Since I’ve learned how to actually do all of these things since I first attended hair school, I figured this would make a great post for men looking to succeed with women.
One of the biggest reasons women get their hair done to get attention from men and the sad part is, the biggest complaint is that men don’t notice what they’ve done, and they put hours and hours and countless dollars into their hair sometimes. Simply knowing what she’s done to her hair can raise your value in her eyes, and trust me, I’m talking to them all the time about this. So take the time to educate yourself a bit with this here hair “glossary”.
I’ll break this down into categories. First up is:
COLOR
This is by far the most popular thing women are doing to change their appearances, but there are many things you can do with color.
Women get highlights and lowlights to add depth to their hair. Highlights are streaks or very small sections that are colored brighter than the rest of the hair. Oppositely, lowlights are darker than the rest of the hair.
Highlights are the blonde, lowlights are the brown, in the middle is red. The three colors together add depth.
Highlights:
Lowlights:
Actually, there are both highlights and lowlights in this picture. The highlights are the platinum blonde and the lowlights are the strawberry blonde.
Bold Colors
A lot of women are getting bold colors done, mostly alternative girls, but not always. Bold colors give an edgy look and separates women from your “run-of-the-mill” look. Here are some examples of bold colors:
The purple here is a zonal technique, as it does’t go
from the beginning of the strand to the end.
This is a peek-a-boo technique where one color
is under the other.
HAIR CUTS
This can get pretty in depth very quickly because there are a million kind of haircuts. I’ll give you some basics so you pick things out.
One Length Hair Cut:
There are many types of one length cuts but for the most part, most of her hair
will be one length. This usually does not include her fringe area (fringe = bangs).
Layered Hair Cut:
A layered haircut basically means her hair is cut at all different lengths.
They are usually blended so it doesn’t look choppy. Layered hair
styles give body and movement.
Bobs:
A bob is a short haircut between ear and shoulder length. These appeared in the 1920’s when thousands of women, inspired by fashion designer “Coco” Chanel (Chanel, you know, the product?) and movie starlets Clara Bow and Louise Brooks, headed into the barber shop’s to get their cut short. The beauty parlors were refusing to cut their hair that short and lost business to the barber shops. They eventually caved and started doing them.
The modern bob can best be described by its interplay with the shape of the face. A woman who gets a modern bob can expect her stylist to carefully study her chin, forehead, brows, nose and cheekbones, because the bob can be designed to call attention to a single one of these features, or to a more general facial area (forehead and brows, chin and cheekbones). As there are tons of different styles of bobs, here are a few.
Pageboy Bob:
Short Bob:
Inverted Bob:
Front view
Back view
Forward Fringe Bob:
Boxed Bob:
Classic Bob:
Concave Bob:
Asymmetrical Concave Bob:
Angled Bob:
Blunt Bob:
Layered Bob:
RANDOM TRIVIA: The bobbie pin got its name from it’s use in bob cuts in the 1920’s.
Short Women’s Cuts
Not that I’d ever consider dating a girl with short hair (it’s too boy-ish for me, yuck!) but some women these days, for whatever reason, like to cut their hair short. I’ve asked around and the foremost reason that girls cut their hair short is after they move out of their parents house, it’s an act of rebellion after being told for years that they couldn’t cut their hair. The second most common reason is that shorter hair is easier for a busy professional woman to style quickly.
Pixie Cut:
The ‘Why-On-Earth-Would-You-Do-This-To-Your-Head-Girl?’:
I really don’t understand why some women want to be bald. Did it work for Sinead O’Connor? Does it work for this girl? Uh. Uh.
Boy Cuts:
Women have been getting boy cuts as early as the 1920’s when bob’s were the rage. Ever since then women have been getting their hair cut like boys in an effort to achieve equality.
Shags
Shag hairstyles are very popular and creative styles that can be worn in many different ways. These were introduced in early 60’s and continued to be hottest trend even today.
Long Shag:
Medium Shag:
Short Shag:
Trendy Shag:
Ok.. That should give you a good head start. Enough about cuts. Let’s move on to hair designs and updo’s.
Let’s first go over some components. Most guys should be familiar with these things but just in case.
Curls:
Curls are either natural or unnatural. If unnatural, they are either permanent
or temporary. A perm will give naturally straight hair a permanent curl.
Natural and permanent curls:
Temporary curls are done with different size curling irons or hot rollers and look like this:
Can you notice the difference between them? The temporary curls are much larger than the natural ones.
BRAIDS
There are a few different kinds of braids, check them out.
Regular Braid:
In regular braids, hair is taken from one section on the head and is braided to the ends of the the hair.
French Braid:
A french braid repeatedly takes more hair from the head and feeds it into the braid.
Sometimes there is a French braids cornrow, the difference is in the direction of the braid. French braids get hair from to the center from both sides whereas cornrows get fed from one side. Here is a
French Braid Cornrow:
And here are regular cornrows:
Both cornrow styles use hair wax to maintain neatness and give the hair a shine.
4 Strand Braid:
5 Strand Braid:
6 Strand Braid:
7 Strand Braid:
9 Strand Braid:
This is Arwin’s braid from Lord of the Rings. It’s quite intricate and very complex to do, this one took a couple of hours at least. In general, multi-strand braids are difficult to do.
Dreadlocks:
Absolute worst thing she could to her hair. Fer-gods-sake! Please don’t date girls who do this.
UPDO’S
An updo is when most of a woman’s hair is.. up. Go figure. There are a million and a half updo styles.
French Twist:
FINGERWAVES & PINCURLS
Finger waves, aka water waves (because you use water to set them along with gel), and pin curls are styles that dates back to the early 1920’s. Here are examples from then (mostly later in this post) and now, as these styles have been revisited and updated.
Finger Waves:
Pin Curls:
Both:
Large Water Waves:
And that about wraps it up for educating you in women’s hair. Now that you know a boat-load about it, all you have to do is compliment them on what you see.
Women really just want you to notice what they’ve done because they did it to look beautiful for you. It doesn’t matter if she’s your girlfriend or wife, she wants to look beautiful so you continue to find her attractive and because she wants to look good on arm (so you look good to other people). If she’s single, she still wants to look beautiful so that you find her attractive. Women love talking about their hair and they take a lot of pride in keeping it looking great.
Examples:
Your highlights look amazing! Did you get a full or a partial? (full highlights are all her hair, a partial is only part of it)
I love your asymmetrical bob! Who’s your stylist? I may want to recommend him/her to my friend…
That french braid really gives you a classic beauty look…
If she’s colored her hair recently:
Your colorist did a fantastic job!
So that’s that. Now go out and compliment some women!
~Matt Adams
November 17, 2014 @ 7:29 PM
I wish most men knew this much about hair, can’t even say how much time I spend fixing it when very few notice.