Clip in bangs / fringe

You get some women who look amazing with a fringe or heavy bangs. The looks suits their face shape, makes their eyes pop and their bangs just fall perfectly...every...day (writer sighs with jealousy). Then there is the rest of us.

We have tried, over and over again, to master the 'fringe' or Cleopatra look, but the fairytale ending we want never seems to surface. We either end up looking like fifth grader, or we end up with an oily excuse for a fringe that sticks to our foreheads. Then their is the awkward process of growing your fringe or bangs out, when you get over the maintenance and up keep of that celebrity fringe.

Never-the-less, the trend setters and celebrities out there are constant in their effort to bring back bangs. We see these amazing hairstyles on the runways, on the red carpet and in the tabloids. So even though we know we look terrible with heavy bangs and we know it takes a lot of maintenance to keep the hairdo looking chic....we still fall into the trending trap. We can't resist!! It just looks soooooo cool. My latest fetish is the bangs of Zooey Deschanel, more commonly known as Jess in The New Girl. I want, I want, I need her hair style!

Zooey Deschanel rocks bangs!!!

How do they do it?

Ever wondered how celebs like Kim Kardashian have sexy bangs the one minute and a long, sleek, middle parting the next??

Celebs like Kim, have bangs the one minute and none the next.

I am so excited to share this Hollywood secret with you! Wait for it.....

They use clip in bangs!!!

Yes, you heard me, the clip in a fringe/bangs when they feel like it and clip them back out when they get over it. 

What are clip in bangs?

Okay, so this amazing little invention is exactly what it says. It's bangs or a fringe that you can simply clip in and out....and in....and out....as many times as you want! Just like clip in extensions.

No cutting your hair! No commitment! Very low maintenance! Falls perfectly every time!

This is how clip in bangs look

How does it work?

Clipping in your bangs or fringe is so easy. It takes less than 30 seconds! There are usually three clips, two at the front and one at the back.

Clips on the under-side of the bangs

The picture below shows you just how easy this amazing transformation can be:

Have a look at this video to see just how easy clip on bangs are to apply:

Maintenance

You can purchase 100% Real Remy(human) hair clip on bangs or synthetic clip on bangs. Depending on which type you purchase, the care instructions will be different.

If you purchase the Remy clip on bangs, you can straighten, curl, dye and even highlight the hair. You can also wash the hair and style as you please.

Heat can be applied to Real Remy hair

If you purchase the synthetic clip on bangs, you cannot style or colour the hair. So make sure you select the right shade and style of bangs.

Challenges

One challenge that seems to dominate reviews on clip in bangs, is selecting the right shade/colour. There are so many different shades of black, brown, blonde, and red. So make sure you do your research, and make use of the guidelines on the supplier's website.This is especially important if you are buying synthetic bangs as you cannot dye them. Real Remy bangs are more expensive, but you can tint and highlight the bangs to match your colour.

Different shades of clip in bangs.

Suppliers and costs

Clip in bangs prices range from R100 - R1000.($10-$100) They go for around R300($30) on Bobby Glam If your from South Africa, then go have a look on bid or buy as they are selling for about R100- R250, and if your not from South Africa, and looking for a deal, I would advice looking on online bidding sites or online stores.

Final thoughts

I am so excited about clip on bangs! I think it is such a brilliant idea! And definitely something worth showing! I hope you enjoyed this post and discovered something new:) I cant wait to get my clip on bangs.

Sincerely,

Ashleigh

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Roses are forever

Now this secret is definitely worth sharing! Imagine you could purchase roses that were guaranteed to last 6 months? Well, now you can! Everyone knows diamonds are forever, but now roses are forever too.

 Every lady loves fresh flowers in her home, but keeping up with that trend can cost you! So many of us turn artificial roses or flowers, but they never really do the job quite right. While strolling through Kings Court Market,in Port Elizabeth, I came across this stall selling, what they call, gypsy roses. Real, fresh cut roses that are preserved to last for 6 months or longer. They come in all sorts of fabulous colours, as they are preserved in natural dyes. From natural reds, pinks and peaches to royal blues and purples.

I just had to get myself some. So I purchased some large head, black roses. Some might think they are a tad Gothic, but I think they are beautiful. I have had mine for about 9 months now, and they are still going strong!

My Black Roses

How are they preserved?

The roses are preserved using chemicals and preservatives that are commonly used in the commercial manufacture of cosmetics and processed food. 

This unique process extends the vase life of the fresh cut flowers and foliage from days to months, offering a beautiful and natural alternative to artificial flowers. The are cost effective, maintenance free substitute for fresh flowers.

Do they keep their colour?

The natural pigment in the fresh cut flowers become brown with time. Preserved roses are treated with natural dyes to reinforce their colour and ensure that they will last for longer and remain crisp and beautiful for months. They come in a beautiful array of colours. However, there is one rule, DON'T GET THEM WET. Just pop them into a waterless vase and handle with care. Perfect for lazy gals like myself.  

A rainbow of roses!

Blue palette of preserved roses.

Photos courtesy of My love affair with Cape Town.

Do they keep their fragrance?

Yes they do...for a while. A normal rose scent will fade over a short period of time, but these preserved roses are infused with natural perfumes to strengthen their fragrance. The preserved roses scent should last for a couple of months, but will fade over time.

Alternative for artificial roses

I mean, the picture below just says it all!!!  Artificial roses are so 80's!! 

What a difference.

In a nutshell

So in a nutshell preserved roses promise the following:

• Premium quality, fresh cut flower
• Six month vase life
• Requires no watering or maintenance
• Lasting Fragrance
• Offers a natural alternative to artificial flowers and allows large saving on the replacement
• Versatile and suitable for a wide range of décor applications
• Ideal for hotels, lodges, corporate offices and private homes.

What are you waiting for??

Gypsy Roses

If you're in the Port Elizabeth area (South Africa), be sure to make your way to the Kings Court Market and stop by Gypsy roses.

The small heads sell for R30 each and the large heads sell for R40 each.

They have a wide selection of colours, but if you can't find the colour you want, be sure to order it!

If you are not in the Port Elizabeth area, be sure to contact the owner of the Gypsy Rose store at Kings Court Market. Her details are below:

Elsa Van Wyk
Telephone: 083 658 1996
Email: elsa.vanwyk@nmmu.ac.za

The Tribal Bible

Put your hand on the tribal bible and repeat after me... 

Hello Tribe,

So today's post is going to be all about tribal fashion and I will share the secrets of how to pull the tribal look off. I personally love tribal, but I know a lot of people are too scared to try it out. I must admit, wearing patterns can be daunting, but if you do it right, it can look show-stopping!

Some tribal history

For a couple of years now, tribal has been creeping into the world of fashion. It started off with subtle fringing, feathered accessories and now full blown native prints. I would love to say that these tribal prints that are taking the fashion world by storm originate from Africa. But sadly not, although I do personally think they have had a slight influence. 

These tribal or natives patterns are actually inspired by the Aztec ethnic group in Mexico. That's why some people also refer to tribal fashion as Aztec tends. Traditional Aztec clothing was loose fitting and didn't cover the whole body. Because of their vast trading network, the Aztecs were able to make use of a beautiful array of dyes, creating brilliant colours still seen in Mexico today.

Colourful Aztec materials

Proudly South African Tribal

African inspired tribal wear is also making it's mark in the fashion world, particularly the designs of our very own Laduma Ngxokolo. Laduma, who graduated Cum Ladue in textile design from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University ,designed his Xhosa inspired knitwear range for the young men who are going through the Xhosa tradition of amakrwala (circumcision ritual). It is tradition for these men to wear high quality knits such as Pringle, to symbolise there completion of the ritual and ultimately their man hood.  

Ngxokolo has also had the opportunity to sell a few knitwear pieces at the 2011 Heartwear Exhibition in Paris. His knitwear story has also been featured in various publications such as GQ SA, Elle Decoration SA Elle SA, Cosmopolitan SA House & Garden, Design Indaba, Axis (Japan) Fader (United States) and Wallpaper (UK). This story was also shared by various trend websites and bloggers around the world.

Recently Laduma has kick-started his career as an entrepreneur and hopes to continuously grow his knitwear brand. His achievements include winning the Marie Claire Prix D’Excellence De La Mode Best Emerging Designer 2011 award and recently showcasing his knitwear collections via the Ubuntu International Project at the London Fashion Week 2011.  (Adams&Adams Attorneys. 2012)

How to wear tribal

I have 5 tips that I am going to share with you on how to wear tribal.

1. Wear a statement piece: This means wear one statement tribal piece and mix it up with solid, neutral colours.
2. Mix it up: If you are more 'out there' you should definitely try to mix patterns.  Go all out.
3. Accessorize: When wearing tribal be sure to accessorize with loads of bangles, feather earrings or head piece, beaded handbags, you name it!
4. Only accessorize: If you are shy, or just want to ease into the tribal feel of things, why not start off with wearing tribal accessories over neutral clothing. 
5. Add texture: Wear different textures with your tribal pieces like leathers, suede's, knits, denims etc. 

Some tribal eye candy

Stunning tribal pieces

Tribal Accessories...even nails!!

Tribal is not just for the ladies.

The tribe has spoken...

Get out there, and go native on the world!! Show your stuff off ;)

Dreaming of a Bright Winter

So, winter is well on its way and as you walk through your local mall, you will start to notice a trend of colours flowing through out the shops. These colours are usually dull and include colours such as black, plums, dark greens, navy and a lot of grey. These colours are known as the winter palette in the fashion world. I don't know who decides on these colours, but it really frustrates me. Why would you want to be reminded of the dull, cold winter ahead by dull, cold colours? Why should we dress in these boring colours just to compliment the grey sky above us? I object! My view on winter and clothing, is that we should try and brighten winter up. We should stand out in happy, bright colours! So in this post, I am going to share with you my personal winter palette and it includes CORALS, TURQUOISES AND ROYAL BLUES. These colours make me happy:)

Coral and Teal <3 What a combination. These shoes are amazing!!!!
I''ll have three pairs please. Thank you

So back to the boring, dull winter palette that the shops try and force us to wear, you might be thinking "What colours is she talking about exactly?" The photo below illustrates these colours. I am sure you are all to familiar with them.

Let me introduce you to coral....

Coral is a happy, beautiful a shade of pink. It leans towards a mixture of pink and orange. It can either be a light, faint shade or it can be a bright, vibrant colour. The colour was named after the red branch and sponge colour found in the ocean. 

Red Branch Coral

Mother nature's choice of different shades of coral. Nature is a trendsetter!

Coral personally my favourite colour. I wear different shades of coral all the time! To me the colour makes me feel happy. I feel as though I stand out when I wear it. It brightens up my face and compliments my skin tone. But then again, I don't think coral clashes with any skin tone? or hair colour really. It just looks so fabulous on anybody and everybody. I am truly obsessed with coral. Take a look at the fabulosity of this colour below:

Coral looks amazing on any hair colour or skin tone!!! Its looks pretty on blondes, sexy on red heads, sultry on brunettes and vibrant on dark skin tones! Its like the sisterhood of the travelling pants. Where the jeans just suit all four girls? Yeah its like that. So exciting:)

Let me introduce you to Turquoise...

Now with all my newly bought coral pieces. I wasn't quite sure what colour accessories I could pair it with.

Lomography

Manual cameras are romantic, digital cameras are democratic.

Just a little earlier in April, me and my friends went on a little road trip up to Cape Town. While we were there, we decided to make our way to the, quite famous, Old Biscuit Mill. This is a lovely market that happens on a Saturday in Observatory, Cape Town. You will find the most unique hand crafted items, the most stunning art pieces, the most scrumptious, innovative food (if food can be innovative) and anything else your heart desires. At the Old Biscuit Mill ….anything goes!

The little guy that caught my attention

So we were strolling through the stalls and shops, when we seen loads of people huddled into one store. We decided to see what the fuss was all about. We discovered a shop full of fabulous photography and unique cameras, from your modern digital cameras, to old school Polaroid cameras. But there was one camera that caught my attention. This camera goes by the name “Lomo” and it has the most funky, colourful, most beautiful range of cameras around.  After discovering this lovely little camera, I had to take it upon myself to find out more about the Lomo camera and the photos it takes….Lomography!

What is Lomography?

With today’s technology, everybody can be a photographer. This is because all cameras now days come with automatic settings. But where is the fun in that??? There’s no challenge…it’s basically spoon feeding!

I stumbled upon a blog, 1stwebdesigner.com, where the author explained the concept of lomography quite nicely. So I thought I’d share it with you:

“I once read from a book ‘Manual cameras are romantic, digital cameras are democratic’. To me it evoked the romanticism of old vintage film and polaroid cameras.  It evoked in me the romanticism of old vintage film and polaroid cameras. “Off colors, wrong focus, vignetting effect–this is what traditional photography defines as a ‘bad picture’, but for lomographers, that isn’t the case. They use these ‘wrong’ settings to their advantage, creating one of a kind photos.”

Traditionally, this photo would be regarded as a bad photo.
Not in Lomography though.

Lomography goes back to basic, fun photography. Its all about shooting lots of photos, without thinking.  It is spur-of-the-moment type photography. And so the motto adopted by Lomographers is “Be Fast, Don’t Think.” Lomography is forgetting about the traditional rules of composition and having a lot of fun.

According to Lomography.com there are 10 golden rules or rather, guidlines, to Lomography:

1.  Take your camera everywhere you go
2.  Use it any time - day and night
3.  Lomography is not an interference to your life but a part of it
4.    Shoot from the hip
5.  Approach the objects of your lomographic desire as close as possible
6. Don't think
7. Be fast
8. You don't have to know before hand what you captured on film
9. Afterwards either
10. Don't worry about any rules

Check this video out on the golden rules of lomography

Here's some examples of lomographic photos:

A collage of Lomography photos.

Lomography

A brief history of Lomography

The folks at lomo have created a timeline on their website www.lomography.com if you’re really interested about where Lomography came from and how it developed. I also found this really cute video on the history of lomography, so if you don't feel like reading take a look at this. I don’t have all the time in the world, and I think ya’ll are smart enough to understand a simple history as found on the Lomo website. So here it is:

“It all started when two students in Vienna, Austria, stumbled upon the Lomo Kompakt Automat – a small, enigmatic Russian camera. Mindlessly taking the shot from the hip, and sometimes looking through the viewfinder, they were astounded with the mindblowing photos that it produced – the colours were vibrant, with deep saturation and vignettes that framed the shot – it was nothing like they had seen before!

Little Miss Ombre'

A lot of people have been asking me about my new hair colour of late. So I thought instead of explaining it individually to each of you, why don’t I just share my experience and answer your questions on hereJ

Balayage what?

Below is a photo of a model with amazing sunkissed, beachy looking hair.  Anybody who didn’t know better, would say it’s naturally sunkissed. Probably assuming that her hair has naturally lightenend from being on the beach all day in the sun. I am here to tell you her’s and the rest of hollywood’s secret ;)

 First things first, what the flip am I talking about when I say Ombre’ (om-bray) or also known as Balayage (ba-lee-arge) hair? These are really just fancy words or hairdresser jargon for describing the technique they use to get that sunkissed look on hair. Think Leighton Meester, Rachel Bilson and Lauren Conrad.

I was reading on Vouge.au and they gave quite a nice little explanation. “Balayage is a French colouring technique that was developed in the 1970s. It’s a freehand technique where the colour is applied by hand rather than using the traditional foiling or cap highlighting techniques.” That’s right girls, no more ugly foils!!! Some also refer to it as Ombre’. This is a French term for a technique used to colour material that graduates from dark to light.

Ombre' originates from the dying of material in a way that the colour
graduates from dark to light.

Balayage is allows you to look fashionable and feel great without having to shell out loads of cash every month. Yes, noted, your first balayage session will be pricy. But after that, you don’t have to go back for months. The more re-growth the better! This look is also really low maintenance. So for people who have little time to go to the salon each month, this is for you.  And if you have naturally wavy hair, then you practically don’t have to do anything after you balayage colour to get the beachy look, besides a few hair treatments to ease the damage caused by bleach. Check the video out below, to see the balayage technique

 

  My Balayage voyage

So here I was, 3 days before my graduation, trying to decide who entrust with Balayage voyageJ  The decision was easy for me, as I have been going to the same hair stylist for a year now, and have only had good results. His name is Warren Shultz, and although a junior stylist at Bliss Hair Design in 9^th Avenue Walmer, there’s nothing junior about his skills and techniques for hair. He understands hair, and he listens to what I want. And he’ll tell me if I’m crazy too. Haha.

Yay for Champagne!

So I made my appointment for highlights…thinking that’s all it really was. Little did I know, there was a name for what I wanted, and a process for what I wanted. And that process took about 5 hours! Of which I hadn’t actually planned for, and neither had Warren.  But as Warren does best, he calmed me down, and made me feel at home. Home meaning, throughout the 5 hours, I was given a cuppachino, 2 Lindt choices, lemon water and champagne to to celebrate the conclusion of my 5 hour session at the salon. So all in all, I had a really fun time.

Firstly, Warren applied the bleach to my hair in the balayage technique. So no foils, no cap, just creative application by your stylist. He placed more bleach on the ends of my hair and gradually used less and less towards my roots, stopping about 3-5cm from my roots. After each section he placed clingwrap over the hair with product, so as to not disturb the other hair. I had so much clingwrap in my hair, I told Warren my hair smelt like a sandwich. (5 hours in a salon makes you think of weird things_haha)  Heat was applied to my hair for about an hour then washed out. I freaked out a little when I seen the resultant colour, which was yellow! But Warren told me that they still had to put a glaze treatment on, to take away the yellowness. Phew!!! (Graduation photo, graduation photo!)

To find out how it went and to see the results (of course you do!), follow the the link.