I am frequently asked “what can I do with this fine, limp hair”? If you keep letting your hair air dry and don’t accept my product and styling recommendations, there is nothing I can do for you. Fine hair is oily by origin. It lacks protein and the density it needs to do anything but fall down. How you combat this is achieved in part by how your hair is cut but also in how you manage your hair at home. It also depends on what kind of maintenance you are willing to do. Most clients want no maintenance, and they don’t own a hair dryer. They also don’t want to use styling products. This is a recipe for hair fail!

I cut my fine hair clients’ hair to suit their lifestyle and desires. I can cut a good shape for my fine hair clients and I can texturize their hair within the cut to give them some internal volume. This is only part of the remedy. I recommend professional volumizing shampoos and conditioners that I know that work in the salon I work in. My favorite is Alterna’s Bamboo Abundant Volume shampoo and conditioner. For light styling, their Plumping Strand Expand cannot be beat!

Once your hair is shampooed and conditioned, towel dry hair to get the excess moisture out. Dispense a couple of pumps of the Strand Expand into your hand, rub your hands together and run your fingers through your hair, from roots to ends. Blow dry your hair with medium heat on a medium setting. Heat activates the product and dries it into your hair. No matter what your blow drying technique is, make sure to get the root area of your hair completely dry. This will give your hair the most support. Your ends will dry soon enough.

Once your hair has been adequately blow-dried in the style you are happy with, let your hair cool down. Any kind of heat, including the heat from your hands, will restyle your hair and flatten it. Once your hair is cool, you can use a wide-toothed comb or hairbrush with spaces between the bristles to finalize your style. Don’t be heavy-handed- a light touch is all that is required and one can over-do! It is better for your hair to be a bit bigger than you’d like at the style finish, because hair flattens during the day, when you put a coat, hat, and/or a scarf on, and when you step outside in any sort of humidity.

Use a volume-locking hairspray at the end to finish and set your style for the day. You can take a mini hairspray can with you to work. Bamboo Volume Root Blast can also be used instead of hair spray. It adds volume to dry hair without the stickiness some hair sprays can have. Should your style fall, simply bend your head downward, spray lightly underneath your hair, shake your head and lift your head up. You can lightly use your comb or brush again to calm down any rogue hairs J

Posted by Hair Guy Lancer, specializing in custom cuts and colors for 20+ years.

Lorena came in to get her hair cut by me last week. This was a really fun cut to do because I got to witness a dramatic change. Lorena has a lot of hair and she didn’t have a lot of layers. Combine these with the fact that she has curly hair naturally means that she had a huge amount of hair.

When we cut her hair, we cut her shortest layers to fall at her lips so to relieve a lot of weight and bulk and show off her natural texture a bit better. I wouldn’t recommend this for people with more straight hair or thinner heads of hair because it will more than likely remove too much hair and make it look even more thin.

When we curled her hair, we wanted to get her looking good for her trip to the beach. After we washer her with Alterna Bamboo Anti-Frizz shampoo and Conditioner, our products de jour were Kevin.Murphy Motion.Lotion, to fight frizz and enhance her curl, Kevin.Murphy Damage.Manager, to protect her hair from the heat, and Kevin.Murphy Hair.Resort Spray to help give her curls a bit more of a beach texture.

When we curled her hair we left a few inches out of her roots and ends and just wrapped the hair down around an open curling iron in large horizontal sections. Once the hair was too hot to touch, we let the hair down and let it cool. Once the head was completed and cooled we broke up the curls with out fingers lightly and sprayed the Hair.Resort on the hair.

Do you think this look works for you? Have any questions? Feel free to book an appointment with me by calling 206-323-7437 or booking online at Emersonsalon.com or emersonsalon@gmail.com

Post by Franz

We are extremely excited and inspired as stylists any time a new tool is introduced that we have never used before. Emerson Salon recently received a new concept in styling by Kevin.Murphy called the WAVE.CLIP. This well designed tool is intended to create soft, consistent,undulating waves on medium to long hair. Our receptionist, Ashley, graciously volunteered to let me play with them on her hair.

Post by D’Arcy

Lose the scrunchie: Try using small elastic bands. They’re small, and far less noticeable than a large scrunchie. You can even take a small section of hair from the pony tail and wrap it over the band to hide the band entirely.

Post by Franz

These day’s everyone is looking for things that they can do to look and feel younger. Here are three ways you can help your hair to look and feel healthy and help you feel younger.

Watch what you eat: Diet can influence what nutrients are fed into your new hair that grows. That means eating healthy won’t just help your body, but your hair too. Ellen has a great blog about nutrition that is worth a read. Click this link to read Food for Hair

Start using quality products: A wonderful product line is the Alterna Caviar line.

“Caviar Moisture Shampoo & Conditioner are clinically proven to minimize the visible signs of aging. 100% of women showed visible improvement in shine, texture, softness and manageability after just one use.”

Age-Control Complex® infuses the hair with shine, vibrancy and elasticity resulting in more youthful looking hair. Seasilk®, a blend of powerful marine botanicals, provides exceptional moisture & helps repair damage.

Change your cut and color: Sometimes the best thing to do is to change your look. Work with your stylist to change your look from something that is heavy, blunt, or severe, to something a bit more soft and contoured that emphasizes your bone structure. If you stick to having your hair colored the mostly complementary color is one that is about two shades darker than your skin tone.

Post by Franz

Want rock and roll hair without the greasy effect? Kevin.Murphy’s Gritty.Business will help you achieve dry, dirty-looking rocker hair. It’s main ingredients are Bentonite Clay, Kukui Nut Oil, and Beeswax. The clay’s properties are healing and draws out any oil that might reside on your hair or scalp. When hair is oily, it will lack volume and won’t hold well. Kukui nut oil is rejuvenating and helps Gritty.Business emulsify in your hands so you can work it through your hair easily, without leaving a greasy film on your hair or scalp! Beeswax also acts as an emulsifier and lends strength and thickness to the hair strands, acting as another volume builder to give more control and texture to your hairstyle.

Here we display two great rocker looks you can get with Gritty.Business:

• How to style with short hair:


• How to style with longer hair:

Post by Lancer

Use this combination with Hair.Resort to add more hold to the look. Use Kevin.Murphy to get your beach look on this summer!

Post by Franz

Many people like to wash their hair everyday because they have oily hair. This works short term, but for many of us who have our hair colored, this can result in the dramatically shortened lifespan of our color’s quality, as well as dry out the hair from over cleansing.

The trouble then seems to be how to have less oily hair without losing our color. Believe it or not, the answer is to wash your hair LESS. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wash your hair ever, and by no means take this to mean you shouldn’t take showers (please take showers!). Slowly weaning yourself off of washing your hair everyday with signal to the sebaceous gland in the follicles to produce less sebum.

This will protect your color from fading and your hair from being over cleansed. Also check out the Kevin.Murphy Fresh.Hair aerosol dry shampoo which will help lift out excess oils and products to give you that great just showered feeling in between washings.

For more great tips, just visit your Emerson Salon style experts with your questions!

Post By Franz

Kevin.Murphy is a great product line. Sulfate and paraben free, it is based off of the idea that you shouldn’t have to work hard to have great hair. I recently discovered this list of their top ten recommended techniques for great hair using their products from their website.

• If you have fine curly hair and want to enhance the curl without losing bounce. Use MOTION.LOTION and a dab of ANGEL.RINSE on the ends.
• Want the curl to relax? Mix MOTION.LOTION with LEAVE-IN.LUXURY for the Rapunzel/mermaid look.
• Add a drop of MOTION.LOTION to your ANTI.GRAVITY for volume, lift and soft definition.
• Hair curly and a bit dry? Mix MOTION.LOTION and BORN.AGAIN for the ultimate leave in treatment with a silky feel.
• If your curl is looking a bit yesterday, spritz with STAYING.ALIVE, leave for a second and give your hair a toss. Now you are today.
• Banish the frizz on curls and relax the look with MOTION.LOTION in hand put up into a ponytail and wipe on MOTION.LOTION and go!
• Afro to slickback, mix ROUGH.RIDER and STICKY.BUSINESS for flat, shiny hair
• After blow drying with ANTI.GRAVITY, wipe on MOTION.LOTION to dirty up the do and give you a model look.
• Fast hair, blast in ANTI.GRAVITY until the hair is dry and still slightly hot. Wipe in some HAIR.SCREEN, twist it up, untwist, shake and you have the instant glam do.
• Dry in LEAVE-IN.LUXURY, rinse and forget the straightening irons. It will stay straight and will even keep away the humidity frizz.

I hope these tips from Kevin.Murphy will help you create that look that you’ve been trying to create. If you have any other questions about Kevin.Murphy products or how to use them, come in and have a chat with one of our skilled stylists.

Post by Franz

Kevin Murphy shows us how to use Easy Rider for a natural curl on mens hair.