The Hair Supreme

You loved Meg Ryan’s sporty shag circa French Kiss, but your hair is naturally frizzy and the cost of an $800 Sally Hershberger cut isn’t quite in the budget. Fear not. The only barrier between you and your perfect hair is knowledge. Here, top local gurus share what it takes to strike it right, how to work with your stylist, and some basic guidelines for matching looks with your natural face shape.

Shaping Your Style
Determining your face shape is a piece to the puzzle in finding a good hairstyle, says Christopher Hopkins, owner of reVamp! salonspa in Minneapolis. (Find your own shape among the examples in our slideshow.)

“One of the easiest ways to determine your face shape is to pull your hair back and trace the outline of your face onto a mirror with a dry erase marker,” he says. “You need to get very close to the mirror and close one eye. It may take a few tries.”

However, more than face shape is involved in choosing a hairstyle. “Neck length, head shape, profile, facial features, hair texture, as well as personal style and styling ability all come into play,” Hopkins adds. “Though a style may balance a face shape, it doesn’t always suit the woman wearing it.” So even though you may come to the salon with your own thoughts and ideas, be open to your stylist’s suggestions to avoid getting a cut that doesn’t complement your natural features.

First Impressions
Maureen Anlauf, master stylist at Juut Salonspa in St. Paul, says it’s important that a person reveal her personality to a stylist. For example, Anlauf formulates ideas for hairstyles with-in seconds of meeting a client. But after talking and getting to know the person—and observing her clothing style and disposition—Anlauf’s perceptions may change. “First of all, she needs to reveal herself, and second of all, she needs to choose a stylist that sees her correctly,” she says. Part of that is finding out what facial features the client likes best. Love your baby blues? Anlauf may suggest bangs to draw attention to the eyes. “My goal by the end of the hour is to have brought out her real beauty.”

Color Code
Considered the “perfect” face shape, the oval is what stylists try to create for their clients when fashioning a hairstyle. Mi Shaun Schmidt-Schwab, owner of The Beauty Room in Minneapolis and a master colorist and hair extension specialist, says that highlights—and the placement of them—can aid in this process. For example, since light expands and dark recedes, placing highlights where your face is thinner and lowlights where your face is wider will create balance in your face shape. (Hint: Color your hair after the cut, so the stylist knows where to put the color.) The correct placement of layers is also key: If someone has a “round face shape and all the layers are between the parietal and the jawline, the person is going to look ten times heavier,” Schmidt-Schwab says.