Fed up of your fringe? Bored with your bangs? Yeh, so am I. Looks like Cheryl Cole and a whole rake of other celebridees are too, so sure at least we're in good company. But what to do with your face curtains while they're at that awkward in-between-y growing out phase?
- If you want to keep your fringe in place while it's just a teeny tiny little bit too long, try backcombing it at the roots or blowdrying it using a small round-barrel brush to give it a bit of lift and enable you to see out from under it.
- Ask your hairdresser to thin out your fringe and blend its edges, and to add face-framing layers, or raise your existing ones. This will make it look like there's not such a dramatic difference between the length of the fringe and the rest of the gruaig when you wear it down, and your growing out fringe will simply become your shortest layer in no time at all.
- Invest in some hair hardware to keep your fringe from blinding you altogether when it gets to the stage where it's just too long to be left down. Clips, grips, hairbands, headbands - these are your New Best Friends. And don't panic if you're not a fan of Alice bands or colourful snap clips, just go for something subtle like the skinny elasticated Blax hairbands from HQhair (€4 or €4.75 depending on the style you choose), Goody hairbands with integrated, stay-put treads in colours to blend with your hair (€5.99 for two in Boots) or Boots' own brand non-slip matte blending hair grips (€2.10).
- Take a bit of time to kit yourself out with and then play around with your new accessories, because just as there are millions of varieties of these yokes in the siopaí, there are a multitude of ways to use them. Here are just a few suggestions off the top of my, er, head:
>> Backcomb the fringe as a whole to give it a bit of texture and volume and do away with any slippiness, twist from the middle to the ends, push the front forward slightly and pin in place - voilà, mini quiff in the style of Gwen Stefani and Scarlett Johansson.
>> When hair is parted, just use a couple of blending hair grips to secure the fringe either side of the part; lifting the fringe back into the rest of your hair slightly before pinning it will help it to blend in. Alternatively, twist your fringe in with a few strands around your face before pinning.
>> Use two or three of the same, relatively skinny elasticated hairbands (or just look out for one with multiple bands in the likes of Accesorize!) to catch every last wisp of hair when sweeping it back off your face, add a bit of interest, and avoid any likeness to a 6-year-old schoolgirl. - If hair's straight, just a light spritz of hairspray should be enough to secure flyaways and keep any waywardness at bay when you're putting your fringe up. Anyone with coarse or curly hair could use a small amount of wax worked well into the strands to do the same job.
- Try a side-swept fringe once it's long enough; there are actually very few faces that an off-centre part and a side fringe won't suit. Be sure to blowdry the fringe before the rest of your hair in the direction that you want it to lie.
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And don't get disheartened - hair grows at a rate of about 1/2" a month on average (depending on age and health) but does grows a bit quicker in the summer, so there's no better time to say farewell to your fringe!
