A Quick and Easy Way to Add Volume to Your Hair!

Voluminous hair is one of those things that girls die for! Kim Kardashian, Jessica Simpson and all of the Victoria’s Secret angels have it, so why is it so difficult to achieve?? Take a look at these simple steps and find out how easy it is to add some extra volume to your lifeless hair!

You’ll Need:

Blow Dryer

Heat Protectant

Round Brush

Hair Spray

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Hair How-To

1. After your shower, wait until your hair is about 80% dry to reduce the risk of adding extra damage to it by using a blow dryer.

2. Spray your locks thoroughly with heat protectant and then flip your head over and blow dry the roots only for several minutes.  If you blow dry all of your hair when your head is upside down, it becomes poofy and wide, not voluminous.

3. Next, flip your head back up and brush it lightly to smooth out any tangles.

4. Start taking several 1 inch sections of your hair at the crown of your head and pull them up and over in the opposite direction that you want it to fall.

5. Blow dry these sections, preferably with a round brush, spray with hair spray at the root and then let them fall in the direction you want.

**Tip:Take it one step further by washing and conditioning your hair in the shower with a volume enhancing shampoo and conditioner!

How to Get Brigitte Bardot’s Iconic Look

Brigitte Bardot celebrated her 75th birthday two days ago! It’s hard to believe that this beauty icon is already 75, yet we still use her famous makeup and hair as a popular references for today’s styles!

Brigitte’s look is the embodiment of “sex kitten,” with her teased, voluminous hair and smokey bedroom eyes. Re-creating this look is actually quite easy and when you wear it out,  I guarantee you’ll make some heads turn!

Key Items You Will Need

1. Black Eyeliner (preferably liquid or gel)

2. Grey or Black Eyeshadow

3. A Volumizing Mascara

4. Apricot or Nude Lipstick and Lipliner

5. Teasing Brush or Comb

6. Bobby Pins

7. Curling Iron

8. Hairspray

How To: Makeup

1. Start by taking your grey or black eyeshadow and sweeping it across your eyelid and up to your crease. Brigitte Bardot was all about the smokey eye, so the darker the better. However, keeping it lighter can also be a more casual option.

2. Next, BLEND! Blend like you’ve never blended before! Dark eyeshadow can look very harsh and amateur if you don’t blend it well enough. My recommendation would be to take a fluffy eyeshadow brush and use a “windshield wiper motion” across the shadow as many times as it takes to see the edges start to soften up.

3. Now it’s time for liner! This can be one of the toughest parts of the look if you are not comfortable putting on liner, but with practice comes perfection! Line your upper lash-line with your liner and bring it out a little past your eye to give it that cat-eye, winged look. Clean up any rough edges, and sharpen your point with a pointy Q-Tip (talked about here). Don’t forget to line your bottom lash line as well. Smudge with with a Q-tip to keep it sexy.

4. Apply 3-4 coats of volumizing mascara to top off the eyes. I, of course, am a huge fan of L’Oreal Voluminous Mascara in Carbon Black (click for review).

5. Line your lips with a nude lipliner, preferably one that is the same color, or slightly darker than your lipstick. I like MAC’s “stripdown” liner for nude lips.

6. Next, apply your lipstick. You can choose to blend your lipliner into your lipstick to keep it modern, or keep the slightly darker liner (as pictured above) to stay true to the original look.

7. You can finish of by applying your foundation, or, if you applied it first, make sure to clean up any fall-out from the black eyeshadow!

How To: Hair

Brigitte’s hair is super messy and big, so it’s very easy to pull off since it doesn’t have to be precise!

1. If you have straight hair, I would start off by adding a few loose waves to it with a curling iron. My favorite technique for waves is to simply wrap separate strands of hair around your closed curling iron. Leave for several seconds depending on how well your hair curls and the spray with hairspray.

2. Next, section your hair at the crown of your head and use your teasing brush or comb to back-comb the hair. Don’t skimp on this part because the volume is the most important part of the look!

3. Spray your teased rat’s nest with hairspray and let it sit for a few minutes. I know it looks crazy right now, but trust me

4. Now, lightly start to comb the back-combed hair into place. Be careful not to take out all the teasing! You are just trying to smooth over the top of the hair.

5. You can either leave your hair like this, or take your bobby pins and start pinning sections of your hair back, into a half-up, half-down, voluminous look!

Drew Barrymore’s Bardot Inspired Look!

L’Oreal Voluminous Mascara:

The Best of the Best

I am always on the lookout for the latest and greatest mascara, but I keep running back to good ol’ L’Oreal Voluminous Mascara. It’s like one of those relationships where you have been together so long and end up breaking up to “see what else is out there.” Inevitably, 2 weeks later you come running back to the one you know has been right for you since the start. This is how it is with me and Voluminous haha. It has everything I need in a mascara, and it does the job just right.

I’m not a huge fan of spending tons of cash on a mascara. I use it everyday, and I’ve got a lot of lashes, so shelling out $25 every month for a new tube is ridiculous.  At about $7.50 a pop in almost any drugstore, L’Oreal Voluminous had me at “hello.”  Not only is it cheap (and I love cheap), it works! It doesn’t clump and keeps my lashes soft. I hate when a mascara gives you spider lashes that are so stiff you’re afraid they’ll break off any second..

L’Oreal Voluminous gives amazing thickness, separation and length in only 2 coats. Talk about DRAMA. I have no complaints, and it is my go-to mascara on most photoshoots. No smudging, no flaking, no problem.

Their new shade is called Carbon Black and it is ah-ma-zing. They say that it’s a “shade blacker than black.” I also like the version with the curved brush A LOT. It gives excellent curl to your lashes, but my only gripe is the curved brush doesn’t come in the Carbon Black shade (that I’ve seen). So, I have to sacrifice

Before and After: L’Oreal Voluminous Mascara in Carbon Black

If you haven’t tried L’Oreal Voluminous, give it a go and let me know how you like it!