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 hairstyle 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.
