Want sexy flowing curls? Want volume for your up do? Hot rollers are the answer! They provide easy volume, texture and long lasting curl! With good hair products and a set of multiple-sized hot rollers you can create great Holiday hair with ease! First you need a good set of hot rollers in different sizes. Clients always ask what rollers they can get that aren’t too expensive but still good quality. I found Conair Xtreme Instant Heat Multisized Hot Rollers and LOVE them!

Hot rollers will give you lift at the roots, volume all around and a soft wave! First use Alterna Curl and Control Styling Cocktail in damp hair and blow dry straight. Then in 2 inch sections roll in small hot rollers, spray in Alterna Working Hairspray as you go to give a more flexible hold. Don’t worry about taking exact sections in any particular order; you don’t want it to look too perfect. When the rollers have cooled in your hair take them out, shake your head, brush your fingers through your hair with a dab of Moroccan oil to smooth it, and you’re set!

Want your hair smooth and straight with a nice wave at the end for a polished look? Rollers are the answer for this as well! Again you will start with damp hair, put in Alterna Straight and Sleek Styling Cocktail and blow dry. Then part your hair off to one side, taking 3 inch sections starting on top and roll them with large rollers all over the head. When the rollers cool take them out and spray a paddle brush with Alterna Working air spray, and brush the front section to the side. Finish the look by loosening the curl and brushing the curl to the bottom. Don’t worry about brushing the curl out completely, with good product you won’t lose the curl!

Loose wave up do’s are a great look for holiday parties, and never look over done! First put in a root volumizing product like Kevin.Murphy Anti.Gravity at the root and Alterna Texture Glaze when your hair is damp. Now blow dry. Alternate medium to large rollers starting at the crown and stagger sections in a brick pattern along the back of your head. When the rollers cool tease the roots all over with a fine tooth comb, spray hair with Alterna Working Hairspray. Then gather the hair in the center of your head, twist up, and insert bobby pins all over to secure it. You can also use accessories, such as a simple ribbon, totie the look together!

Post by Ellen

Partially due to the style influence of Mad Men, we are seeing a return of retro hairdos today.Our clients ask for hairstyles from every decade.

An example of this is my client, Le. She wanted a “50’s or 60’s Updo” for her Halloween costume. She sent me various pictures and the one that we chose to replicate ended up being a hairstyle much like one worn by Christine Hendricks’s character Joan Holloway.

Not quite a Beehive!
Le’s hair wasn’t quite long enough for a beehive, so I worked with her hair as is. To achieve her look, we prepped her hair with a KMX Treatment and rough-dried her hair using Anti Gravity and Born Again Treatment. I then curled all of her hair and back-combed all of it up, with the assistance of my coworker, D’arcy! I then picked out specific pieces to showcase and pinned them into place. The artistry is in the finishing details. I finished Le’s style with Alterna’s Caviar Glitterati Shimmer, a Sparkling Shine Spray!

To maintain your event updo during the night, it is helpful to have your style set with a maximum hold finishing spray, such as Alterna’s Hemp Organics Color Hold Maximum Hold Volume Lock hair spray or Alterna’s Caviar Anti-Aging Extra Hold Hair Spray (with Color Hold). When you come in for your updo, it is best to wear either a very loose top or a button-up shirt that can be removed without wrecking your hair. After you get home, it is advisable to not take a nap or take a shower or bath, as steam and moisture will soften the hold of your updo and it may fall.

If you are interested in getting an updo for a holiday, gala, red carpet or black tie event, book a free consultation today with any of us!

Post by Lancer

Whatever you do, do not miss Capitol Hill’s huge Summer Sale that’s going on through the weekend of Thursday, August 26th to Sunday August 29th.  There are going to be mad deals, sales and events all weekend long up and down Pike, Pine and Broadway in the heart of Capitol Hill! The Hill has everything you need for whatever you feel like doing. A picnic in the park; shopping for the whole family; breakfast, lunch and dinner; dance lessons; yoga classes; night life and oh so much more!

Don’t miss the highlight of this awesome weekend: the kick off Mobile city party on Thursday night. There you can get a map of all the participating business and the list of the awesome events they’re planning. Then spend all weekend walking around and visiting the businesses and grabbing some great deals and fun events!

Emerson has a super fabulous event planned for Sunday, the 29th. At 2pm stop by the salon where Ellen, one of our lovely stylists, will be giving a hands-on demo on how to do a loose and casual, yet completely fabulous, summer updo. She’ll show you the easiest way to make this must-have style work for your hair, and demonstrate how you can do it yourself at home to have salon-beautiful hair every day!

Don’t miss what promises to be a rockin’ weekend, and make sure to come by Emerson on Sunday at 2:00 to get some valuable hair tips, straight from the experts!

Post by Amelia

Emerson Salon recently had the great fortune of receiving a visit from Kevin Murphy’s Session Styling Assistant, Felicity Davis, to share some styling techniques with us. She styles for Vogue magazine and travels the world creating iconic hairstyles of every type for shoots and runways.

The goal of the demonstration at Emerson Salon was to show off some different finishing techniques that we can accomplish on female clients who have fine shoulder length hair. This hair type can be a challenge to style due to its inconsistent ability to hold a soft curl or wave once styled. Further, sometimes using an iron curler on this hair type is just not sufficient to hold an all day classic style. With a lot of red carpet and magazine hair lately evoking the soft volume of 1930′s style movie starlets like Veronica Lake or Lauren Bacall achieving this look is essential.

The first of our two beautiful models for this demonstration was Lisa. She has naturally wavy/curly hair and has difficulty with frizz and style longevity.

• First, Felicity washed Lisa’s hair with Maxi Wash. This is not a clarifier or chelating shampoo with a higher ph level. This product uses alpha hydroxy to exfoliate oil and product buildup out of the hair cuticle in order to prep the hair for the style. This may take 2 -3 times at the bowl to start to create the correct “egg white” lather that indicates clean hair.
• Then, Felicity applied Born Again Essential Treatment and lightly rinsed. This moisturizes and repairs the hair using conditioning agents derived from Olive Leaf, Shea Butter, Omega 3 and Omega 6.
• Once the hair was towel dried, Felicity used Staying Alive with berdok root and Bodyguard Hydrating Lotion with peruvian bark in order to better protect the hair during the styling session. In addition, Anti Gravity setting lotion using lavender oil was also applied in order to eliminate flyaways and hold the curl. (If this sounds like a lot of product, its ok! Kevin Murphy’s line is designed to be weightless and is performance based.)
• Then, the hair was hand dried until bone dry.
• The hair is divided into 8 sections (2 on each side and 4 in the back). Each section is curled with a smaller curling iron and then set on the Kevin Murphy brand curlers that uses a ball and elastic to secure it in place. Once the hair cools for 5-10 minutes, the curlers are taken out.
• The curls are finger separated and then brushed out with a natural boar bristle brush. This brush is used to back brush under sections to create volume and then, Session Spray is applied lightly to the hair and then worked slowly with the brush into a smoother wave.

Our second stylish model was Lara who has fine, straight hair that has issues with creating volume. For years, it was common practice to beat one’s hair into straight submission with serums and flat irons. Felicity calls this the age of “slip technology” where the hair’s cuticle is forced down for smoothness. Now, volume is more trendy and current, and this is the look we wanted to achieve with Lara.

• To get ready for this, Felicity prepped Lara’s hair with Maxi Wash and Born Again Treatement for protection during the styling session.
• Once towel dried, Anti Gravity is applied liberally and hand dried.
• The hair is then twisted, iron curled and set vertically on the Kevin Murphy rollers, secured with a pin curl clip. Felicity called this her signature “Zulu Curl” and we loved it!
• The style was finished similarly to Lisa’s, but refined with additional pinning on the short pieces of the bang area. A little session spray and working with it with the brush is all was needed to make this glam style.

Felicity’s tips were super helpful and its always good to get a fresh perspective on how to make our clients look fabulous! Thanks Felicity! (If you want to learn more, keep reading this blog or go to the Kevin Murphy website for more product information or styling tutorials.)

post by D’Arcy