I've tried to post this move several times but blogspot seems to keep deleting.. I've moved my blog to Tumblr.
It's michellestdarling.tumblr.com
Tons of new post over there! See ya there!
:)
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
Moved!!
My blog over the past few months has moved. Catch up on my latest on Tumblr!
http://michellestdarling.tumblr.com
http://michellestdarling.tumblr.com
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
A Really easy way to ruin your hair!
Wanna break your hair off? Do you want a line across your hair where it just snaps right off? Do you want your hair to be more frizzy? Well here's how to achieve such a look!
TIE YOUR HAIR BACK WHILE IT WET!
Everyone is doing it! For all you lazy people this summer that wanna straighten some curl. Or maybe it's just to hot to blow dry! Let's get to some serious hair breakage! Comb that dripping wet hair back into the tightest pony tail holder you can find and wrap that puppy around so tight that your eyebrow touch your ears!
Seriously though.. Here's why this is BAD! Your hair had a hydrogen bond in it that is broken when your hair is wet. This is why when your hair is wet it seems longer. Wet hair is also in a more fragile state. It's stretchy. Next time your hair is wet and you are coming through it.. take one of those hairs that you shed and stretch it! eventually you can stretch it to the point that is will snap. The ammount of stretch that your hair can handle is determined by your texture and damage. This is called your elasticity. When your hair dries that bond hardens and your hair "shrinks".
So what happens when you tie it back wet is this... Your hair is trying to shrink but the pony holder is holding it in that unnatural position. Science does it's job shrinking the hair back up causing your hair to break because the tension is too great. You get hundreds of broken hairs. Some by the root causing frizz and some by where the holder was. This is true for barettes and clips as well.
Remember, your hair is delicate!
TIE YOUR HAIR BACK WHILE IT WET!
Everyone is doing it! For all you lazy people this summer that wanna straighten some curl. Or maybe it's just to hot to blow dry! Let's get to some serious hair breakage! Comb that dripping wet hair back into the tightest pony tail holder you can find and wrap that puppy around so tight that your eyebrow touch your ears!
Seriously though.. Here's why this is BAD! Your hair had a hydrogen bond in it that is broken when your hair is wet. This is why when your hair is wet it seems longer. Wet hair is also in a more fragile state. It's stretchy. Next time your hair is wet and you are coming through it.. take one of those hairs that you shed and stretch it! eventually you can stretch it to the point that is will snap. The ammount of stretch that your hair can handle is determined by your texture and damage. This is called your elasticity. When your hair dries that bond hardens and your hair "shrinks".
So what happens when you tie it back wet is this... Your hair is trying to shrink but the pony holder is holding it in that unnatural position. Science does it's job shrinking the hair back up causing your hair to break because the tension is too great. You get hundreds of broken hairs. Some by the root causing frizz and some by where the holder was. This is true for barettes and clips as well.
Remember, your hair is delicate!
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Michelle St Darling.. now with VIDEO!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Cheap/Natural ways for your hair to look it's best!
As some of you may know I recently quit working at Pimps and Pinups salon. I felt my time there needed to end. I have now embarked upon a journey of self. I'm FREELANCING! And honestly, it's terrifying! I'm renting a chair in a salon a few days a week then the rest of my time I can do my own thing. I'm still trying to find the groove as all of this change happened extremely suddenly. So I thought it fitting, in lew of my penny saving needs, to do a blog about some cheap ways to make your hair feel nourished and healthy without breaking the bank!
There are several fantastic things I LOVE for feeding your hair!
1. BEER!! No, drinking it doesn't help silly! Beer has vitamin B and natural sugars that tighten your cuticle! There are two ways you can use beer in your hair.
a) as a rinse - After shampooing and conditioning you pour the beer in your hair and lather around then rinse. It'll add shine and body.
b) as a styling lotion - keep it in a spray bottle in your fridge for up to a week and a few spritzes will help with body!
I know what you're thinking.. the SMELL! Yes, you want to choose a beer with a lighter smell. And once beer is dry it doesn't have much of a smell!
2. Coconut oil - I can't even tell you how much I LOVE coconut oil! You can buy it at any health store. I use this stiff for EVERYTHING and it lasts forever! If your hair feels dry you can run some of the coconut oil through at night and sleep on it.. Or you can slick your hair with it and wear it to the beach to help nourish it in the sun. The suns heat will open your cuticle and allow all the good stuff in coconut oil to penetrate your hair! I also use it as a moisturizer for my skin!
*If you have skin conditions! Coconut oil can help! It restores the natural chemical balance of the skin. It's great for psoriasis and dandruff! **
3. Lemons - Lemons are great on several levels. Not only is the citric acid great for getting out built up product, chlorine and toxins in your hair. It will also help getting dead skin off your scalp. And the vitamin C will nourish you hair and scalp helping it look shiny and vibrant! I suggest shampooing as normal than sqeezeing the lemon through your hair and working through for several minutes. Rinse with warm water than condition as normal. If you don't have actual lemons, the bottled juice is fine!
4. Tea Tree oil - Tea Tree is great for thinning hair or for scalp issues! It will help by unclogging blocked pores and folicles and help stimulate the scalp! I suggest putting a few drops in your shampoo!
5. Homemade Hair Masks - There are SOOO many great natural things you may even have around your house that you can use as a fantastic hair mask. A few bases can be beaten Egg white, Yogurt, Avocado, and milk. Too any of these you can add sandlewood, honey, thyme and rosemary.
So if you are tight on a budget don't stress on breaking the bank on yourself this summer. Although we all love the luxury of pretty packaging sometimes these natural remedies are the ones that work best!
Skin Care TIP: There is a really great skin care and make-up blog that has this great LEMON trick for your face! I've done it and my skin felt and looked more amazing than the expensive stuff I'm used to using! Here's her video for the lemon trick and check her out at
There are several fantastic things I LOVE for feeding your hair!
1. BEER!! No, drinking it doesn't help silly! Beer has vitamin B and natural sugars that tighten your cuticle! There are two ways you can use beer in your hair.
a) as a rinse - After shampooing and conditioning you pour the beer in your hair and lather around then rinse. It'll add shine and body.
b) as a styling lotion - keep it in a spray bottle in your fridge for up to a week and a few spritzes will help with body!
I know what you're thinking.. the SMELL! Yes, you want to choose a beer with a lighter smell. And once beer is dry it doesn't have much of a smell!
2. Coconut oil - I can't even tell you how much I LOVE coconut oil! You can buy it at any health store. I use this stiff for EVERYTHING and it lasts forever! If your hair feels dry you can run some of the coconut oil through at night and sleep on it.. Or you can slick your hair with it and wear it to the beach to help nourish it in the sun. The suns heat will open your cuticle and allow all the good stuff in coconut oil to penetrate your hair! I also use it as a moisturizer for my skin!
*If you have skin conditions! Coconut oil can help! It restores the natural chemical balance of the skin. It's great for psoriasis and dandruff! **
3. Lemons - Lemons are great on several levels. Not only is the citric acid great for getting out built up product, chlorine and toxins in your hair. It will also help getting dead skin off your scalp. And the vitamin C will nourish you hair and scalp helping it look shiny and vibrant! I suggest shampooing as normal than sqeezeing the lemon through your hair and working through for several minutes. Rinse with warm water than condition as normal. If you don't have actual lemons, the bottled juice is fine!
4. Tea Tree oil - Tea Tree is great for thinning hair or for scalp issues! It will help by unclogging blocked pores and folicles and help stimulate the scalp! I suggest putting a few drops in your shampoo!
5. Homemade Hair Masks - There are SOOO many great natural things you may even have around your house that you can use as a fantastic hair mask. A few bases can be beaten Egg white, Yogurt, Avocado, and milk. Too any of these you can add sandlewood, honey, thyme and rosemary.
So if you are tight on a budget don't stress on breaking the bank on yourself this summer. Although we all love the luxury of pretty packaging sometimes these natural remedies are the ones that work best!
Skin Care TIP: There is a really great skin care and make-up blog that has this great LEMON trick for your face! I've done it and my skin felt and looked more amazing than the expensive stuff I'm used to using! Here's her video for the lemon trick and check her out at
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Toners and Undertones- an introduction to the color wheel
You remember art class in school right? That fun little color wheel which you forgot because you thought wasn't important. Well, it's time to revisit it my friend. I know you've all gone and browsed through the hair color at your local drug store. You see colors call warm brown and ash blond. What does all this warm and cool buisness mean? Hello, color wheel....
Color is classified at warm and cool colors. The red, orange and yellows are warm colors. The green, blue and violets are cool colors. When you see someone with really beautiful rich golden brown hair it's because there are some warm undertones in that brown. And blondes that seem to not have any warmth in their hair... that's probably due to some cool toner.
How it works is this. All haircolor has undertones to it. Naturally people tend to have undertones that swing one way or another. Warm or Cool. This is dependent a lot of the time by what color your skin is since your hair color is just melanin from your skin. That's right! Did I totally just blow your mind or what. Your hair color is the same stuff that makes you tan! Or in my case not tan. :D To combat these sometimes unwanted tones we have to look back at our color wheel. Whatever is across from the color you have neutralizes it. So say your hair is a really red brown and you want it less red. We'd put in a bit of green. Yellow is canceled by violet. And Blue cancels Orange. Color theory in a nutshell.
So what about toners. I briefly mentioned the toners in my last blog about lightening. As you may recall hair lightens all the same! It always goes to those warm tones. We combat this by using toners. Toners are a more pastel version of this warm and cool colors. But here's a example of what they can do.
It's our jobs a stylists to be able to recognize and control these tones in hair. Generally our color lines come in more detail then your box brand generalizations of ash or warm. Ours come in number and letter combinations that help us determine how much cool or warm and what type of coolness or warmth we need to personalize your color.
Color is classified at warm and cool colors. The red, orange and yellows are warm colors. The green, blue and violets are cool colors. When you see someone with really beautiful rich golden brown hair it's because there are some warm undertones in that brown. And blondes that seem to not have any warmth in their hair... that's probably due to some cool toner.
How it works is this. All haircolor has undertones to it. Naturally people tend to have undertones that swing one way or another. Warm or Cool. This is dependent a lot of the time by what color your skin is since your hair color is just melanin from your skin. That's right! Did I totally just blow your mind or what. Your hair color is the same stuff that makes you tan! Or in my case not tan. :D To combat these sometimes unwanted tones we have to look back at our color wheel. Whatever is across from the color you have neutralizes it. So say your hair is a really red brown and you want it less red. We'd put in a bit of green. Yellow is canceled by violet. And Blue cancels Orange. Color theory in a nutshell.
So what about toners. I briefly mentioned the toners in my last blog about lightening. As you may recall hair lightens all the same! It always goes to those warm tones. We combat this by using toners. Toners are a more pastel version of this warm and cool colors. But here's a example of what they can do.
It's our jobs a stylists to be able to recognize and control these tones in hair. Generally our color lines come in more detail then your box brand generalizations of ash or warm. Ours come in number and letter combinations that help us determine how much cool or warm and what type of coolness or warmth we need to personalize your color.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Once you go black.... (stages of lightening)
It's true. Black is permanent. Period. Even semi-permanent... nonsense! I have a feeling I will be referring back to this blog many times in the future.
I've said it over and over and over... They should NOT be selling hair color over the counter. Hair stylists are trained in how to use these chemicals. YES PEOPLE! CHEMICALS! People coming in with black dyed hair wanting to be blond had better be prepared spend a lot of money doing so.
Let's just get into it. All hair color goes through the same stages of lightening. But not always at the same speed depending on the density of the hair and the amount of melanin (color molecules) in the hair. Artificial dye molecules are even harder to break. Here is how it breaks down..(for my hairstylist friends.. yes, I know there are more the 10 here... I wanted to demonstrate how gradual the transitions can be)
Let's get this straight right here... COLOR IS NOT OPAQUE!!! What is actually happening in your hair shaft when you color your hair is that the color molecules are being fiddled with. So once you color your hair... your natural color is GONE! Other molecules and chemicals have gone in there and beat your molecules up. Pulverized them! And replaced them with stronger angrier and tougher molecules. Now let's get back to the lightening issue...
Developer... aka. Peroxide. It comes in 5 volume, 10 volume, 20 volume, 30 volume, 40 volume, and I've seen it in flesh searing 50 volume for people with the skin toughness of a rhino. I'm going to try to dumb this down as much as possible. No offense. The volume or strength of each is related to how much lift, as we call it, that developer provides. So where a 5 and 10 volume are for semi-permanent and deposit only color a 20, 30, and 40 will create more lightening. 20 volume - one level of lightening. 30 = 2 levels and 40 - 3 levels. (you can achieve more levels of lift depending on what you are mixing with) That's the nutshell explanation.
Generally when you buy box color it comes with 20 volume. AND color won't lift color. So lets say you dyed your hair black a few months ago and you want to go blond. Your natural color is medium brown. So you go to your pharmacy and buy a box with a beautiful blond model on it and go home.. You squirt the crap on and wait. When you wash your hair your ends are still black or maybe slightly lighter but your roots where your natural was is what now? Orange! yup. 20 volume. You see why over the counter color is bad!!! This is much more complicated then you can possibly imagine. I didn't even touch on what undertones are or how porosity can affect results.
So what is actually happening in there then? The color molecules don't actually wash away when your hair is bleached. They are being dissolved. They break down smaller and smaller and smaller until more and more light passes through them and as a result we see blond. Darker pigment reflects light. There will normally be a slight to moderate yellowish tinge to hair because of this. This is combated with toners which are WHOLE other story but basically put another pastel color over the hair to neutralize that color a bit. But that, my friends, is for a future post...
So please, don't try this at home!
I've said it over and over and over... They should NOT be selling hair color over the counter. Hair stylists are trained in how to use these chemicals. YES PEOPLE! CHEMICALS! People coming in with black dyed hair wanting to be blond had better be prepared spend a lot of money doing so.
Let's just get into it. All hair color goes through the same stages of lightening. But not always at the same speed depending on the density of the hair and the amount of melanin (color molecules) in the hair. Artificial dye molecules are even harder to break. Here is how it breaks down..(for my hairstylist friends.. yes, I know there are more the 10 here... I wanted to demonstrate how gradual the transitions can be)
Let's get this straight right here... COLOR IS NOT OPAQUE!!! What is actually happening in your hair shaft when you color your hair is that the color molecules are being fiddled with. So once you color your hair... your natural color is GONE! Other molecules and chemicals have gone in there and beat your molecules up. Pulverized them! And replaced them with stronger angrier and tougher molecules. Now let's get back to the lightening issue...
Developer... aka. Peroxide. It comes in 5 volume, 10 volume, 20 volume, 30 volume, 40 volume, and I've seen it in flesh searing 50 volume for people with the skin toughness of a rhino. I'm going to try to dumb this down as much as possible. No offense. The volume or strength of each is related to how much lift, as we call it, that developer provides. So where a 5 and 10 volume are for semi-permanent and deposit only color a 20, 30, and 40 will create more lightening. 20 volume - one level of lightening. 30 = 2 levels and 40 - 3 levels. (you can achieve more levels of lift depending on what you are mixing with) That's the nutshell explanation.
Generally when you buy box color it comes with 20 volume. AND color won't lift color. So lets say you dyed your hair black a few months ago and you want to go blond. Your natural color is medium brown. So you go to your pharmacy and buy a box with a beautiful blond model on it and go home.. You squirt the crap on and wait. When you wash your hair your ends are still black or maybe slightly lighter but your roots where your natural was is what now? Orange! yup. 20 volume. You see why over the counter color is bad!!! This is much more complicated then you can possibly imagine. I didn't even touch on what undertones are or how porosity can affect results.
So what is actually happening in there then? The color molecules don't actually wash away when your hair is bleached. They are being dissolved. They break down smaller and smaller and smaller until more and more light passes through them and as a result we see blond. Darker pigment reflects light. There will normally be a slight to moderate yellowish tinge to hair because of this. This is combated with toners which are WHOLE other story but basically put another pastel color over the hair to neutralize that color a bit. But that, my friends, is for a future post...
So please, don't try this at home!
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