Hair : The Correct Way To Blow dry Maltese Hair

 By: Unknown    00:18  No comments

In Malta, we are blessed with many beautiful things but one thing we definitely aren't blessed with is weather-friendly hair and easily manageable hair (although the latter one does apply for a lucky few) The weather in Malta tends to be very humid, enabling our already rather coarse and frizzy hair to guess what ? Frizz.

So how do we beat the frizz and get long-lasting smooth and sleek hair? I sat down with Gordon Mayo, CEO and director of Toni and Guy Malta and asked him a few questions.

Q&A with Gordon Mayo - The Correct Way To Blow dry Maltese Hair

My first question is a bit of a story. Over the years, I've had many disastrous blow outs. There has been many a time when I have had to watch my hair frizz into a puff ball, merely an hour or two after leaving the salon. However, on occasion, irrespective of ongoing humidity, I have also seen my blow dry withstand the climate and perform a miracle - remain sleek and smooth for a few days. This leads me to believe that there must be different techniques in existence for blow drying hair. Am I right?

Gordon - Yes, there are two different ways to use heat styling - Cohesive Setting or Heating Set. The latter method is the one that should be used on frizz-prone hair - it basically involves drying out all the moisture using a heating element set on the highest setting. The bonds of the hair will be stretched and moulded into a new shape. The first method does not use as much heat and is generally used on less frizz-prone hair to simply shape it.

My next question is of course about the damage all this heat must be doing to our hair. 

Gordon -  Luckily enough, our frizzy hair tends to have more cuticles protecting the hair shaft and can withstand more heat. However, heat protecting products should always be used - no blow dry should be performed without the use of heat protection. Many of these products are actually heat activated and will give off a smoke signal when the hair is readily straightened which means - stop.

Next, I want to know what happens in severe humidity / dew?

Gordon - The heating set technique the hair is no longer an absorbent so it will reject the moisture in the air and remain straight. 

But what about steam?

Gordon - Steam is dangerous - if steam or hot water makes contact with hair that has been set using heat se.t then the bonds will be broken and the hair will frizz.

Any other tricks?

Gordon - An important trick is to always finish off a blow dry using the cold setting on the dryer. The cold air closes the head pores sweat glands in the hair that all the heat has just opened and turns the hair back into its negative state i.e 'fixes it'.

Read More

Interview : Marisa Grima - New Ventures

 By: Unknown    01:23  No comments

Marisa Grima needs no introduction and has in fact already been interviewed on this blog a number of times. Recent happenings, both with her agency SupernovaModel and a new project called Aura have led me to believe we should meet with her once again to get all the new gossip about these exciting ventures. 

Marisa, how would you describe yourself to someone who has never met you or heard of you ?

Passionate, simply love anything creative, loyal, eclectic, different, fun, happy:) 

Your modelling agency supernova has been around for a few years now ..any plans to expand or any exciting upcoming projects ? 

Supernova Model Agency is my baby, I have been scouting models for as long as I can remember. 

"Noelene and myself are constantly working towards making sure our models land the best jobs. "

We are also working with a number of foreign agencies and model scouts, to place our models 

abroad. 

How do you go about assigning a model to a job ? I s it the client who choose or do you give your own recommendations ?

It depends on the job really. We have clients who request models by name, we have clients who ask for recommendations based on specific requirements, or they leave the choice up to us. When the latter happens, we try to fit the model to the job required. 

If the job description asks for a bubbly fun model, there is no point in sending a model that is shy. 

That is why it is important to know our models well and build a close relationship with them. 

SUPERNOVA models in PINK magazine
Left Cover by Clint Scerri Harkins, Right Cover by Kurt Paris

We’ve heard through the grapevine that besides supernova, you’ve also just launched an exciting project AURA  - give us the gossip 

AURA came about due to a number of reasons,  my father passed away and I inherited a property in Naxxar Rd, BKara. It was a question of either selling, renting it out or doing something with it myself. Opening a clothes shop was out of the question, I do not want to go there, even though it is my line and my job. 

The solution came about by itself really. Last year, I met, purely by chance, Robert Aguis, a very stylish, cool person. I had no clue he was a trained hairstylist, but I loved the way his style. We started talking, and one thing led to another and voila AURA was born. AURA Hair & Beauty Salon offers a getaway from everyday stresses. The design of the salon is very relaxing, eclectic and calm. 

I hate black in a salon, and when I was deciding on the interior decoration, one thing I noticed is that many salons had a lot of black in their interiors. 

"I will be spending time in it as much as I can as I love it! "

In the morning as soon as I wake up, I go there, have some tea, sit on the sofa and start working from there.

What should people keep in mind when choosing a hairstyle ?

I think that is more a question Robert should be answering, but from experience I would say hair 

texture, facial features and lifestyle. 

________________________________________________________________________

Now for some personal info,  What do you eat for breakfast each morning ?

I skip breakfast but drink tea with no milk only. 

What makes you angry ?

Ignorance 

What excites you ?

My job. 

What is the first thing you look for when scouting a model?

Height, size and an interesting face. Not necessarily beautiful though. 

What are you looking forward to most in 2015 ?

More work, health and being happy:):):)

That's it folks ... leave me a comment to let me know what you think of this post !!

Read More

Beauty Post : LABELM Styling Irons

 By: Unknown    13:03  No comments

It's Fashion Week preparation time and these little babies above are going to be one of the first things I pack !!

Sooooooo, to give a bit of context - last Christmas, after re-Keratin treating my hair, I decided to invest some of my hard-earned cash in a good pair of straighteners / styling irons. My first point of call was of course GHD - it's all anybody mentions - but then I found out that LABELM (Toni&Guy's brainchild)  had just released a brand new, swanky pair of white titanium styling irons.

Truth be told, this an expensive purchase, so I wanted to be sure my money would get me the best option, I needed to research. I set about investigating the matter.

The GHD ones are industry tried and tested and these from LABELM are still pretty new on the market so it was a bit hard to find reviews. A couple of hair stylists who had already used them in salons told me they had found them pretty nifty. 

Then came the specs comparison - I LOVED the fact that the temperature setting is adjustable, something other straighteners, including ghd don't always have - my hair is pretty fine so too much unnecessary heat can really damage it and if it's just a quick iron in the morning - there's no need for too much heat. 

• The price was another favourable point - simply put - they're cheaper. 
• The white option is really clean and pretty but it also comes in a black finish
• I love the heat mat pouch it comes with, I'm always worried I'm going to burn something.

As you've probably guessed, I ended up buying the LABELM ones, I've been really enjoying using them - the operation is really smooth, my hair never gets stuck, they heat up really quickly and oh yes - they straighten my hair pretty well too.  

The only thing I don't like, is that they're big and it's a bit hard to get at my little baby hair - I've hit myself in the head a couple of times trying to achieve this. They now need to launch version 2 - a little mini one which will sit prettily right next to this one, to be picked up when its time to get at those little 'uns.

Read More

Beauty Post : My Keratin (Brazilian Blow Out) Treatment Experience

 By: Unknown    01:53  No comments

You may or may not be aware that at the end of November I randomly decided I wanted to change my hair, I darkened the colour do a dark brown/purple/black /red combination and I had the Keratin treatment applied, all at Toni and Guy Hilton Malta by Sarah Vella who at first raised eyebrows at the colour change. 

I think by now most of us know what the Keratin treatment does but if you don't here's the summary. Basically, keratin is actually a protein that's naturally in your hair, the keratin hair-straightening product fills up  the gaps in each hair shaft, the product is applied to the hair and then a flat iron is used to seal it in. You are told not to allow water to go next to your hair for the next 2/3 days, to avoid sulphates in shampoos and to avoid swimming in water containing salt or chlorine.

For any recent readers this is my natural hair in the pic below...very curly, lots of what you'd call tight curls, don't get me wrong ..  I love my curly hair, this wasn't a protest against my curls decision...I did this for two reasons, my hair stays best when it has been air dried, my curls hate dryers, even when using a diffuser. This is always somewhat hard to achieve in the Winter, but I also happened to have 4 trips booked for this Winter; so it got even more difficult. The second reason is that sometimes change is fun.

In the first few weeks following the treatment I had my hair professionally blow dried so I found it difficult to judge the exact effect the treatment had made...what I did notice immediately though was that my always extremely dry hair was now oilier especially at the roots; I found this to be a good thing. 

The first time I washed my hair myself, was probably about 4 weeks after the treatment, and it was with some trepidation, I washed it using a special shampoo that I bought from the salon called True Keratin and dried it using a hair dryer, not an actual blow dry using a brush ..literally just waving the dryer in front of my hair (I don't really know how to blow dry hair properly). I was AMAZED - it was straight, straight, straight.....pic below.

The next time I washed it, thought maybe it would be curlier, maybe the first was due to the blow dries of the previous weeks but no straight again and the time after and after. It is now mid-February (approx 3 months later) and my hair is still very straight, some waves are starting to make an appearance at the roots at the front but I just use hair straighteners on low heat for a few seconds to smooth this out.

Since, having the treatment, I got curious about it and researched it a bit online and also spoke to the stylists at Toni and Guy. It seems like first of all there's a ton of different products out there that all claim to do the same thing, but of course like with everything some are of inferior quality...even within the same brands there are different strengths and the hair stylist must know how to determine which one is needed. Last but not least, there is an element of kill involved in applying it, and applying it badly can cause some damage to the hair so if you decide to go for this treatment don't choose the salon based on who is the cheapest but on who is the most reliable. 

A good idea is to ask around and try and find someone who's had it done at the salon you are considering and see whether they were happy with the results. Sarah did a great job on my hair and I couldn't be happier.

Read More