Hair-Raising Colors

“I want to put streaks of a pale sea foam green and a pale lavender in my hair. I can't seem to find a dye in either color. Does anyone know where I can find these dyes? Or can you tell me how to lighten darker dyes?” I read this thread on a fashion forum and thought to myself I could make a small fortune if I start producing temporary pastel hair dye! Well, I am a bit involved in going to college and not in the market to go into business I gonna throw my million-dollar-idea out to you!
Before you start mixing cationic dye with a water soluble anionic polymer in your basement (two key ingredients in temporary dye) allow me to explain the trend.
Lets start with Faran Krentcil, 28-year old digital director at Nylon magazine, who dipped her shoulder-length locks into a bathtub filled with a lavender tint (Virginia Snow, for anyone brave enough to copy her) and took a major plunge—she dyed her hair grey. Krentcil describes her new look as a “rock ’n’ roll fairy princess,” but someone less rad might describe her it as a granny-grey. Grey hair used to be associated with the distinguished women of "The Red Hat Society." Grey, a shade always coiffed in time for the blue-plate special supper, right? Wrong, in an odd turn of events, a clique of fashion “it girls” in their late 20 are dying for grey!

The trend of course trickled down from the runways: Chanel, Giles Deacon and Rodarte. Spring runway models had bright-- and thank goodness, temporary-- streaks of color added to their hair. Backstage at Chanel here is a photo of designer Karl Lagerfeld with model Heidi Mount.
Since I saw a gal rocking the look on the street yesterday I think the trend is about to go mainstream.
In the Comme des Garçons Spring 2010 Collection, the models wore wigs that looked like cotton-candy pinned into poodle-esque hairdo. Some wigs were baby pink others in gentle green and yellow—whatever the soft shade the statement was bold without being punk—an interesting evolution of colored manes.
“These women are showing that they have the money and the inclination to make gray a fashion statement,” said Rose Weitz, a professor of women and gender studies at Arizona State University. Professor Weitz, the author of “Rapunzel’s Daughters: What Women’s Hair Tells us about Women’s Lives,” was interviewed by New York Times reporter Ruth La Ferla for an April 11th story on the trend. Weitz suggested that to dye one’s hair gray is to flout one of fashion’s last taboos. Since fashion praises youth it is a subversive move to dye your hair a shade that we assoicate with the old.
Famous pint-sized blogger Tavi is seen standing behind a Jackson Pollock painting where she asks: "how perfectly does my hair that is in an in-between stage and a mixture of gray match this painting?" Clearly she loves her silver pixie cut, and she even documented the dye-job. I got the photo seen above of her under the lamp from stylerookie, Tavi's blog. She is reading "Girl Power" while the bleach takes hold and it got me thinking. Isn't this whole trend somehow connected to feminism? If you dye your hair a subversive color it is about standing out, being your own woman (and that woman may get approval from girlfriends) without getting caught up in looking "date-able."

Spaces: People as their Places

What is it about receiving an invite into a friend's home that sparks a type of curiosity that surely would kill us if we were cats? And what is it about gesturing someone through the threshold of your doorway that feels extra generous and inclusive? I think both responses (which after some field-research have proved normal) have something to do with the fact that we recognize people as places.
Rather, the spaces that they claim as theirs will unquestionably represent them, unless they are too lazy to decorate, which still oddly represents them.
Marquez said we all live three lives: the public, the personal and the private.
Well, fashion and interiors photographer Todd Selby is letting you into the private lives of creative types. Pictured above is Keith Abrahamsson, a music label director and his wife Kate Young, a stylist with their son in their New York City home. Todd Selby began taking portraits of authors, musicians, artists, and designers— basically any out-of-control cool and creative person you could dream of— and posting them on his web site.
Selby must have realized long ago that a private life is reflected by the private spaces of a home: bedroom dream-catchers and bathroom posters of the waning stages of the moon point to a whimsical side that one might have otherwise not noticed.
Or the places that are dying for attention. Like the neighbor who dots exceedingly ghastly groups of garish garden gnomes around his garden? A different take on Full-Moon...

Well the best blog for nosy creative types is now a book! The color-rich and eclectic quarters of, deep breath I am about to do some serious name-dropping: Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler, Faris Rotter, Andre Walker, and Olivier Zahm and he shoot in all the cool places you dream of studying abroad: Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney, and London. (Of course New York is separated into Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan and takes up a huge chuck of the blog and newly released book, because a huge chuck of the world's coolest people claim that as their place.)
Each profile lets you see how the hip types chill, where they sleep and what color the walls are in their kitchen. Each profile also has one of Selby’s signature watercolor portraits of the subjects and an illustrated questionnaire. The best part is the book is online for free (for a sample) probably for a limited time. check it out.

P.S-- think your digs are cool enough to be featured, click here if you have a sense of humor and want to see if you fit the bill.