E40 - Field Recordings

Curl Next Door Episode 40 - "Field Recordings" with Kim Gabriel from Born Curly Hair Salon.

 

Hosts: Stephanie Podolak and Tamara Robbins Griffith

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[intro music]

 

Stephanie and Tamara: Curl Next Door!

 

[sound of doorbell]

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Stephanie: Hello. Welcome to Curl Next Door Podcast.

Tamara: The Curly Hair Podcast where we talk about fun things that have to do with curls, coils, and waves.

Stephanie: That's right. Hello, Tamara Robins Griffith.

Tamara: Hello, Stephanie Podolak. How are you?

Stephanie: I'm doing great. I'm doing so good. The sun is shining. Spring is here.

Tamara: oh my God,

Stephanie: are longer.

Tamara: yes.

Stephanie: makes such a difference.

Tamara: Yes and it's the in between season before full humidity sets in of summer.

Stephanie: Yes, a curly girl's woe.. 

Tamara: Yeah. I mean, there's some pros to it, right? Like our hair's not quite as dried out in the summer, but it's can be tricky to manage.

Stephanie: Definitely more pros than cons, I think.

Tamara: Yes, I'll take summer. So how's it going?

Stephanie: good. Can I tell you about my hair?

Tamara: Tell me, tell me. I haven't seen you in so long

Stephanie: I know.

Tamara: On FaceTime.

Stephanie: So this isn't really a curly story, it's more of a colour story. I am. In my life, I'm trying to do things that simplify my life, like laser hair removal, or only buying black and grey clothes for work, so it's easier to get dressed.

And the other issue with my hair is that my greys grow in fast and I'm getting more of them. And when I dye my hair, like I had an all over colour and like the next day, the roots would start to show at my temples, like the next day and then it just looks yucky cuz it's dark brown. And then you've got this shock of white.

And I always envy blondes because it blends in a little bit more, but it's really hard if you've got dark hair.

Tamara: right.

Stephanie: I spoke to Tammie Axworthy from The Hair Boutique.. We had her on season one.

Tamara: Mm-hmm.

Stephanie: Or season two. She was our first interview guest. Anyway, uh, she's a pal of mine and she was giving me some advice cuz my challenge to her was, how do I let the greys grow in so that it sort of blends in?

Cuz I'm constantly on this hamster wheel of trying to hide these greys. So I spent some time with her last night. I was in the chair for six hours and she did this really great treatment on my hair. So we agreed we were going to celebrate the greys. And she ended up pulling out a bunch of the dark colour and turn like bleaching out some of the colour

and then over several steps, like she repaired it to make sure that it wasn't gonna be damaged. And then we put in, um, a product called elumen. I don't know if you've ever used elumen on your highlights.

Tamara: No, I don't know elumen.

Stephanie: elumen. Yeah. So. I'm still wrapping my head around it too. It's hair colour, but it's not like traditional hair colour, like traditional hair colour.

I'm gonna, this is probably pretty reductive, but like traditional hair colour just is a solid all over colour and it will kind of even out all the various colour into that one colour.

it's a bit harsher, but elumen is less ingredients and it's a lot friendlier on your hair and it picks up and works with the colours underneath.

So my ultimate effect is you get a bit more colour variation. So there's this really great colour texture happening, and we did this all over my hairline and then some highlights throughout my head. And the elumen colours she put in, were kind of blue and grey with the goal of sort of making it like a silver.

Tamara: Mm-hmm.

Stephanie: And it looks really cool. Like I definitely now have more grey hair, but it's like a really beautiful grey, like an intentional grey.

Tamara: Wow. Pictures, please. Pictures. Can

Stephanie: Yeah, I'll send pictures. Um, and judge free zone. She gave me a blowout. I always get blowouts when I'm at the hair salon, so it's straight right now. But, um, it's nice and smooth, but, uh, yeah, so the, I'm really excited about it cuz I think what's, what's supposed to happen is like tomorrow when my grey start to grow in, they'll just blend.

It'll just blend and then over time we can just reapply this elumen and it can start reapplying on all the roots and just start like blending into my hair. So I think that this is the start of a really good turnkey journey for me.

Tamara: Ooh, I love a turnkey journey.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Tamara: like my whole face is tattooed so that I can just wake up and go in the morning basically. Well, I have microblading. I have microblading, so my eyebrows are done. Then I got lip blush, then I got lash line enhancement. Like a lot of it's really subtle, but to me it was, it's the same purpose.

Was driving, it was like, I'm not a big makeup person. And of course, permanent makeup like is a bit scary, right? Because it isn't, doesn't wash off like you're, but in the hands of like very trusted professionals who have an amazing track record. I'm like, let's simplify my life. Let's simplify those mornings.

Let's simplify. Getting ready, getting out the door. So I totally hear you. I'm very excited to see your hair because I don't think I've ever known you with highlights and it sounds like it's just highlights that are more grey versus whatever, blonde. And that's brilliant. And, and I think, um, Marissa Curls, who we had on the podcast also talked about her journey going grey, and I think more and more people are embracing it now.

And of course, we talked about Andie McDowell, I think too.

Stephanie: Yep.

Tamara: beautiful grey curls. So I'm very excited for you and I wanna your journey.

Stephanie: Yeah, and you know, I've been thinking about it for a while and I, we had a great conversation with Marissa about it because, She just celebrates it and owns it and is totally cool with it. And that was, I think, a really important conversation in my grey hair journey. It got me thinking about it more seriously. You can't turn back the clock, but I'm gonna just make my life happy and easy.

So I'm good with it. And I'll send you a picture and. I'm into what you're saying too, like the simplification from a makeup perspective and I, I'm assuming in your case you just did something subtle and if you wanted to change your colour you could by putting on lipstick, right?

Tamara: Oh yeah, I can. I can change the lipstick. I can put on red, I can put on orange, I can put on hot pink. But when I have nothing, it's just kind of like neutral. It doesn't look as like white and washed out as

Stephanie: Yeah.

Tamara: lips can get like that dry, dry look. Anyway. I mean, it works really well for me and just kind of helps me cuz I'm not a, a lot of, I wear makeup mostly for TV or like special occasions, but my day-to-day, you know, I still wanna look polished and accentuate some of my features.

But yeah. Anyway, I'm very happy for you. That sounds awesome

Stephanie: Yeah. Thank you.

Tamara: good that you got to spend time with your friend Tammie also.

Stephanie: Oh, I know. It's so fun when one of your close friends is also your hair stylist, cuz you're there for a long time and this procedure took a long time. This process.

Tamara: Right. People forget, like it's a big trend right now for kids to get like rainbow coloured hair. 

Stephanie: Yeah. 

Tamara: And for some reason in our society now, most more kids are going to hairstylists for it versus just a about se manic panic at home. And parents don't realize how long. You're gonna have to get your kid to sit in the salon for,

Stephanie: Oh yeah.

Tamara: for the first process of bleaching and stripping outta the old colour, and then getting in to do the actual colouring.

Stephanie: Oh yeah, and this was, I, I failed to mention, this was actually my second visit with her, my first visit. Was a couple weeks ago and she lifted out some of the old colour to try and make my head more even, because I think I told you I was getting a subscription hair colour product sent to me and I started doing this during the pandemic.

And so I kept doing my own colour and I'm not an expert and I totally screwed it up. And so it was oversaturating my hair. So the front of my head was really dark and the back of my head was a bit more natural because I can't reach the back of my head. So I ended up with this really yucky hair combination going on.

So she had to fix it. And you know what, when I sat we're, we're gonna, uh, talk later with, Kim Gabriel from Born Curly and when I sat with her, she called me out on it too. She's like, what did you do to your hair colour?

Tamara: Oh yeah.

Stephanie: Yeah. So Tammie had to first fix it, and then last night she did this really great elumen application.

So it was, yeah, it was a two stepper.

Tamara: Awesome. , I have a, a quick curl desk update just in the world of entertainment, pop culture and, uh, curly hair. Not that much of a news story, but curious for any of those fans of the, what do they call it, the bridgerverse, Bridgeton fans. Shonda Rhimes has a new show called Queen Charlotte, which is a.

Prequel and I have not watched it yet. I'm not a big Bridgeton person, but purely for the costumes, hair and makeup, it looks quite impressive and amazing. And this, uh, new show features a beautiful young black actress. And the curls in this show look phenomenal and, apparently they really use her hair as a metaphor for the character's journey, so, I'm not gonna deep dive here or anything, but there's a great article in the Hollywood Reporter by Brande Victorian.

That's the author's name and, and the title is, or the headline is Bridgeton Prequel Takes Queen Charlotte on an 18th Century Natural Hair Journey. So I'll post this in our Facebook, and on our Twitter and Take a look at some of the pictures. I mean, obviously you can tune in. Shonda Rhimes has an impressive and amazing career.

but even if you don't wanna watch the show, take a look at some pictures of the hairstyles on this actress. Her name is India. I don't know how to pronounce her last name. Afo Amarteifio, something like that. Gorgeous young actress and some impressive hairstyles.

Stephanie: I'm so glad you covered that. I've been seeing some headlines about Queen Charlotte. I can't wait to watch it. I do love the Bridgerton series on Netflix. They're pretty fun. They're kind of like my guilty little pleasure.

Tamara: Well, it, I gather it's kind of a period soap opera, like more so than, um, Downton Abbey even. Right?

Stephanie: Yeah. And it's a little bit more bubblegum.

Tamara: Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie: Yeah, it's great. Oh good. Love this curl desk story. I've got one too. I was reading the Globe and Mail and came across a headline that says, study uncovers new insights into genetics of the wooly mammoth.

Tamara: oh.

Stephanie: And I'm not gonna talk to you about the wooly mammoth except

Tamara: you not? I'm interested though.

Stephanie: yeah.

Okay, well I'll just keep it brief, but there, there's a bunch of scientists doing genetic assessments of the wooly mammoth, and they're trying to understand what genes. developed and evolved into the elephant.

Tamara: Okay.

Stephanie: and so they're comparing, a mammoth from 700,000 years ago. It's amazing that people found this kind of organic material to do that

Tamara: technology now.

Stephanie: and they're comparing it with 28 modern day Asian and African elephants, so they're trying to understand evolution and the reason I thought it was great to talk about with you is because they identified a gene involving fur type and growth that was different than modern elephants and they compared it to a gene in humans that's associated with something called uncombable hair syndrome, is a condition characterized by dry and frizzy hair that cannot be combed flat.

Have you ever heard of uncombable hair syndrome?

Tamara: No, I, I, I'm, I don't understand this concept.

Stephanie: Yeah, so if you Google it, you'll see some pictures show up. It's, it, it says, um, on the internet that the condition develops in childhood and sometimes appears as late as age 12. And oftentimes it's light coloured haired children, and you're unable to comb it down like it's just poofy. And it just won't behave.

There's these genetics that impact the protein in your hair and that impacts the hair shaft formation.

Tamara: Really,

Stephanie: Yeah. Give it a Google so you can see some of the pictures.

Tamara: so it's a rare genetic condition, but you, you think if you just look at a picture of one of those kids, then the first instinct is, Maybe the parents need to use some conditioner. But you're saying like the hair is different.

Stephanie: The hair is different, so it's not just about how you treat your hair. It's tied potentially to other autoimmune issues.

Tamara: mm-hmm.

Stephanie: I've never heard of it and I wanted to talk to you about it and I, it's always interesting when you can tie a human genetic trait back to animals, and in this case, the wooly mammoth.

Tamara: Wow.

Stephanie: Mammoth, some of their evolution, they had fluffier hair, which would've helped provide insulation in the cold, but it was fluffy, but I guess it was uncombable.

Tamara: Those mammoths, they were like having a hard time at the stylist. I just can't deal with this hair.

Interesting. Well,

Stephanie: then this article ends with the data set could see be seen as an element in the roadmap towards resurrection.

Could you imagine if wooly mammoth roam the earth again?

Tamara: So sorry. They're gonna resurrect them. How are what?

Stephanie: that's what this article's implying. It's a very short article. I didn't go much deeper than this cuz it was more the hair syndrome I wanted to talk to you about.

Tamara: Right.

Stephanie: it does say researchers are not trying to resurrect the mammoth, but this work could assist should someone else try to resurrect the mammoth.

Tamara: Wow. Well there's, I, my mind is a little bit blown by all of that cuz it's like we're just gonna create some genetically, I don't know, cre re like what? That sounds like Jurassic Park to me. I. We're gonna make some dinosaurs

Stephanie: Yeah,

Tamara: But um, there's certainly a lot of rare health conditions and genetic conditions out there that we haven't heard of because they're so uncommon.

Stephanie: that's right. 

Tamara: But what is common is unwanted hair.

Stephanie: Oh,

Tamara: Do you like my segue?

Stephanie: that was such a great segue. I kind of wanna do like

Tamara: You can boom me. That's fine.

Stephanie: Good tie. Good

Tamara: So, you know, we were lucky to receive some press samples from Parissa,

Stephanie: Yeah. Parissa Wax.

Tamara: and at first Stephanie, you were like, um, are you interested in this, Tamara? Because we talked, talk about hair and somehow got on the radar of these PR people. She's like, are you interested in talking about your bikini line, that other curly hair? it's like, yeah, sure, why not? It's all hair. We talk about hair and you were saying earlier actually, that you've been doing some laser hair removal.

Stephanie: Yeah, I have. but it's, it's not a hundred percent perfect and sometimes I need to shave or wax some off. So this was timely. My mother was a little bit mortified that we were going to be talking about this on the show, but I'm not. It's human. We all have hair.

Tamara: a generational thing too, right? Like

Stephanie: We all have hair.

We all have hair down there. There's nothing to be sh shy about. So Parissa sent us bikini and underarm wax strips. And what was your experience with them?

Tamara: I am a big fan because I haven't done waxing at home in about, 25 or 30 years. I remember as a teenager, my mother bought these little wax pots from The Body Shop, I think, and it was very messy and painful. Then when I got into my twenties and it was like all the rage, it was the time of probably Paris Hilton and low-rise jeans and Brazilian waxes and all these new like wax places popped up in the city of Toronto.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Tamara: was the thing to like wax everything off and it was very popular. So I did, I did that for many, many years. I went to get, Waxed by a professional. And then of course I dabbled in some laser hair removal as well with in various parts of my body. Basically, I tried to laser my whole body, and some of it's worked better than others, but you know, as you said, it's not perfect.

And so it was kind of cool to try these wax strips and just see like, you know what, they're really easy to use and quick and not messy. So if you had. I feel like with the small wax strips, if you just had like spot area, like if you just need to touch up your bikini line, that's a great solution cuz It's fast. It's not super messy. You can just use what? Use a few. Use what you need, you know. And then get on with your day. I mean, I, my skin didn't react badly to it. It was very easy to use. You kind of just warm them up in your hands by rubbing your hands together and then peel apart these little strips and they're ready to go.

So I thought it was pretty great. I it, I guess if you had a lot of hair to remove, it could be a bit tedious.

Stephanie: Yeah, they have several different types, so I think if you're gonna do your entire leg, you get the bigger leg strips. In this case, they just sent us the bikini and underarms, so they're much smaller strips.

Tamara: I did not try my underarms. I would like to and I will get to that cuz I think that would be interesting. I've never actually had my underarms waxed before and I feel like it might be a little bit harder to get the right angle. But Did you try, did you try your underarms?

Stephanie: Yeah, and I had done laser on my underarms, but there's still a few hairs that pop up, so these were great to just like pull those out. And I really like the product too. I've tried different wax strips over the years and I have to say this one honestly is my favorite. I found it a lot gentler on my skin

Tamara: Right.

Stephanie: past experiences it's left a bit of a, like a rug burn rash, like when I rip off the strip.

But the Parissa strips didn't do that, so I don't know how they formulate their wax, but it did definitely was more agreeable to my skin. It felt like a softer experience.

Tamara: And did you try the oil too?

Stephanie: Yeah. And the oil, oh yeah. The oil's a mandatory for me just to get those little leftover wax bits off.

Tamara: Yeah. So you know what highly recommend over here and also, I'm just gonna say it sometimes. You need a tiny little wax strip, maybe for your big toe. That's all. If you're getting a pedicure and you want your feet to look amazing,

Stephanie: Yep.

Tamara: so maybe that's also useful from this.

These smaller, smaller pieces. 

But like, it's interesting, I mean, even with, with Kim, who we'll talk, we'll talk about soon and talking to Jonathan Torch, like hair trends change, eyebrow hair trends have changed and I think the pubic hair styling trends have changed over the years too, and I think we went from, as Jonathan said, in like the early two thousands and nineties.

It was like, I just don't want any frizz and I want my hair, my curls to come down and be like, Groomed and nice and not poofy. And same with those skinny little eyebrows and all the Brazilian waxes. And I feel like people like big bushy eyebrows now and bigger, bolder puffier hair. And then I think that for young people it's like more of a trend of having hair down there.

And I think that if you've spent your lifetime waxing and removing it all, it's just not gonna be as full and lush of a jungle.

Stephanie: Yeah. And ultimately to each their own.

Tamara: To each their own. You do you, you, you style every part of every hair on your body the way you want it. But there is something interesting about generational trends that come and go, and just a bit of the aftermath that we see, like with extreme hair removal. Like everybody who has no I, who's in their forties and has no eyebrows because.

Of over plucking 20 years ago.

Stephanie: that's right. That's a really good

Tamara: So just beware, beware of, you know, whatever the consequences.

Stephanie: Totally.

Tamara: So should we tell our listeners about what the bold move we did recently?

Stephanie: yes.

Tamara: We'd heard about this Toronto based curly hair specialist, and Stephanie and I both agreed to have this woman cut our hair, which is not easy. We've talked about finding a stylist, trying someone new and how scary that is.

Right.

Stephanie: Yeah, and then there's always a bit of a feeling of, is my current stylist gonna know I'm cheating on them?

Tamara: Yes. Now, to be fair, like Joey is super sweet and has always said like, do what you wanna do. Like, no, he's so cool about it. And he's just like, no, no harm, no foul. It's your head and your life, and like, I, he's always been super open about that because sometimes it can be a scheduling conflict. Like you went somewhere else once when you got your bad haircut, cuz you needed to do it in a pinch, right?

Stephanie: that's right.

Tamara: Mm-hmm. Anyway, so we're gonna tell you a little bit, we also went, went into, 

Stephanie: Into the wild. Into the wild. We've, so we've had, we've had guests on this show before and we always interview them, in sort of a standard podcasty way. But because we are getting our haircuts with Kim, we recorded our experiences while we were there just to try something new. And, uh, here. Hear her sort of tell narrate what she was doing while she was cutting our hair.

So we're excited about that and we'll share our experiences with you.

Tamara: Yeah, so you get to hear some first time ever C N D. Field recordings.

Stephanie: Field reporting.

Tamara: Woman on the street.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Tamara: so Stephanie and I went to Kim Gabriel. She is the owner of Born Curly by Kim Gabriel. If you wanna check her out online, her website is borncurly.net. She's been in the industry for almost two decades. She trained with Lorraine Massey at the DevaChan Academy. So she's certified in DevaCuts. She trained with Nubia, she's certified in Rezo Cut.

She has amassed such great experience in curly hair cutting and really refined that to develop her own signature curly cut and I think so cool that she trained with all these experts, understands these their different techniques and can pull from them for her many clients.

So we're gonna take you a little bit behind the scenes into our journey at her salon.

Stephanie: Yeah. And all of her different training. It's so cool cuz she can customize relative to the needs of her client, which I think is great.

and. I've never been to a salon that looked like this. It was the coolest. she's got a salon in Leaside in Toronto, and it's in a building and you go up and there's all these little studios.

It's a whole hallway of studios. There had to have been maybe 30 of them lining each side of the hallway, and they're all teeny tiny little hair salons. So if you're an independent salon owner without staff, You could rent one of these little studio pods and there's a couple different like, what do you call it, like salon chairs and there's a sink and there's the mirrors.

But it's this really great little studio for one or two people at the most, or one or two clients at the most. And the energy there was really cool because you're surrounded by like-minded colleagues, cuz you have all these hairstylists and beauty stylists there. It was really neat.

Tamara: It's a really neat rental model. So interesting way to deal with that space, um, for that landlord and allow, um, hairstylists to perhaps not rent a chair in a salon. Like they can have their own space that's just kind of mini without the, high rent of like a larger, studio.

Stephanie: That's right. Yeah. Super cool.

Tamara: And the other thing I'll say that's very different about Kim, is if we booked the cut, she wants you to come in with your hair styled. And I kind of made a mistake, like I sort of screwed it up cuz I came with my hair on like day three or four in a ponytail and, and she will then do the dry cut and wash your hair.

And style it for you after, but she kind of really wants to see how you style it and how it falls, which is interesting. And I've never had a hair stylist who wanted me to come in with my hair done at the beginning,

Stephanie: Yeah, it's really good cuz then she wants to see how you naturally style and wear your hair so she can work with it.

Tamara: which, which makes sense. Like she wants to see how you style it so she can maybe. Give you advice on how to do it better, but also how it's falling in its current state. like it, it just kind of made sense, but it was a totally new experience for me. So I went to get my haircut first, like a week before you, Steph.

So we'll take you behind the scenes of some of the things I asked her.

Tamara / Kim: So I'm with Kim at her salon, just sat in the chair. And, uh, Kim, I wanna ask you just quickly, like what's the first thing you're looking at when someone new comes in that you've never met before, and they sit in your chair, how are you kind of assessing the situation? 

So, when I have somebody new in my chair, I'm, I'm looking at, the overall look of the hair.

So, you know, what, what shape it's in, the porosity, what kind of products did they have in their hair? What is their overall, you know, lifestyle? Mm-hmm. And all those elements usually come in combination. I can come up with a good idea of where they wanna go with their haircut cuts.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And you know, like sometimes people have unrealistic expectations of what they want, but in that first encounter, we'll be able to come up with a good system to allow you and myself to kind of cut your hair to fit or detail what your hair can do. 

Yeah. what could you tell about me when I sat down, other than I didn't follow all your instructions for the, the pre, the pre-appointment read-up?

Yeah. So I don't, I think that your hair is actually in pretty good shape. Right. Phew. I, I try. Yeah. Even though it's coloured. Yeah. I mean, curly hair is naturally dry on the dry side. There's no ways of getting around the dry. It's naturally on the frizzier side, but, um, the shape needs a little bit of work.

Mm-hmm. Right. You have a bit of disconnection with your hair. Um, there are, you know, some things that I can think that you can tweak by, eliminated sulfates out of your hair diet and come in with a more basic plan. To move forward. Mm-hmm. So we can have healthy hair moving forward. Mm-hmm. But you know, overall it's not really that bad.

Yeah. So I think, you know, a lot of people beat themselves up with curly hair. Yes. And they think that they're doing the wrong things. Mm-hmm. You're not gonna take away what everybody is trying to eliminate. Which is dryness. Mm-hmm. A lot of people wanna eliminate their dryness, but regardless if you're using the best products in the world, your hair is gonna be slightly dry.

Yeah. Frizz is something that we all have with curly hair. So again, if you're trying to find that product that's frizzy free, nobody's gonna, if there's a product out there that's, that can make your hair non dry and non frizzy, let me have it. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think, um, we just need to find a good basic plan just to kind of like help you mm-hmm.

Have a good, basic lifestyle. Just like how you get up and you work out every day. Mm-hmm. And you have a routine. You have your tea, your coffee. I just want you to like figure out a plan that we can do that as well with your hair. Mm-hmm. Something easygoing that you can just make sure that we maintain.

Longevity out of this here. 

Do you think curly hair clients or people are, are more nervous about getting their hair cut than Definitely people with straight hair? I think, uh, there's not one person that comes into my chair that doesn't look like they're nervous. Yes. And uh, even for myself, I am a curly girl. Back in the days when I used to go for haircuts, that was like nerve-wracking.

Mm-hmm. So finding the right person that could make sure that they have good listening skills. Yes. So I think that's the biggest part. Yes. That a lot of my clients you know, they usually let me know that they're nervous because past hairstylist don't listen. Um, a lot of people want a lot of volume. So what they do is that they cut these shorter layers on the top and then they don't wanna give up the length of their hair, which is what you have. Is my problem a common problem? Exactly. So everybody describes this to the her stylist. Mm-hmm. I don't wanna lose my length, but I want a lot of volume.

Right. So if you in theory, think about how that's going to look. Cut more layers on the top. But leave the length. If you can think about how that's gonna look mm-hmm. Over time, to me it kind of reminds me of a lollipop, right? So you cut all these layers on the top and then you have the length.

As for me, when people come and tell me that, I have to almost tell them what I think, not what they want. Yeah. That needs to be done.

Yeah. Although with, with, with a little bit of what they, kindness. Yeah. Yeah. But like, I think for me mm-hmm. Because my hair's fine. Mm-hmm. And it's not super thick. Mm-hmm. I think that we need to like your approach of blending these layers, like. Is what I think will probably look best. Yes. With me and my face shape, but, and my, my particular hair texture.

Mm-hmm. But I do think that there's a big trend on sort of the shag or the wolf haircut and the mm-hmm. And these updated mullets. And some people can pull it off. And I guess maybe if you have like thicker hair in the bottom, if you came in with all of your hair, one length yeah. And you had a lot more for me to work with.

It would be achievable. Yeah. But when I'm working with somebody else's haircut, yeah. It's a little bit more fixing to do first. Mm-hmm. And then once everything is settled into a shape, then we can kind of change the shape depending on what you want. Yeah. But it can't be done if everything is disproportionate of the beginning.

Right, right. Okay. So, You heard it here that you can't, sometimes it takes a while. Your hairdresser is working with another person's cut. I understand that as a designer actually. it can take a while to kind of make the adjustments and let your hair grow out to, to do something net new. 

Stephanie / Kim: If you don't mind, I know Tamara did this with you too. She did. Um, I'm not gonna record the whole time, but Yeah. If seeing what you're seeing, what would you do? 

So just by looking at the frame of your hair, if you look at where the bulk has started and where it's ended, it's down below your chin.

So we wanna bring that volume up here to give you that pop factor. So now when I'm looking at somebody that has curly hair, I usually like to determine shape. Because, you know, we want shape to frame our face and look more youthful. And uh, you know, for most people, they want long hair, but long hair just strikes us down.

So we want the ideal look that everything is being brought up. So to bring up your cheekbones and bring light around your face, I think it'll look nicer if we layered it up here. We got rid of some of this bulk. Definitely. And do you normally wear black or. Uh, most of my wardrobe is black yep. Yep. So your hair is dark and then you got dark clothes.

It just blends in. Yeah. So we wanna just bring everything up and that way we can have the pop around your face to brighten everything up, up here and not down here. That sounds great. You can do whatever you want. Okay. I, my, my hair is in your hands? Yeah. Okay. And yeah, I agree. I, when it gets too long like this, yeah.

It's at the point where I just want to put it up cuz it's way too heavy. Okay. And by the afternoon, my scalp is just sore from carrying the load. Yeah. So I'm up for. A little bit of a lift. Bit of a lift. Okay. 

What do you using in your hair? Okay, so right now I have, Curl Keeper mm-hmm. And I put in some, another gel layer and that's it.

It looks like it has good moisture retention. I mean, when you have curly hair, you cannot use, there's no product in the world that's gonna make it not dry anymore. Yeah. Or frizzy-less, like everybody has frizz, everybody has dry hair. There are just products out there that'll help to maintain.

For a long time. Um, I was also using (Hang it up on the) cream. Yeah. First. Yeah. And just last week I stopped doing that, so I was wondering if I needed all of it. So cream is like a hydration. Yeah. So depend on if it's a leave-in or a curl cream. So, I mean, There's always four things every curly girl should have in their bathroom.

Yeah. So you have a cleanser, which is sulfate-free, cleaner, the better, then you got your conditioner, something hydrated and light. You have low porosity hair, so you don't want it to be sticky and heavy. You can, how can you tell, um, just the way that your hair looks like if you had high porosity hair, your hair wouldn't lay down so well.

Um, it tends to weigh down with length and product, and it tends to get heavier. So all these. You know, these things that you described about your hair, that makes me determine that you have low porosity. Okay. Yeah. And then you have your conditioning, leave-in conditioner or curl cream? Either or. You just have one.

Just one. Okay. So there was a time where I was doing both. Yeah. And then the gels. Yeah. So pick one or the other. Oh yeah. Pick one or the other. Okay. I think a lot of people tend to go for weight because at one time that conservative look was a big thing. So the more we put in our hair, the less frizz it would have, the less body it would have.

Now everybody wants body in their hair. Yeah. So I always tell people, pick one leave-in or curl cream. Okay. They both have moisture, they both have like protein in it. So if you're putting one moisture with protein in it, and then you're gonna put another one, it's just gonna weigh it down again. Oh. So if you want that spring around your face, all that weight is gonna weigh down.

And then your styling product should just be the icing on the cake. That should be your gel or your foam, or your leave-in styling, whatever. I've tried foam. Yeah. Just doesn't do anything. No. I mean, I think gel would be perfect for your hair. Yeah. Yeah. If you have the hair texture, that gel would just roll well, with, uh, with Tamara, her hair is a little bit more finer. Yeah. So we're finding foam. We give her that nice, fluffy, full look. But for you, you want your curls to be defined and to spring up so the, the gel would be perfect. Okay. For your hair texture. 

So can you tell me a bit about the technique that you're using? So, um, so the one that I'm using right now is called a Brazil haircuts. So the founder of this haircut, she created this haircut so you can get more body and more balance. So there are different haircuts out there, like the Deva haircut.

Mm-hmm. The Curl by Curl. Jonathan Torch has like a Tunnel Cut. So they all have different haircuts, but this one actually gives you more of a volumizing balance cut. So if you were to straighten your hair, it would be balanced, but it's not supposed to be for a straight hair.

I try not to be such so much of a cookie cutter when I'm cutting somebody's hair and using the exact same formulation that somebody taught me, but I take along. You know, piece by piece of like what makes sense for me. Depending on the client. Cool. 

Stephanie: So Tamara, how did you like your haircut?

Tamara: I really liked it. I thought she, her approach made a lot of sense when she talks about kind of everybody wanting to have length that so they can still put it up, but they want volume. So I really like the haircut. I'm keen to go back and try again and see how we can progress it so that I can have potentially more length and more fullness.

Stephanie: I was really happy with my cut too. Yeah. And I got tons of compliments on it. It just felt really fresh and springy. Like not season spring, but just like bounce and uh, I kind of like how she called me out on my. S h i t, like I had been brutally damaging my hair with this stupid hair dye

Tamara: Right.

Stephanie: I did all wrong.

And uh, so she's got experience with hair colour as well as cutting. So we talked quite a bit about that. But yeah, I thought the cut was great. I would totally go back. was worth the drive and she's a total sweetheart.

Thank you, Kim Gabriel, for the experience.

Tamara: Thank you, Kim. And actually we should say if anyone is trying to book an appointment with her and if you did go to her website, wanting to book, as soon as you listen to this episode, she's taking a, a small break right now.

Stephanie: Thanks Tamara.

Great 

Tamara: you. I know. 

Stephanie: Thanks, listeners.

Tamara: Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to Curl Next Door Podcast, wherever you pod, and follow us on social in between episodes. We're @CurlNextDoorPodcast on Facebook and Instagram and @CurlNextDoorPod on Twitter. 

Stephanie: Do you have a curly hair story you want to tell us? 

Shoot us an email at curlnextdoorpodcast@gmail.com 

Until next time curlfriends!