Thank you Karen for everything

Thank you Beatnik Guy...it is very much appreciated.

Best wishes,
Karen

Dear Michael,

Thank you so much for your post. It MADE my day. :-) I am so glad that HairBoutique.com helps you and everyone else it helps. I appreciate your best wishes for a long and happy website.

Lately there has been a lot of disinformation spreading on the Net about HairBoutique.com. Contrary to opinion, inneundos or rumor, Jeff Hines and I still personally run the site. We also still fund the site completely from our own personal funds and from profits from our Marketplace.

Jeff and I do HairBoutique.com as a true labor of love and to help empower hair consumers with hair knowledge. We both work full time "other jobs" running other companies. As you can imagine, keeping the site going requires a lot of our lives.

When I get posts like yours it makes Jeff and I both feel that all of our long hours, intense hard work and investment is worth it. I stay up almost all night every weekend getting the site updated and new articles written. You may see the "What is Playing on the Sound System" change on a regular basis, that is because I always listen to music when I work. So I want to thank you again for your post.

Thanks for letting me blubber for a minute :-).

To answer your questions, yes hairbands are great for anyone. In my opinion this includes both male and females. I know a couple of men, regardless of sexual preference, who love headbands and all types of hair jewelry. One guy I know is a software developer for my software company who favors very thin stretchy headbands that holds his hair in a smooth line at the crown and then allows his natural curls to poof up at the back. It looks great, it keeps the hair out of his eyes and he enjoys the way it handles his hair which is often hard to manage.

What the software developer does is apply a little volumizing gel at the roots near the crown and then he blow dries his hair with a round brush on medium speed/medium heat to get lift and fullness at the crown. He uses Matrix Amplify shampoo, root lift and gel which is a fabulous set of products for instant volume. It is important to note that Amplify can be damaging to color treated hair because it blows open the hair shaft and speeds color fading. However, if you don't color or highlight your hair, Amplify rocks for fullness.

Another thing you can do is to have your stylist carefully add a few layers or texturizing around the crown and then use either Matrix Amplify or Aveda Confixer (one of my own favs for volume enhancing) and blow dry with a round brush or even blow dry upside down to get that root lift.

If you want lift right after the headband the new crown hugging bands will push the hair up from the crown. If you want the band to be worn a lot further back on your head you will have a harder time getting a giant pouf or lift although with some styling you can still get some fullness.

To get the lift and separation you seek you need to get one of the wire headbands that have individual teeth and the teeth are at least 1/2 inch apart and about 1-2 inches in height. This will act as a sort of headband/comb that will lift and separate the front of the crown and give you instant lift.

If you want the smooth and sleek look with curls being pushed to the back, a headband that is known as a Headwrap that hugs the front of the head near the forehead or can be pushed a few inches back onto the crown will work great. People with naturally curly hair have used both the headwrap bands and the original bra bands to form a tight and sleek crown with curls spilling out the back.

The HairBoutique.com's COO, Michael Thayer, used to wear a headband right at his crown to hold back his very long naturally curly hair when he drove with his convertible top down. Michael enjoyed the way it held his hair back and felt it was better than a baseball cap. Recently Michael had his hair cut into a short spiked bob. It was a shock but I have to say that he looks great and it was totally his decision for a number of reasons. He now wears his headbands when he works out and it looks fine on his short spikey look.

As far as the redhead, I will publish an article about how to do that updo or else I will have too much text here in Hair Talk. :-)

Thanks for your kind words.

Best wishes,
Karen M. Shelton
Owner/Chief Cook & Bottlewasher & Co-Webmaster of HairBoutique.com

PS. I think men SHOULD enjoy hair jewelry. Think about it, the Romans and Greeks ALL wore hair jewelry, men and women alike. So enjoy.