Latest Hair Trend

Straight talk on the latest hair trend
Greg Morago / Hartford Courant

Let's get one thing perfectly straight: If you want one of the hottest looks this season you have to get perfectly straight. Hair, that is.

Led by Reese Witherspoon (who also sported tamed tresses for the Golden Globes), the recent Oscar-night red carpet proved to be a showcase for the hair trend for shimmering straight locks. Witherspoon was hardly alone in the straight race. Nicole Kidman, Beyonce, Gwyneth Paltrow, Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett-Smith all looked great in straight hair.

It's a trend that clearly has legs after the red-carpet season, well into summer and even fall. Fashion runway looks from the spring/summer collections announced straight hair months ago, but there were also plenty of examples of straight hair in the recent collections in New York for this fall and winter. Major design houses such as Valentino and Fendi are on board with print campaigns featuring straight hair.

"It's a recycle, but it's definitely happening," celebrity hair stylist Oscar Blandi says. "Straight is coming back strongly. It's straight, but it's a different straight."

How?

It has body. Unlike the trend about six or seven years ago for stick-straight hair (a trend that brought with it all kinds of expensive hair-straightening systems and products), this season's straight has body, movement and shine.

"The key thing is that the hair is phenomenally shiny. It is very glossy, shiny hair," Redken stylist Kaz Amor says. "If you look at Gwyneth (at the Oscars), the hair was moving. It was not stiff, straight-down hair."

Blandi said the previous straight-hair trend dictated almost no movement.

"It's not spaghetti. Before, the hair was almost attached to the skull," he says. "Now, it's got a silky texture. It's not flat. There's much more body. This is a trend that's going to carry on for a while."

Instead of parting in the middle, today's straight styles are parted on the side and pulled away from the face, says Tim Rogers, stylist and spokesman for Charles Worthington hair products and salons.

"There's a strong side part and a lot

of motion and movement in the hair,"

Rogers says. "It's a clean, sleek, smooth look."

Because fashion and beauty help dictate hair trends, the time seems ripe for straight hair styles.

"There's a lot of color for spring," Amor says. "Whenever you have a lot of color, the hair tends to be simpler. Right now the hair needs to be simple."

Yes, above is one of the articles that I came across online and thought of sharing it with you all. In fact, it's also featured in the The Star papers and I found it interesting since I'm very keen with beauty, fashion and lifestyle. Well, the first thing that came to my mind was, wowee... I'm having straight hair (re-bonded) and that means I'm in one of the hottest looks this season and...I'm hot, tee-hee...! Seems like vanity strikes me again (I know) but heck, I'm very glad I did not curl or perm my hair which I kinda intended to do. :)

Well, I may not have the most beautiful hair on earth, but I'm proud and more than just glad that I'm having straight hair and I'm in the latest trend. So, before I go, here's a random picture of mine with straight hair and do pardon me for my extreme vanity. :P

With black hair
but I think I still look good :D