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Celebrity Looks: Hits and Misses
All over the world, women look to celebrities for fashion and beauty ideas, especially when it
comes to hairstyles. Yet in spite of the teams of stylists and hairdressers at hand in most cases, sometimes even our celebrities
make less than flattering choices. When a celebrity who pays thousands a month in maintenance costs to have their hair styled and
cared for can make mistakes in selecting a look, it becomes doubly important for those of us on more limited incomes to know how
to spot (and hopefully prevent) similar errors.
So we’re going to take a look at a few of Hollywood’s leading ladies and discuss some of the
hits and misses in their styles. We’ll look at the particular needs for each lady and why a particular look is a miss, and what
works better. Hopefully, this will help you better understand how to avoid your own mistakes.
Angelina Jolie
Let’s start with the lovely Angelina Jolie. Miss Jolie is a non-classic beauty with many classical
features. Taken separately, her features could be considered a problem for another woman, but together they work for her. Her look
is slightly exotic, with wide expressive eyes, and a very full-lipped mouth. Her face is rectangular - not overly long, but not
truly square – and has strong lines along the jaw and chin.
Angelina usually looks simply stunning and for some time now has been fond of wearing her hair
long and slightly layered. The problem with this look is that if not styled carefully, it can create an unwanted emphasis on the
width of her face. For example, the outswept styling in images 1 and 2 give the impression that the forehead is out of
proportion and emphasizes the angles of the jaw line and width of the mouth.
This isn’t to say that the styling idea is flawed, just a little overdone in its execution.
Images 3,4 and 5 are a few examples of similar styling performed with less side volume. These examples are much more flattering and less likely
to imbalance the appearance of the face.
Even up-styling has a hazard, particularly when drawing the hair away from the face can expose
all the angles and squared edges of the jaw and forehead. Image 6 is a style that was obviously meant to frame the face and camouflage
the harder angles of the face. However, the end result is a crowded look. With the long tendrils of fringe running down the sides
of the face, the eyes look crowded and the width of the mouth is overemphasized, while the added bulk in the up-style at the crown
area makes the silhouette appear wider than it actually is.
Image 7 is a style that is similar in concept, using tendrils from the fringe to frame the face,
but it does so much more subtly without the crowding effect. The style is a partial up-style, which has the added benefit of length
at the back and neck area to keep a smooth vertical focus, avoiding the tendency to making the face look wide.
Finally, color is a consideration that has to be approached carefully. Miss Jolie has a
wonderfully rich, olive skin tone, which gives her a natural glow and works well with her dark hair. Color for her is usually
best served in subtle highlights and in shades of warm, medium-to-dark browns. Shown in image 8 is a thankfully short-lived excursion
into life as a blonde, which we can see was not a successful proposition as it left her complexion appearing sallow and jaundiced.
The base colors of Miss Jolie’s natural hair color obviously result in a brassy result, with the blonde coming out too
“orange/yellow”.
Of course, the skin tone Miss Jolie has does mean that she can support a darker hair color
easily. And as this photo shows, she can support the darker color much more readily than she can the blonde shades. Even so, note
how the darker color makes her skin tone look much paler than the more brown tones do.
Jessica Alba
I have considered Jessica Alba to be one of the more inherently beautiful young women in
Hollywood for quite some time. This is an opinion apparently shared by many others given that she has appeared on countless
lists of “Sexiest”, “Hottest”, “Desirable” and “Most Beautiful” women in magazines all over the world. Her exotic look is courtesy
of her parents. Her father is Mexican and her mother is of French and Danish descent.
Many of Jessica’s fans are most familiar with her long dark-haired look. The rich, chocolate
brown color is ideal for her skin tone (obviously given it is her natural color). In image 1 we see Jessica with her long, wavy brown
hair.
I must say, personally, I think that Jessica makes most of the errors in her choice of look
by either trying to (or being talked into thinking that she can) be blonde. She has been seen in several instances with a hair
color choice that is much too light for her skin tone and eyes. For example, photo 2 shows how wrong she looks with blonde
hair.
In spite of the fact that many of the color jobs are beautifully executed and look natural,
the color still seems “wrong” on Jessica. Photo 3 is an example of what I mean. The color isn’t too blonde, and is warm and doesn’t
wash out her skin tone, but her eyes are simply too dark to support the idea that she is a natural blonde.
Of course, color isn’t the only area where the look can go wrong. While Jessica has a lovely,
well-proportioned face, she must be careful to avoid styles that make her face appear disproportioned. In photo 4 we see her hair styled
in and up-style that makes her forehead appear too wide and too high:
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