For some reason, I’ve always been infatuated with redheads. I feel like they command attention, stand out from a crowd and somehow make anything look glamorous. They add a pop of color to even the most boring ensembles! Red hair seems to offer or elicit a special air of confidence and I love that it’s sort of different from the norm, especially certain bright colors, but it doesn’t feel too crazy. When I did a little research, I found out that almost all my favorite, fabulous redheads were not actually born that way. From Christina Hendricks to Karen Elson to my favorite Swedish blogger, Elsa Billgren, all are bottled reds, but have the total fierceness to rock the bright hue. This gave me hope for my own possible redheaded fabulousness.
Here is some of my hairspiration: Christina Hendricks above and Elsa Billgren below
Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine
Marie Claire Accessories Editor Taylor Tomasi Hill
Model Karen Elson
I actually like my brown hair, but I’ve wanted to dye it red since October when I was Mad Men’s Joan for Halloween and wore this awesome red wig below. I cut the bangs like mine and pinned parts of it back. I think overall I was just ready for a change and the wig certainly made me less nervous to take the plunge.
I recently made a new friend, Henry De La Paz, hair dresser extraordinaire, and he offered to do my hair. I found out he actually did Zooey Deschanel’s hair for 500 Days of Summer so I knew he could be trusted with my hair and most importantly..my bangs! Here’s a little before/after….
BEFORE:
DURING:
(eep!)
AFTER:
I think coloring my eyebrows was the only thing that made me nervous. “What if it drips down and I go blind?” I worried, but, of course, that didn’t happen.
I love it! The pictures above were taken under weird lighting and it’s hard to see the red, but when I tried to take a picture with my camera, I was out of “myspace pic practice” and couldn’t get a good one. Here’s a close up though of just how red it turned out..
So there you have it. I’m a ginger now and it feels great! I was going to do a post on if I was treated different as a redhead, but so far nothing too dramatic has happened. My color is probably subdued enough that I’m not getting weird looks. I’ve gotten some compliments from Sephora ladies and I already get shouts from street dudes once in a while cause of my “badonkadonk” as I call it so I’m not sure anything there is different. I went on a first date days after “going red,” but I’m still wondering if it helped or hindered. It might be girls who appreciate red hair more so than dudes. I was warned by a fellow Bustie to watch out for redhead fetishists though!
I will say that it’s been hard trying to figure out what makeup and colors go best with it. My lips seem naked without a balance of color now so I automatically think red lipstick is perfect, but sometimes feels overdone. The bright pink blush I usually love combined with red hair is also giving me some red undertones now so I have to ask, any makeup suggestions from redheads out there?
On an end note, some other fabulous (and faux) redheads who I love and didn’t list above would have to be Lucille Ball (who knew?!), Gillian Anderson, Alyson Hannigan (Buffy nerd in the house!), and Nicole Kidman. Natural or not, who are some of YOUR favorite redheads?
To keep up with my navigation of redhead ensembles, head over to my blog, Twee Valley High.
[Twee Valley High/Ginger Love]
[Elsa Billgren photo via her Swedish blog/Florence Welch and Taylor Tomasi Hill photos via Jak and Jill/Karen Elson photo via MarieClaire.com]
