hair

ALL HAIR, ALL WEEK

photos/post/grahic design: Kristin Ess

Calling all curly girls! Here’s a fun, fancy little updo for you. We get lots of requests for updos on curly hair from our readers who want to embrace their natural texture. Working with curls when doing an updo is so much fun because almost anything you do looks romantic + girly! This tutorial is pretty easy and you can accessorize it with anything you want. Here we added a necklace from J. Crew  (incorporating jewelry into the hair is always SO much fun!) but you can add flowers, a headband, or just leave it plain + simple! If you don’t have curly hair and you want this look, you can always spend some time and curl your entire head with 5/8″ or 3/4″ barrell iron and then follow along! Let’s do it…

  1. On clean, combed, wet hair work a golfball-sized dab of mousse into your hair. Start at the root and work down.
  2. Diffuse your hair or you can just let it airdry if you’re not a fan of the diffuser.
  3. If you have any extra frizzy/misbehaved bits, wrap curl them around a 5/8″ barrell curling iron.
  4. Add a light hold styling spray if your curls feel too soft. Nothing too sticky! You don’t want to rough up the curls by pulling them apart after using a strong hairspray.
  5. Separate the “bangs” section as you see in photo 5. Clip that away and save it for later.
  6. Pull up half of your hair. Start behind the ears and pull it up on top near the crown.
  7. Twist that whole section and pin it in place.
  8. Use a ponytail holder (best if you use one that matches your own hair color) to make a ponytail in back. You want the ponytail to end up right below that bone that you can feel in the back of your head (the occipital bone).
  9. Roll that ponytail up into a loose, messy bun and pin using large bobby pins.
  10. Take the “bangs” section out of the clip.
  11. Pull it back, twist and secure into the bun.
  12. Once that’s secured, spray everything with a light holding hairspray.
  13. ACCESSORIZE!!!

Hope you’re enjoying hair week! See you tomorrow. xo

PS– the blazer can be found HERE and the necklace in her hair can be found HERE.

 

hair

ALL HAIR, ALL WEEK!

Hosting a party? You’ll probably need a hairstyle that will hold up while you finish prepping the party for your guests. Now before you get intimidated and RUN from these 25 (which seems like a lot) steps, just know that most of theses steps are broken down into serious detail. It’s not that crazy, I promise. To duplicate this look, you’ll want to actually see the intricate details because that’s what makes this look so special. It shouldn’t take you more than 15-20 min to do after you’ve waved your hair. This looks extra-romantic when done on naturally curly or wavy hair–it also saves a lot of time! Ok, here goes!

You will need: a beach spray, a light holding “flexible” hairspray, a comb, a 1″ barell curling iron, bobby pins, 1 clear elastic, a blowdryer and a soft detangling brush.

  1. Start with clean dry hair. (If you have naturally curly or wavy hair, you can skip down to step 10.)
  2. Spray some beach wave spray at the root all over. This will help add texture and volume.
  3. Once you’ve applied beach spray to your root, heat it up with a blowdryer. (Oops- accidentally cut most of the blowdryer out of this photo, but that’s what’s happening.)
  4. Now apply a thin layer of flexible hairspray all over. Try to use something that’s also a heat protectant if possible.
  5. Gently brush the hair out using a soft brush.
  6. Leaving the ends out, curl your hair all over.
  7. Here’s an extra visual of curling with the ends out.
  8. Tease the crown for a little volume.
  9. Smooth it over.
  10. Take the bottom section of your hair and make a low loop using a clear elastic. Pull the ends around and mess it up a little. Then give it a light spray with hairspray.
  11. Take two pieces above that and twist them backward (inward toward each other).
  12. Now tie them together right above the clear elastic.
  13. Pin them together and then pin it to your clear elastic.
  14. Do another twist and tie right above that.
  15. Pin that together as well.
  16. If you have extra loose pieces, you can twist them and weave them through.
  17. Here’s an illustrated shot so you can see where the hair is weaved through.
  18. Braid a piece on the left side and pin.
  19. Braid a piece on the right side and pin.
  20. Take the remaining sections in front and lightly tease. If your hair is naturally curly, don’t tease it here!
  21. Twist the hair and pull out a couple fine strands as you twist.
  22. Pull that section back.
  23. Pin it.
  24. Lightly tease the bottom of the ponytail part for a little extra texture. Again, don’t tease here if your hair is naturally curly.
  25. Spray all over with a finishing hairspray.

If you do this and you Instagram it, please tag us @thebeautydept! We would love to see your final result. Remember– don’t try too hard. This hairstyle should be loose and flow-y, not too tight. xo

tutorials

PRETTY PROJECT

photos/post/design: Kristin Ess

Have you ever taken a peek behind-the-scenes on a photoshoot? More often than not, there is a big vanity with a lot of lightbulbs around it which help us see every little detail with our client’s face + hair. Lighting is incredibly important when you’re getting ready and it can be quite tricky if the room where you’re getting ready is darker or if you’re getting ready to out at night. As you may know we’ve partenered up with Target for the month of May to see what beauty favorites we could introduce you to… and now we need a new place to put it all! Today we’re going to show you how to build your own vanity at home for less than it costs to buy one (because let’s face it, vanities with lights are NOT cheap!).

We ordered the desk, the mirror and the lights online. We also ordered some small nails, but you may have some already. Below, you can find the links to the things we ordered along with the price.

  • Carson Desk ($82)- Assembly for this table took about 20 minutes. PS- IT’S ON SALE RIGHT NOW! Hooray!
  • Threshold Flat Mirror ($35)- Prep the mirror with the small nails before you hang the mirror. I put the nails about 6″ apart.
  • String Lights (order these online $11.99 or pick up these in-store $12.99) - String the lights around the mirror using the nails to hold them up. There will be excess lights so you can either go around again or you can take the bulbs out and gather the cord behind the desk with a rubberband (which is what we chose to do.) Wish we could have found these lights with white cords, but no such luck! The ones we got still looked great.
  • Accessorize with anything you want! Here you can see we love a good mix of makeup, flowers and sparkly jewelry on the vanity. It’s really fun to style with your own pretty things.

We know the grand total of $130 still isn’t cheap, but it’s a fraction of what we’ve found out there for vanities with lights and we think it’s well worth the investment. Follow TBD + TARGET on Pinterest for more fun beauty finds!

makeup

PERFECT EYE SHADOW BLENDING

Post + Photography by Amy Nadine, Graphic Design by Eunice Chun

I can’t stress this quick tip enough. Do not blend with the same brushes that you used to apply the shadow! Don’t do it! Hear my voice in your head and put the brush down, grab a clean unused one and blend with that one.

Why? Because when you create a smoky eye, you’re depositing a lot of product onto the lid, so how can you truly blend the shadow you’ve precisely placed if there’s still product on the brush? You’re just applying more, not blending. And smoky eyes are all about blending. Furthermore, you typically use more than one shade when creating a smoky eye (lighter on the lid and darker in the crease or The Reverse Smoky Smoke with the darker on the lid and the lighter in crease), so if you blend with the brush that you applied one of the colors with, the remaining product on the brush will spread over the entire area and create a sloppy and muddy look. What’s the point of taking the time to do something pretty to only undo it or not finish it properly?

OUR FAVORITE BLENDING BRUSHES:

STEPS:

  1. After you’ve finished your smoky eye, grab a clean, unused brush and blend all over by sweeping the brush back and forth in a windshield wiping motion then in smaller swirling motions, then again with bigger motions.
  2. Continue until there are no harsh edges.

If you don’t have a clean brush in your arsenal (you know who you are!), no worries, just put your laptop down and take a trip into your makeup bag and clean them so I can sleep tonight knowing our TBD readers clean their brushes regularly! Revisit my Brush Cleaning Tutorial if you need a refresher. Thank you!