Read an Excerpt
Cool Hair
A Teenager's Guide to the Best Beauty Secrets on Hair, Makeup, and Style
By Vincent Roppatte, Sherry Suib Cohen, Wendy DeFeudis, Alex Cao St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 2003 Vincent Roppatte and Sherry Suib Cohen
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-250-13874-3
CHAPTER 1
You're the Best
Each and every one of you is a wonder, unique and different from other girls. Although there's a lot more going on inside the private you than anyone dreams, there are still many feelings you share with other teens.
These feelings represent the most important changes in your life, just as you're becoming an irresistible young woman. Can you recognize yourself in the following behaviors?
You want more privacy than ever before.
You are easily hurt.
You want to experiment — look new, try new things, think new thoughts, maybe even shock people with your daring.
Sometimes, you're mean to others — and you regret it.
Being popular counts — a lot — even if you don't love admitting it.
Your moods change suddenly.
Occasionally, you feel anxious about making — and keeping — new friends.
Your self-esteem flutters — you often don't like yourself and you worry about your appearance.
You want the right to choose what you wear and how your hair looks.
Even though I'm no expert in psychology, I have spent all my life studying young women and what makes them look wonderful. What I've learned is that it's all about self-esteem and believing in yourself. When you feel confident inside, you take on an outside glow and your best qualities show. You don't feel self-conscious about expressing your deepest thoughts. And this I know for sure: The first step toward self-esteem and popularity is feeling comfortable and pretty in your own skin.
Peer pressure can be killing. Although you have definite ideas, it's often easier to be swept along with the crowd and say you like the same bands, clothes, hairstyles, and makeup that everyone else likes, instead of expressing your real opinions. You don't want to be different.
When you don't feel pretty, it's even more difficult to let your true self shine through. If you think you're plain looking, it's harder to relax and be yourself around guys — and even other girls. What you want to say comes out sounding totally lame. Though your achievements, intelligence, and inner qualities best define the person you are, it's easier to believe in yourself if you feel attractive.
People may tell you that thinking about your looks is shallow and unimportant; well, they're wrong, wrong, wrong. Knowing you have the prettiest hair in your class, knowing you're wearing a great outfit don't mean you're shallow. You feel smarter, funnier, and safer if you feel cool. When we know we look good, we attract the best to ourselves and our best selves come out.
Deep inside — you're the best. So what's stopping you from taking control of your outside look and making it the best also? When you do the most with what you have, you'll have the freedom to be yourself inside and outside. And I promise you this: One of the best ways to look cool is with wonderful hair that captures the enviable energy and radiance of your youth.
That's why you're holding this book in your hands. If you're not satisfied with the way you look, if you feel out of it, today is the day you change things. Today is the day you start to allow the beauty deep inside you to be set loose.
Reality Check
If you try on the hottest outfit in the world and your hair hangs limp, the effect is also limp, uninteresting. If your hair looks great, so do you — even in your rattiest jeans and T-shirt.
Look at the before and after photos here. Since everyone always talks about bad hair days, we thought we'd see if there is such a thing. We asked some girls who were not particularly happy with the way their hair looked to be photographed. Result? Kind of blah. Then, after a simple makeover, they were photographed again. The results are dynamite — as you can plainly see.
You try it. One day, when your hair is not its best, put on your favorite outfit and look in the mirror. You won't be happy. Then, wash, blow-dry, and style your hair, and put on the same outfit. The difference is amazing — right?
Wonderful clothes are a good start to your day, but it takes some attention to hair — and also to skin and makeup — to make you look sensational.
I believe that you never need to have another bad hair day, even if you're not crazy about the texture, color, or style of your hair.
What Do You Hate About Yourself?
Does your nose seem too big? Do you have too many freckles? Do you think your lips are too thick?
You are what you are. What makes you unique and terrific is exactly the shape of your nose and your lips, the individual jut of your chin — all your characteristics that may not fit the bland beauty norm. Cookie-cutter noses are for plastic dolls, not real, young women. The most fabulous young women I know have learned to love and express their differentness by accentuating what makes them stand out from the crowd. Julia Roberts's wide mouth, Reese Witherspoon's sharp chin, and Renée Zellweger's squinty eyes now set the beauty standards, but I bet when they were teenagers, these stars despaired about looking different from everyone else.
"The thing you hate about yourself tends to be the thing that everyone likes about you," said Nicole Kidman to People magazine. You can't easily change some things — like height or coloring; your nose, eyes, or ears; the freckles that drive you nuts; and often, your body shape — so it's smart to make the most of those parts and accept them, even if you can't exactly love them.
Even if you can't change anything else, with the tiniest effort you can change the most important part of your look — your hair. Hair is the key to everything. Hair softens a square face, reduces a large nose, balances eyes that are too close together or too wide apart. Great hair helps you value even those features you wouldn't have chosen if you were in charge of designing you.
Hair is also a very safe place to experiment. You don't have to diet to extremes or have plastic surgery. Experimenting with hair is as harmless as it is fun. Hate the curl? Straighten it. Hate the straightness? Curl it. Hate the color? Make it blue. Hate the style? Change it. Whatever mistakes you make are not permanent. Nothing is irreversible because that trusty hair will grow back.
Pretty Appeal
If you let me guide you through the pages of this book, I promise you the hair you deserve — no matter what kind of hair you were born with. I promise to teach you the tools, tricks, and skills for your hair so that you can notch up your personal style. I will show you how to have hair appeal — and you will choose the kind of appeal you desire.
Classic Cheerleader
Jenn, fourteen, is in the ninth grade. A varsity cheerleader, she adores competitions.
When she has to concentrate on her jumps full-time, she likes a simple ponytail that moves when she moves.
Glamour Queen
Lindsay Anderson, eighteen, from Kentucky, was a natural-looking stunner when she appeared in the photography studio.
She's a professional model and knows how to change her look. Here she is a glam queen in an embroidered white jacket and some edgy eye makeup on her beautiful blues.
Club Princess
Pretty, seventeen-year-old Lindsay Lohan, star of Freaky Friday and The Parent Trap, could be your shy best friend in her simple white tank top and jeans.
Clear the dance floor! Now the happening young stunner knows just how to have all the strobe lights focused on her at the club. Her hair is freshly blow-dried, and she's wearing giant hoops, a body-skimming off-the-shoulder jersey, and marvelous attitude!
Natural Woman
Keri, sixteen, is a charming, soft-spoken natural beauty with her curly hair caught back in a ponytail.
With blow-dried, straight hair and a smidgen of makeup, she's still a natural beauty — but with enormous style.
Read My Hair
Sometimes, when you're feeling insecure, you can send silent messages that change the way others perceive you — and those messages can even change the way you feel about yourself. The messages come through your hair.
Have you ever taken a good look at your best friend's face, and, even if she hasn't said a word, you know just what she's thinking? Reading faces is a developed skill. By the time you hit your teens, you're an expert at this kind of nonverbal communication. Have you ever thought about reading hair? Often, the hairstyle a girl chooses on a particular day speaks volumes about what she's thinking or feeling or what she wants you to believe she's feeling. You can actually send messages to the world through your hairstyles.
The best thing to do after a crisis — for example, when Mr. Right breaks up with you, you have a fight with your friend, or you bomb out on a chemistry exam — is to change your hairstyle and tell the world you're moving on. The same thing works after a moment of extreme happiness — when you make up with Mr. Right, win a student council election, or make the honor roll. Just as your clothes and your smile send messages of spirit and cool, your new pretty hairstyle also lets the world know you feel great.
The secret is that when you look confident and happy, you get to feel that way; it has to do with the way people treat you when they spot your mood. A new hairstyle picks you up and makes you confident. If your hair hangs down lamely and limply, others quickly read that your self-esteem is zero. On the other hand, a shining and bouncy hairstyle will communicate that you have the potential to be funny, fun, and popular (even if you don't always feel that way). When you send out vibes of pretty and interesting to others, you become appealing. Others want to be with you. People will read your hair, pick up on your self-confidence, and follow you anywhere! When people react to you that way, you yourself become convinced that you're sitting on top of the world. I know this as well as I know hair.
Check the two looks here and here to see examples of how the world reads your hairstyle choices. Ask your hairstylist for help in creating a style that matches the message you want to send.
The Messages You Might Want Others to Read from Your Hair
I'm just so cute: "I'm a little shy, but I'd sure like to get to know you. When we're friends, you'll see how cute and appealing I am. ... Can't you tell by my braids?"
I feel like flirting: "Hi, new guy. Hi, skateboard hero — I'm your fantasy woman and my cropped hairstyle says I'm all about ease, attitude, and playfulness."
This is the essence of my deeply held belief: Most teens are amazing people who just don't know it yet. The pages that follow are a celebration of teenagers. You have it in your control to feel and look pretty and to develop a winning beauty style, just as you can develop a winning attitude. We're never born with an inner knowledge of how to best blow-dry hair or what to wear to make an impression on an interesting guy. We have to learn the essentials of pretty, and, as you read on, I'll show you how to enhance your best natural characteristics as well as make wonderful new choices for the quintessential you. I can do this — trust me! We can do it together.
You're the best.
CHAPTER 2
Inside Out
Before you concentrate on how to create a new external look, let's spend a few moments on what's inside. When you see a teenager with fabulous, shining hair, it's a good bet that she's healthy. Nothing you put on your hair, including the most expensive shampoos and conditioners, means anything if you're not healthy. Pretty hair starts on the inside.
Garbage In, Garbage Out
I'm not here to give you boring lectures or draw diagrams of nutritional food pyramids, but savvy teenagers understand that hair doesn't just grow from your scalp — it's an integral part of the skin. Since hair is an actual extension of your body, it flourishes when you're healthy and well nourished. Conversely, hair loses its strength and vitality when your body's fed poorly — stuffed with cookies, chips, and Big Macs — or starved because you're perpetually on a punishing diet.
Many models and actresses project an unhealthy and unrealistic view of what a young woman's body should look like. If you're taking your cue about thinness from your favorite superstar, you should know that film and fashion photographs are usually altered by airbrushing or computer manipulation and favorable lighting. If you saw the superstar on the street, you'd probably be shocked by how thin she isn't. You might also be surprised to know that the really thin superstar often has serious emotional problems; the stress of having to be skinny and not eat can be unbearable.
Food for Thought
The adage "You can never be too thin" is just plain wrong. What is appealing are shapely, healthy young women with an appetite for life, love, and also food — not emaciated, gaunt girls. Stick-figure bodies are just not good-looking, and you need energy to live an exciting life. Food's not the enemy-stringent diets are. They will rob you of your radiance, energy, and health.
The other extreme's not terrific either. Great hair and skin don't come from stuffing yourself with junk food; an excess of sugar and fat does not add to your glow. Hair becomes thin and brittle, dull and colorless if you don't eat properly. Skin becomes sallow and lackluster or inflamed. You are naturally gorgeous, so eat well to stay that way.
During your teens, your hair has the potential to look better than it ever will at any other time of your life. But during your teens, it's also easier to have limp, greasy-looking hair and more pimple emergencies than at any other time.
It's not all about what you eat.
For example, chocolate doesn't give you pimples, no matter what your mother told you. That's one of the great myths about zits. Sweets will never cause your skin to break out or your hair to look limp; your ability to produce oil does it.
Oil City
Teenagers often have special hair and skin problems because natural hormonal changes spur heavy oil production — in some girls more than others. Although experts agree that teenage stress is partly responsible for bad skin and hair, most believe that these hormone riots are the true culprits. Rising hormone levels cause the oil glands of the skin to enlarge and produce an oily substance called sebum. Sebum, along with various bacteria and flaked-off skin, irritates and clogs skin pores and hair follicles, preventing the oil from draining. For skin, the result is an inflammation, otherwise known as a pimple, and sometimes worse — full-blown acne.
Acne is the result of oil clogging the skin's hair follicles, which is why you get pimples on your face, back, and chest, where hair follicles are found — and not on your palms or the bottoms of your feet, where there are none.
Even if you put mostly good things in your body, oil-producing hormones can still make your face look like a war zone. There are many products that can help. Talk to your physician about your medical options and ask about over-the-counter pore uncloggers that contain benzoyl peroxide or salicylic acid (if you're allergic to aspirin, these products may not be right for you) and topical antibiotics.
Hormones also produce oily hair. This has nothing to do with good or bad health — it has to do with being between thirteen and nineteen years old. This condition won't last forever. In the meantime, I'll give you some advice about caring for oily hair and skin later, in Chapter 9.
Move It!
While we're considering a healthy body's relationship to cool hair, let's not forget exercise. I am a powerful believer in moving. It's great for your physical well-being and psyche, but it's also the most effective beauty enhancer I know. In addition to building firm, taut muscles and burning calories, exercise increases blood flow to the skin, and this nourishes facial and scalp cells with oxygen and nutrients. That's very good for your complexion and your hair.
Exercise also removes cellular wastes and encourages your skin to thrive at maximum efficiency. And, even better, exercise makes you feel happy. When we're involved in any pleasurable activity, the brain releases chemical substances called endorphins — the "feel-good" chemicals. Well, those natural highs are produced when you run, swim, ride your bicycle, or indulge in any other form of physical exercise. Exercise beats drinking, smoking, and doing drugs for feel-good benefits.
Want cool hair? For starters, eat well, exercise, educate yourself on how to deal with all that hormonal oil — and it can't hurt to think good thoughts.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Cool Hair by Vincent Roppatte, Sherry Suib Cohen, Wendy DeFeudis, Alex Cao. Copyright © 2003 Vincent Roppatte and Sherry Suib Cohen. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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