Archive for August, 2009
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
Celebrities throughout the world have their own hair stylists. This plum spot can lead to increased demand, additional upscale clientele and higher fees. A few stylists to the stars and glitterati have landed book deals, network interviews and media contracts, including reality shows.
Of course, Michelle Obama, the first lady, has a personal hair stylist, Johnny Wright. She found him quite by accident while she was living in Chicago. During the campaign, she called on him several times to dress her tresses and he became a regular. Her previous stylist, Rahni Flowers, of Chicago had kept Michelle’s hair beautiful for 26 years. He declined the invitation to accompany the first family to DC. However, Wright moved to DC to take up the challenge and open a new salon in the area.
Inquiring minds want to know more about Michelle’s hair care regime, but Wright is mum about the products he uses on her hair. Since the first lady is perimenopausal, does she have thinning hair? Rumors abound that she is actually bald. The persistent rumor that she may be pregnant also leads searchers to speculate that she is experiencing pregnancy related hair loss. Some searchers are trying to find out if her hairstyle is based on a weave!
Although her hairstyle is unremarkable, it is elegant and simple enough to let her manage the long hours on the campaign trail and now to represent the nation with flying colors. Her most recent haircut, in July set the blog universe abuzz. Everyone from the Huffington Post and Anderson Cooper to the Michelle Obama Watch has an opinion about her hairdos.
Almost as an afterthought, some people do want to know who cuts President Obama’s hair. And his haircut is popular with all ages. Since he just gets haircuts (and he’s a man), this doesn’t get as much search volume or website blog action as does the first lady’s hair styling and stylist. There are over 400,000 plus websites at this point where discussions are taking place about Michelle’s hair. There are also over 100,000 blog posts, 10,000 in the last month alone.
It appears that Hairdresser to the Stars is not a bad job when you consider fame and the opportunity to catapult your career into a higher gear, during and after this sojourn. Folks who have shunned this “pedestrian career” might want to take a second look.
Tags: hair care, hair loss, haircut, Johnny Wright, Michelle Obama, pregnancy, President Obama, Rahni Flowers, thinning hair, womens hair loss
Posted in Female Hair Loss, Natural Hair Growth | 4 Comments »
Saturday, August 8th, 2009
If you’re pregnant, you can expect to lose some of your hair during and after pregnancy. Search your family tree. If either of your parents or your grandparents had significant hair loss by middle age, keep your fingers crossed. You may have inherited the baldness gene. Are you a female Baby Boomer? Congratulations – you’re menopausal or perimenopausal and so is your hair. If you work in certain occupations, engage in water sports that involve swimming pools and seawater, or live with certain diseases like lupus and diabetes, expect hair issues. The brutal facts are that heredity, lifestyle and life’s events can cause thinning hair, excessive hair loss or baldness.
It’s hard to escape all of the potential factors that could contribute to your hair loss. Meanwhile, back at the fort. The best defense is a good offense. You can help your hair stay healthy longer by adopting a kinder, gentler approach to hair grooming. At least you won’t unwittingly contribute to the factors that could rob your of your hair.
Your hair does NOT need many of the ingredients that you find on the label of your shampoo and conditioner. Many of the indecipherable ingredients have no real purpose in hair care; most are preservatives, binders, waxes or coloring agents. They give you a temporary hair fix. Unfortunately, you will soon find that you need another fix soon after, if you are to keep your bad hair days to a minimum. Even a few organic and natural shampoos use some suspect ingredients.
Grab a shampoo bottle; any bottle from a major cosmetics manufacturer will do. Take out your reading glasses and fire up your browser. Get ready for some interesting reading. In addition to the usual suspects mentioned here previously (DEA, Phalates, Parabens, Propylene and Polyethylene Glycol, Sodium Lauryl and Sodium Laureth Sulfate), some other common ingredients that you DON’T need for healthy hair are:
1. Fragrance
2. Imidazolidinyl Urea
3. DMDM Hydantoin
4. Isopropyl Alcohol
5. Mineral Oil and Petrolatum
These ingredients can lead to skin irritation and dryness, hormone disruptions, cancer and worse. A good rule of thumb for hair care ingredients is if you can’t eat it, you shouldn’t be putting it on your skin and hair!
Visit the Skin Deep website to find shampoos and conditioners with the fewest unnecessary chemicals. Give the hair you’ve got a better chance of staying on your head.
Tags: baldness, binders, conditioner, DMDM Hydantoin, Fragrance, grooming, hair loss, Imidazolidinyl Urea, ingredients, irritation, Isopropyl Alcohol, menopausal, Mineral Oil, natural, organic, Petrolatum, pregnancy, preservatives, shampoo, thinning hair, waxes, womens hair loss
Posted in Natural Hair Growth | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
A quick search of the Internet shows that hair care is an immensely popular business. People engaged in this business include the manufacturers of shampoos, conditioners, hair dyes, styling gels and mousses, along with hair appliances. This category of hair care businesses alone accounts for billions (not millions) of dollars annually of our national economy.
The various stylists who wash, curl, condition, color and cut our hair make up the next largest segment of this business. This side of the industry has many independent operators who set up shop after completing vocational school courses that they need to obtain a cosmetology license. In addition, we have beauty and barber shop franchises. This type of hair care business comes with a proven business plan and a trademark that can catapult sales well above those that independent shops can garner.
Wigs for vanity, along with toupees for hair loss victims, are yet another large segment of the hair care industry. In addition to full wigs, the current mania with hair as adornment spurs the hair enhancement segment. This includes production of synthetic hair and processing of human hair, packaged and sold for braids, weaves and temporary applications, like buns and ponytails.
Drugstores, grocers, beauty supply stores and websites devote a sizable amount of shelf-space and inventory stock to hair care products. In addition to the cleaning, styling and conditioning products, consumers need easy access to combs, brushes, hair appliances, scruncis, hair rollers, hair bands and barrettes. Whether you plop down your money at the store or online, this segment of the hair care industry gets a fair share of the economic pie too.
As the population ages and more adults begin to experience hair loss and thinning hair, the customer base for hair loss treatments and hair replacement therapies will increase dramatically. New products, appliances and appear almost daily.
More than ever before in history, the hair care industry, along with its suppliers, is responsible for millions of jobs. When we take stock, we see that hair or the lack of it is fueling a thriving segment of the economy. Even during a recession or a full-scale depression, hair care is big business for many. How on earth did the economy grow before the first commercially bottled shampoo and the first hair salon appeared?
Tags: baldness, business, conditioners, economy, franchise, hair care, hair care industry, hair enhancement, hair loss, hair replacement, shampoos, stylists, synthetic hair, thinning hair, toupees, treatment, vanity, wigs
Posted in Natural Hair Growth | 2 Comments »
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
During the Holocaust, those fortunate enough to be incarcerated immediately had their heads shaven. The reason – robbing a person of their hair immediately reduces self-esteem. All too often, regardless of culture, hair defines our identity.
Throughout history, hair has been the subject of many musings, pontifications and quotes that range from the silly and hilarious to the most sublime and somber. These quotes cover every hair issue from beauty to baldness.
Beauty & Adoration
“Hair brings one’s self-image into focus; it is vanity’s proving ground. Hair is terribly personal, a tangle of mysterious prejudices.” – Shana Alexander
“Hair is vitally personal to children. They weep vigorously when it is cut for the first time; no matter how it grows, bushy, straight or curly, they feel they are being shorn of a part of their personality.” – Charles Chaplin
“The hair is the richest ornament of women.” – Martin Luther
“I’m a big woman. I need big hair.” – Aretha Franklin
“I’m undaunted in my quest to amuse myself by constantly changing my hair.” – Hillary Clinton
“Long on hair, short on brains” – French Proverb
“I’m not offended by all the dumb-blonde jokes because I know that I’m not dumb. I also know I’m not blonde.” – Dolly Parton
Gray Hair
“Gray hair is a sign of age, not of wisdom.” – Greek proverb
“Gray hair is God’s graffiti” – Bill Cosby
“Gray hair is a blessing - ask any bald man.” – Unknown
“By common consent gray hairs are a crown of glory; the only object of respect that can never excite envy.” – George Bancroft
“There is only one cure for gray hair. It was invented by a Frenchman. It is called the guillotine.” – P. G. Wodehouse
Baldness
“A hair in the head is worth two in the brush.” – Oliver Herford
“I am not the archetypal leading man. This is mainly for one reason: as you may have noticed, I have no hair.” – Patrick Stewart
“It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.” – Cicero
“I don’t care if they call me “baldie” or “chrome dome.” God took an eraser and brushed my head clean. I’d rather be bald on top than bald inside.” – Joe Garagiola
” >Babies haven’t any hair:
Old men’s heads are just as bare;
From the cradle to the grave
Lies a haircut and a shave.”
– Samuel Goodman Hoffenstein
Tags: baldness, beauty, gray hair, hair, hair loss, hair quotes, history, identity, inspirations, quotes, self-esteem
Posted in Natural Hair Growth, Vitamins | 5 Comments »
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