Tress talk for brides-to-be

The year 2020, at its start, gave a massive blow to the wedding industry. However, the year seems to be ending on a positive note, as the much-celebrated wedding season has revived with a bang, of course, with some limitations in gatherings, and these turning out to be more of an intimate affair. The good news is that the bride retains her nine yards and designer lehengas, and all plans are on to complement it with the perfect hairdo.

CARE FOR YOU

A critical aspect of hair care post the lockdown has been hair maintenance and quality services. Considering that a lot of styling goes into the days of bridal functions, hair care is important to keep the tresses strong enough.

“There seems to be a reach out from people for better quality hair,” says Natasha Naegamvala, Director, Nalini ofNalini n Yasmin Salon. She questions: “So, how do we bring the hair quality up to its optimum? Here in comes hair spas, the Alchemy treatment, and the Keratine infused hair spas. This becomes the new order of the day.”

Speaking about what should be the must-have treatments in a bridal package, Swati Gupta, Creative Director, Bodycraft Spa & Salon, lists out – “Anything to do with a complete hair care routine and ritual, including hydration, repair, shine, volume and addressing any style concerns. It should also go with a proper retail consultation around what the client can use for home care.”

She adds, “We basically work with the System Professional Hair Spa Alchemy service and rebonding service. The service starts with the diagnosis, there is a complete scalp assessment done and then the length is assessed, and accordingly a treatment is done to address all concerns.” For the wedding, a lot of brides opt for chemical treatments – colouring, permanent or semi-permanent smoothening – and so, a treatment should be done considering the history around the hair.

COLOUR ME BEAUTIFUL!

When people are getting married, they prefer going in for a slightly under-stated palette. As Ganesh Sakpal, Trainer, Jean-Claude Biguine Salons India, shares, “The hair colour is lighter and few highlights are done in the Ombre technique. The colour and highlight further enhances the styling.”

Naegamvala says, “It should never be too jarring or garish, for the simple reason that the bride wants to wear different outfits and the hair should ideally work in tandem with the outfits. Ordinarily if they wore their hair bright red, during their marriage, they take their bright red down to a subtle red, they take their golds down to a subtle brown, so that their hair works with the outfits.” She points out to the browns, rich browns, and mahogany tones as among the popular colours reinstating that the bride would stick to the classic, subtle and subdued look for colours. She adds, “The traditional and classic highlights seem to be back. Balayage is popular. And the only spin I like to do on this is that we do the root area slightly displaced, and it has a little of what we call a shadow root.”

Gupta agrees, too, that it is rare that a bride would go in for something flamboyant such as the fashion colours – “It is more around the browns, gold, soft reds or burgundy, mahogany, and soft copper tones.”

If there is a grey concern, the most critical aspect would be to take care of the grey coverage. Additionally, if the bride has concerns about the volume of hair and prefers something more illuminous, Gupta says, “We work with techniques that are more, almost full head. There are almost back-to-back kind of highlights, with a soft variation in colours just to give a lot of movement and volume. We work with a 3D kind of technique as well where we do not create a strong contrast in the hair. We would go from the dark to the medium, then the lighter, and the lightest.”

Gupta further adds, “You can go a little bolder with Balayage. This is done around the mid-lengths and the ends. Hair colour contouring is another important aspect – what lightness or darkness is framing your face, how much of it is happening on the crown.” It helps determine the highs and lows of the face, to give it a better angle and shape.

CUT ’EM AND STYLE ’EM

Most Indian brides prefer longer length, but there are brides who now kind of work with something short as well.

Gupta, too, recommends that there be as much length as possible so that there are more options to style it. “If you end up going too short, on the layers or if the hair is straining the face, styling can be a big concern.” She suggests a haircut and chemical treatments four to five weeks before the wedding. “If this is done just before the wedding, a strong permanent hair block rules out any opportunity to be able to work with styles such as soft curls or waves.”

For styles, Gupta shares, “Soft layers and forward graduation kind of framing the face. We do work on an internal disconnection, especially to give volume on the crown. If we are working fringes, they are more asymmetrical in style, where we again recommend having something start from the jawline so that if required, there is also an option to pin it up.”

Sakpal recommends that the hair could be styled for a nice tight bun, elaborate styling or messy bun, or classic waves.

“Extensions have been a popular sort of approach to brides,” says Naegamvala. However, she adds that to work with extensions, the hair should not be terribly layered. If highly layered, the bride will probably need to wear multiple sets of extensions for the layering to blend. Hence, she suggests, “a simple and classic haircut, a long heavy layer so that the extension blends.” She adds, “In India, we like the styling to be structured and disciplined. So, even if we are doing the soft waves, it has to be a clean glassy finish soft one. And when the hair is styled up, the popular soft flyaways are preferred.