutorial at her last NY Network talk, she did a couple of little patches up front and in the back. Her main lesson was that when teasing, it’s not a straight up and down motion but rather a c-curve motion. The secondary lesson was not to brush out the entire teasing job — as I so often do. After teasing, give the section a little spray, smooth the top over and then if you want, spritz a little more hairspray.

Classics, Organic Structures, and Smart Structures would do best experimenting on weekends or days off of work when you have more time. Once you get a couple of styles down, then the up-do can be a quick go-to during a hectic morning. Funs, Organic Freedoms and Smart Freedoms likely already DO fun up-do’s on occasion. Just remember if you’re experimenting ahead of a departure deadline to give yourself more time or at least beware that if a Classic, Organic Structure or Smart Structure is waiting on you, you might be late and they might be annoyed — sorry, make that WILL be annoyed!