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Do Fall Fashion 2004 Hairstyles Suit You?
Seems like femininity and sensuality are taking over all fashion trends this year. So, stock up with high-heel shoes, big hair brushes and curling irons for the romantic and seductive look. As shows the last New York’s Fashion Week, the designers continue to combine glamorous style of the thirties and forties with frivolity of the fifties to create a soft, girly and flirtatious image of Fall Woman 2004.
Waves and curls a-la Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears stay popular throughout the whole year. One of the new hot things is volumized hair, a high and purposefully loose up-do that can be achieved by pinning up random sections of hair and leaving the rest for a sexy messy look. And here comes another, similar, yet more “original” and edgy style, ignored by us for years (I’d say, not without a reason) - the mullet. Stylists suggest adding some renovation and refreshment to it this season with asymmetry.
Colors tend to be soft and natural, with chocolate brown and auburn shades leading the list, and caramel and honey hues offered to blonds. But as this year’s fashion represents the mix of different epochs, the limits to variety are very few. The new hairstyles, influenced by the seventies and eighties, range from a classic bob, to a chunky and messy one, to a pageboy, combined with
choppy layers and other edgy elements. So if you are adherent to short hair cuts, the options and variants offered can leave you in confusion.
Curls or straight locks, bangs or no bangs, black or light, with highlights or without, chopped or flipped up is all acceptable and is always left for you to choose. Surfing the web I found an enormous amount of diverse and controversial information on the last hair trends. So, even following the major fashion trends, you should not forget that fashion is very diverse, versatile and relative. Base you decisions on your preferences, face shape, hair type and texture. Through hairstyles we express our identity and send a social message. And debates about whether curly, or long, or red hair is popular or whether it is attractive will arise as long as people live in a society. And any society has its stereotypes and biases.
In response to a rapidly growing popularity of short hair styles among women, men raise a question about the lack of femininity in women with short hair. When visiting New Zealand, one French ambassador made an indelicate comment about the local women looking like soldiers due to their wide-spread preference of short hair cuts. In the article it was explained by more introverted personality of New Zealand women, similar to the English and Belgians. As says hairdresser Lucy Vincent-Marr, of Stephen Marr Hair: Skin & Body: “The Australians are much more American in the way they style themselves with the long hair and gold jewelry. Their personality is worn on the outside". Paul Serville of the Servilles salons after visiting India and Russia got an impression that women tend to have longer hair in countries where they have more traditional roles. "New Zealand women are very independent. They don't really care about whether their husband or boyfriend likes it. It's what they like, so they're not pandering to men”, he said. "They're stronger women and are not going to be controlled. It's a good thing."
Whether women care or not what their men think about the length of their hair, the issue of men’s blond/brunette preferences has been out for a long time. According to some articles, men associate light hair with erotic adventures, black - with femme fatale, red - with emotional fireworks and exotics and brown hair with…home comfort. One study I discovered really amused me. According to the conclusions, made by a group of German sexologists, who have been studying the relation between a person’s appearance and his psychosexual characteristics, blond women are highly erotic and sexual creatures. They are very romantic, sensual, capricious and catty. Brunettes are cunning and patient. You never know what’s on their mind. They can pretend to be “a silly blond”. But they know all man’s thoughts, desires and erotic fantasies. Brunettes are extremely passionate and have more animal passion and sex drive than tenderness, so peculiar to blonds. Brown-hair ladies are noted for their high level of learning capability, including sex matters. They are the first to know the news of all extravagant sex-shops and love beautiful lingerie.
Another interesting research has been conducted by some Australian psychologists. They wanted to find out what percentage of male population prefers blonds, and what part is soft on brunettes. The results were surprising - only forty percent turned out to be blonds lovers. Having doubts about the gathered statistics, the psychologists decided to continue the experiment. The men were shown a video film with two types of participants - blond and brunette. And once again brunettes were the objects of preference. The researches went on and invited eighty women with different hair colors but purely natural, with no dye. This time eighty five percent of men voted for blond and red-haired women. The psychologists were puzzled…They found explanation in the “dragging” odor produced by pheromones, released through the pores of our skin. As it was discovered, natural blonds and red-heads produce pheromones six times more that brunettes and, thus, attract men more. No all of them, of course. There is also a certain connection between a man’s intellectual level and his preference of a woman’s hair color. Men, used to living in a strictly logical environment, with high intelligence quotient, in ninety percent cases favor brunettes. Sixty five out of hundred men, who do not overload themselves with mental work, choose women with naturally blond hair. Sociologists claim, though, that natural blonds are becoming a rare, disappearing kind, due to recessive qualities of “blond” genes.
Some other explanations of a wide-spread men’s weakness for blonds include the association with the best known sex symbol of many generations until now - Marilyn Monroe. So these are the studies, facts and, maybe, biased stereotypes. I am sure, a lot of you (and I am not an exception,) reading this, will indignantly challenge certain points. But I thought you would find it somewhat entertaining.
While discussing and analyzing various hair styles and colors I omitted one essential category of women - bold women. Even at the beginning of the 21st century women with shaved hairstyles are still considered something extraordinary by the majority and their beauty is rarely noticed and appreciated. By the way, in ancient Egypt, a woman’s shaved head was considered the ultimate in feminine beauty. Egyptian women removed their hair with special tweezers and then polished their scalps with buffing cloths. There are women in our modern society who want to try the “bold” look but do not dare. There are men who love and fantasize about the women with such look but don’t dare to admit. Maybe we overstate the importance of hair in respect of femininity? Here is what one Sinead-O'Connor-styled lady said about her choice:
“What do I have to say about my shaved head? I like it this way. It feels like me. Makes me feel good. I cannot imagine myself any other way. Shaving my head every two weeks gives me an instant confidence boost and, armed with my own clippers, no-one has to help me in recreating the style: I can pleasure myself.
“But, just as I thought, that's really not good enough for others out there. Personal tastes are out of fashion. That is, until they grow into a subculture. So, right now, I'm public property; and occasionally that means I'm also constructed as public enemy.”
So, dear ladies, let’s forget about norms, trends and stereotypes. Be experimental, playful, diverse and self-confident. Bring out your beauty and let your only guidelines be your self-determination and your life-style.
by Jasmeen Vella, content sponsors http://www.fashiongates.com
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