Thursday, 9 April 2015

Awards Season 2015

As always the awards shows that took place in the last couple of months proved inspirational for both female and male hair trends, as well as fashion and beauty looks. At PS we constantly look to celebrities and the fashion world for emerging hair trends that we can feed back to our lovely clients in the salon. For this blog post, we thought it might be fun to introduce a few of our favourite fashion looks chosen by Amy Trayford – a fashion graduate and the brains behind our blog, along with beauty looks as picked by Katharine Shaw – makeup artist and sister to PS owner’s Pippa and Paula. Last month was Katharine's first in the team and we are excited to get her input and opinion on the top looks from this year's shows.  Focusing on women’s hair trends is Pippa – PS’s founder and creative hair stylist, while Paula - the barber at PS has contributed her thoughts on the best gent’s styles at the awards.
 Starting with our favourite fashion looks…

























Sienna Miller at the Golden Globes
The Golden Globes is the first big night on the Hollywood calendar which means all eyes turn to the event for emerging trends. Making a comeback this year is Sienna Miller who chose a gorgeous metallic embroidered Miu Miu dress, and accessorised it with Jimmy Choo heels and Tiffany & Co jewellery. The soft nude hue of the dress complimented the actress’ natural-looking tan and dewy skin.
Emma Stone at the Golden Globes
Another standout look from the Golden Globes came from Emma Stone who chose a stylish Lanvin jumpsuit for the occasion. The black cigarette-cut trousers complimented Emma’s slim frame, while the heavily encrusted bodice added glamour and opulence to the overall look. Finishing the jumpsuit off was an oversized satin bow, tied at the waist.
Katy Perry at the Grammys
The final look from our top 3 is Katy Perry at the Grammy awards. The Grammys, arguably the biggest night in the music world, attracts the leading names in the industry and is the best place for spotting a variety of directional looks. Katy opted for a tasteful sheer sheath dress with all over crystal fringing. She wore the Zuhair Murad dress with a thin gold waist belt and metallic strappy sandals by Sophie Webster. 
Moving onto the best beauty looks…

























Rihanna at the Grammys
Rihanna showed flawless skin with a hint of highlights on her cheekbones, keeping blusher and bronzer to a minimum. The singer’s eyebrows were in a perfect strong straight line without being overpowering by keeping a very natural colour. Her lip colour was kept natural with a light pinky shade and matte finish, while her eyes were awash with shimmery gold and finished with mascara.
Lea Seydoux at the BAFTAS
Lea added 40s glamour to the BAFTAS with a warm make-up palette to match her honey blonde hair. Her eye shadow was a warm bronze shade with soft brown for definition and finished with mascara. Not too much colour was added to her cheeks allowing the focus to be on her lips with a gorgeous glossy red for a full pout.
Keira Knightley at the PGA Awards
Keira chose a very soft look for the Producers Guild of America Award, creating a feminine and dainty ballerina-esque look. A soft contouring technique was applied, using highlighting more than bronzing to produce glowing natural-looking skin. Her eyes were shaded with nude tones and finished with plenty of mascara, whilst her brows were perfectly in place with a definitive full shape. Finishing off her make-up was a pretty deep rose pink lipstick with a velvety matte finish. 
Next is our favourite female hair trends…
Katy Perry at the Grammys
Katy Perry showcased a daring choice with purple tousled hair. At PS we love playing with artist’s shades, especially purple tones. This is a great choice if you have, or are growing out, bleached hair. To achieve the same look as Katy, curl with straightners and then tousle with Davines Oi Oil.
Beyonce at the Grammys
Another top female hair look that was spotted at the Grammys was the queen of pop herself – Beyonce. Beyonce epitomised the boho-chic look with beautiful, ultra-long golden waves. To achieve this style spray with Davines More Inside sea salt spray and plait overnight.
Rebel Wilson at the SAG awards
The comedy actress demonstrated an elegant vintage look at the Screen Actors Guild awards with loose 1940s style curls. To curl your hair the old-fashioned way – dust off the Carmen’s rollers! Once they are cooled, brush your hair through then soften into place with your fingers. Add Davines More Inside Finishing spray, et voila!
Reese Witherspoon at the SAG awards
Finishing off the best female hair looks is Reese Witherspoon who at the SAG awards opted for the ultimate up do – the classic ponytail. Follow in Reese’s steps by blow drying volume into your hair (use rollers for added oomph and finish) then pulling back into a soft ponytail. Take a piece of hair and wrap it around the base of your ponytail, pinning it with a kirby grip, to transform your look from daywear to red carpet.
Lastly – our favourite gent’s styles…






















Jared Leto at the Oscars…
With the Californian sun playing backdrop to the Oscars’ red carpet, it’s no surprise that us Brits turn to the award show for spring/summer hair inspiration. Always one for showcasing a more daring fashion is Jared Leto who this year opted for a lilac Givenchy suit for the Oscars, teaming it with a white shirt and bow tie and all-white shoes and of course his trademark caveman locks.
Matthew McConaughey at the SAG awards…
This year saw Matthew McConaughey gelling down those lovely curls at the Screen Actors Guild Award - setting the trend for a more tousled look that is perfect for longhaired gents this summer. Matthew added even more style with a shiny royal blue suit jacket to finish off his otherwise traditional monochrome ensemble.

























James Bay and George Ezra at the BRITS…
Providing inspiration from our side of the pond was the cool and understated James Bay, along with our salon fave’ George Ezra. Both young musicians displayed well conditioned hair, with George opting for a smarter swept across do, whilst James accessorised his long effortless waves with his trademark fedora hat.
Benedict Cumberbatch and David Beckham at the BAFTAS…
As always, the BAFTAS proved to be the best place to turn to for the top formal hair dos from a host of scrubbed up handsome gents. Benedict Cumberbatch added style to his traditional short back and sides look with a sophisticated curl. David Beckham also opted for the conventional cropped sides hair, finishing his look off with a sleek and high quiff, which certainly says dapper a lot better than that Alice band from the old days.

Overall our top look had to be Katy Perry, who featured in both our favourite fashion and hair trends for her style at the Grammys. The singer looks classy and elegant while her purple hair gave her an extra edge. Now she has won the prize for PS' best awards look,  the only question is - which gent would she go for? Jared Leto in his matching lilac? Or perhaps one of our Brit toy boys; George Ezra or James Bay...
With spring now here and summer just around the corner now is the time to update your look for the coming season. Take inspiration from our favourite looks above and don’t forget, our salon can advise you on the best style to suit you. Remember to check out our Instagram and Twitter pages to find out what is going on in our salon, as well as all our thoughts from the latest events including the MTV Movie Awards which takes place this Sunday!

Wednesday, 4 March 2015

Davines World Wide Hair Tour

At the end of October PS’ owners Pippa and Paula took some time out to join the Davines World Wide Hair Tour 2014, and have shared their experience of the event with the rest of us at PS.

Founded in Italy in 1983, Davines started as a research laboratory producing high-end hair care products for renowned cosmetic companies worldwide. The company has since gone on to create their own brand of Davines hair care products exclusively for salons, along with skin care for premier spas.

Nowadays Davines is present in over 80 countries worldwide and visits a different one every year as part of the Tour – and this year it was London’s turn to host.

Our salon joined the world of Davines at the start of 2014 and after learning a lot from the company we were excited to experience the true welcome into the Davines family that the tour would give us.

The venue for the show was the Masonic Headquarters in Queen Street, Covent Garden. Built in 1920 to commemorate the fallen heroes of WW1, the chosen venue seemed particularly poignant, given that it is the centenary anniversary of the end of that war. 

“Now there are hair shows and there is World Wide Hair Tour! It’s like nothing we have experienced before; the combination of drama, training education, philosophy, well being, visualisation and art were beautifully put together.”

Throughout the tour attendees were able to learn fully about how Davines operates. This starts with their conceptual ideas stage and includes worldwide farming using small family-owned businesses, packaging made from recycled materials, distribution using family-run companies to hair salons like our own.

“Although these fabulous hairdressers were presenting to a crowd of 1500 people, they remained relaxed and humorous, which made watching them very inspiring”.

The Allilon education team from Ena Salon (home of Davines HQ in the UK) were particularly cool to watch: “The way they work together and spar off each other made for a lovely show. It was like the atmosphere we have in the salon on a busy Saturday!” And that didn’t detract from the amazing collection they delivered... all based on the drawings of Kevin Okafor – and well worth a ‘google’!”

Angelo Seminara, Davines’ Artistic Director and three-times ‘British Hairdresser of the Year’, did two shows during the event; one of which is his current ‘Woodland’ collection – a theme which has been present in our own salon these past 5 years. Presenting both an interesting and amusing show, Seminara delivered very cool and simplistic ideas, which our team have already started introducing to our clients in Frimley.

“With Davines showing how beauty can be, and is, sustainable – we were struck many times at how well the ideals of Davines fit with what we have been doing for the past 6 years, and are aiming for in the future. This gives us a very comforting feeling.” 

#ISustainBeauty

‘I Sustain Beauty’ is the tag line for Davines that sums up a way to want to inspire, create and grow in the hairdressing world. Out individual USP at PS, that we have always stuck by, is using classic and contemporary hair styling to welcome every member of a family (whether it be the matriarch or the new bundle of joy) into our boutique high street salon.

#ISustainBeauty allows us to help the environment using a #skill and #craft that we love. During the WWHT, Davines taught us how sustainability, eco-awareness and charity can be used in normal day-to-day salon life, without jeopardising our business reputation and whilst developing a positive relationship with the community around us.

Whilst we are an individual and unique salon, our main values and practices are mirrored with those of Davines; this is something which became even more apparent during the tour.

Davines recognises the importance of business’ awareness and contribution to charity, which is something we have always demonstrated. Through each year we have various charity events for both the Little Princess Trust and Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research. (A previous post on our charity work can be found here.)

Putting aside the charity contribution, the main business foundation for Davines is to be eco-friendly and sustainable. We are constantly demonstrating the same values in our salon from every day recycling and turning off lights/water, to using old recycled furniture to decorate our salon, creating a unique and homely atmosphere.

Wood and woodland has always been a main theme in our salon, with a man-made tree always being the centre of our various window displays. Wood has also appeared in our salon in more recent times in the form of picture frames and coat hooks made from old pieces of re-worked wood. Angelo Seminara’s woodland collection (presented at the tour) emphasised how closely our salon fits with Davines and provided us with further inspiration on how to continue to introduce this theme in PS Hairdressing. 

The attitude of the stylists at Davines WWHT was very relaxed and informal, which really allowed their individual personalities to show through. This combined with a high level skill of hairdressing creates a comfortable and reassuring feeling of not being afraid to ask for what you want, and knowing you will walk away with a quality cut and colour that you love. This really is what we aim for in our own salon – PS Hairdressing.

Wednesday, 24 December 2014

Happy Christmas from PS Hairdressing!

Happy Christmas from PS Hairdressing! Below is our recycled, reused and naturally inspiring Christmas window display.
































This month we have been very busy in the salon with client’s cuts and colours ready for Christmas, along with creating and promoting our own PS Advent Calendar.

The team decided it would be fun to use the traditional December countdown to Christmas to give our clients and friends hair advice for the winter and festive season (as well as a few offers and gift ideas thrown in!) Our only challenge was thinking up 24 exciting and helpful tips – although we are blessed to have such a creative team who each contributed wonderful ideas. These ranged from promotional offers and giveaways to the best party nibbles for hair nutrition and a superfood hair-heath smoothie, packed full of ingredients to make your hair shine.
































The next challenge was how to present them all. At PS we already use Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to share photographs quite regularly so this was easy to continue; but we wanted to expand on this for the calendar. So we decided to include a few videos

Our lovely friend Sophie volunteered to be Elsa at a ‘Frozen’ fundraiser which included PS’ Paula recreating Elsa’s iconic Ice Queen plait, which we were able to capture on video and upload to both Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. We also uploaded “Our Easy Chignon Hair Up Demo by Pippa” and “Easy Hair Up Do for Short Hair by Pippa” – both of which are under three minutes long. These have proved popular and given us sparkling video ideas for the New Year and beyond. 











































The videos for all three can be found on our YouTube channel here

Throughout the year we have been working with GHD and Davines products and have found a variety of ways to create special gifts and offers to help our wonderful clients celebrate and enjoy the brands we love. Davines has featured in a number of our advent calendar days including a free travel size set of Davines ‘Love’ Shampoo/Conditioner given with any two ‘Davines Essentials’ products purchased, as well as a free perfume with any two ‘Davines Oi’ products bought. While a GHD promotion was offered at the end of last month with a reduction on Classic Mark IV stylers











































After a busy and successful year, we are looking forward to winding down for a couple of days over Christmas, and more importantly we are excited for what 2015 will bring for PS Hairdressing!

Friday, 31 October 2014

We Are Six!


























A couple of weeks ago we celebrated our 6th birthday at the salon! It’s been a brilliant 6 years within which we have worked hard to create a lovely and warm environment for both our staff and customers to enjoy.

Our location in the heart of Frimley means that we have become a part of the community and it’s so nice being able to wave at so many friendly faces we know as they pass by.

It’s wonderful watching our team in the salon, all of who have been trained at PS and fully understand the ideals we work by. For us it’s more than just cutting hair; we want our clients to enjoy our friendly atmosphere and feel relaxed from the moment they walk in.

With an exciting and successful past 6 years for PS, we’re hoping for more happiness and success in the future and look forward to what will be next on the horizon.