New Hair

I chopped all my hair off two weeks ago. 

After the cut, I asked Joe, "Is my new hair swaggy?" 

"It's something," he said. Then after my protestations, he demurred. "It is definitely swaggy." 

For your reference: on the left is fresh from my hair stylist and on the right is my subsequent attempt to style it. 

I specifically requested it to not be like Miley Cyrus, but I think it's a little Miley. Whatever. I'm digging it! I was actually inspired to go short by Michelle Williams (Who What Wear just wrote about her undercut ) and also Robin Wright in House of Cards. She rocks that cut. 

It took me three years to grow my hair out and then in an hour, it was all gone. It was the longest it's ever been in my lifetime. You can see it here in the pages of Interior Design magazine (I "modeled" for my company's photoshoot. I haven't mentioned that here, but it was surreal!)

I don't miss the long locks. I think I wrote about the fact that I was freaked out by how much hair fell out daily. Maybe I never noticed it when it was short, but when it was long, it scared the bejeezus out of me. After I went to Iceland and ruined my hair in the Blue Lagoon and it was looking particularly terrible, I googled "women's hair loss" and just cried while reading the stories. Irrational behavior on my part, I know. I actually called up Joe and just scream-cried into the phone. In between sobs, I managed to get out the words, "All my hair is falling out." Joe was so sincere, and took me at face value. "What can I do? Can take you to urgent care?"

That wasn't necessary.

OK, so that's my insane reaction to long hair. I never got used to finding strands everywhere, but I still seem to have the same amount of hair as before so no harm no foul. I was just so sick of it so it's time for something new. I think I need new, edgier clothes (or girlier clothes?) to go with this swaggy hairdo. And fun earrings. I'm thinking statement earrings and ear cuffs. So now you know, I got this haircut to show off trendy ear cuffs. 

Leave me a comment if you love it or hate it, or if you have any suggestions for fun products for punky, edgy short hair. 

New Hair Cut: The Modern Long Bob or "Lob"

So ​before I went to Coachella, I almost dyed my hair pink! In fact, my stylist attempted to dye it pink, but for some reason it didn't take. Maybe God was watching out for me. It would've been subtle, I swear. She suggested doing an ombre baby pink on the ends, and it would've been cute. But maybe that's a lot of look for me, so perhaps its for the best.

​The pink might not have worked out, but I did get a new haircut. My hair was the longest it's ever been, and it was driving me crazy. I feel like the long bob is having a moment (or the lob, if you will), so I found some inspirational images to show my stylist. Check it out below (oh hey, rocker Taylor!).

Image sources: Taylor​, Miroslava, Alexa, tutorial from amazing stylist blog She Lets Her Hair Down

​I like how it turned out a lot, but I can't make it look as good as my stylist did. That's always the case though. I'll post a picture when I can get my act together. Also, the past few weeks I've been itching to go a lot shorter (oh hey, Michelle Williams pixie crop!).

What do you think of the long bob? What hair trend are you feeling lately?​

My Visit to Drybar Georgetown

Have you all tried Drybar yet? I've been reading about the only blowouts salon chain for so long, and ever since an outpost opened in Washington, I've been curious to experience the cult of blowouts. This is the longest my hair has EVER been, so now seemed like an ideal time to try it out before I chop it in the spring.

So this past Friday, I hoofed it to Glover Park/Burleith for an early morning appointment. Note: it may say Georgetown on the website, but that's a bit of a stretch. If you don't have a car, the location is inconvenient, but buses do run up Wisconsin every 10 to 15 minutes. Here's a rundown of my Drybar experience:

​The design is beautifully done. It looks appropriately posh, and makes that $40 a pop seem like a bargain. (Joe, you might want to stop reading here.) The place is huge too, there's a whole back room with styling stations near the shampoo room. I didn't wait at all for my appointment. I met my stylist, got my hair washed, and chose the Mai Tai from Drybar's "menu" of hairstyles, and drank some lemon-flavored water. No champagne as it was 8 a.m., but maybe I should've gone for it.

​​As seems appropriate in the girliest place ever, flat screen televisions played The Devil Wears Prada without the sound on. I caught the tail end of this, and then the first 5 minutes of Mean Girls. Again, of course they played those movies. 

Actually, I barely watched any of it because I took my glasses off and the screen turned into vaguely-Anne-Hathaway-shaped blurs. This is where my guide stops being a service to readers, because I can't see at all without my glasses and I have no idea how the stylist created my hairstyle.​

​But this is how it turned out:

​Ignore the overgrown bangs, please. I really liked the job she did, and enjoyed the overall experience as a girly treat, but I don't know if wavy done hair feels like me. I know that's more about my own issues and way beyond the purvey of Drybar, ha. My friend Alex said, couldn't you have done this yourself? Maybe if I really tried with the curling iron.

​No, looking at this picture I realize that there is no way I could do this myself. The back looked really pretty. It stayed this way pretty much all day, looking a little less "done" by the evening, then turned into very loose waves the next day and was pretty much gone the third day. But your milage may vary.

On the way to the salon, I read the Yelp reviews and some people were really unhappy. Women are just so picky about their hair.  And everyone's hair is different, so it seems even more difficult to fit everyone into a "Cosmo-Tai" or "Mai-Tai" or whatever. That's a lot of hurdles for drop-in blow-out places like Drybar to jump through. I feel like I have a level of trust with my own hairstylist that is difficult to replicate with a one-off appointment. I also wonder if the stylist positions here are a difficult job to fill in general, since your tips have a cap on them without cut or color? Do most people who love doing hair want to cut hair as well?

But I can see why these styles of salons are hitting it big. If you have a special occasion or maybe you want to get your hair did and feel pretty, this does the trick. I'll probably just stick to my normal hair appointments and try to get better at doing my own hair, but it's nice to know that it's in the neighborhood. Curious about trying Drybar DC for the first time? Want to tell me about your experience? Comment below!

Violet Blonde

Self Portrait (Foils), 2012

Joe said this should be my profile picture for everything.

Turns out my hairstylist used a shade of blond for my highlights that has violet undertones. I didn't know she was going to do that – wouldn't you tell someone you are going to put purple in their hair? — but I really dig it. She knows I like the avant-garde, I guess.

Can you tell? Let me know if you can!

Denim Jacket + Little White Dress + Metallic Sandals

So I've been wanting to have more fashion content on my blog, but I feel like a jerk taking pictures of myself and posting them on the Internet (I told this to Debie and she said, "umm, you HAVE seen fashion blogs before, right?"). Also I am definitely not a model.  But despite all these obstacles, I'm plunging ahead with an outfit post.  I put a lot of thought into this particular outfit, and the barista at the coffee shop complimented me on it, so we'll start here.

I admire women who can wear a million accessories and patterns at once and have it look good (like Song of Style), but I try to only wear one or two crazy fun things at once.  What could be more classic than a denim jacket and a little white dress?  The crazy part comes in with the sandals.

I wanted to buy these metallic sandals for months and made a special trek to get them when they went on sale. Love them!  Pretty comfy and you can get them for a better price now.  But if you buy them, whatever you do, do not let your shoes touch each other because the silver can rub off. Oy vey!  Learn from my mistakes.  The shoe department at the Chevy Chase Bloomingdale's hooked me up with a new pair after mine got scratched within four hours.  The new pair is holding up better.

My earrings are supposed to be pieces of coral (well, plastic pieces of coral) but Joe said that they look like chicken feet.  What do you think?  Now chicken feet are all I can see.

Oh yeah, I got bangs! Did you know that, according to the NY Times via Cup of Jo, 2012 is the year of the bang? 

Here's the before picture, where I was rocking 4-inch roots and praying that it looked purposely ombre.  Stefeny at Fringe in Georgetown worked wonders.  PS - her expert tip is to spray a big of hair spray from far away and then curl the bangs over the cylinder of the can.  And yes, I brought in a photo of Zooey Deschanel to illustrate the bangs I wanted #cliche.

I was a little scared about heavy bangs, but as long as I style them it's working out.  Anyone out there jumping on the bang-wagon?  Hahaha, apologies for that one.