The Vanity Mirror: For beauty tips and other such things

Sure, why not?

So, anyone else on here sporting a mustache? I'm looking for tips on maintenance. Mine's getting rather...unruly, but I don't want to shave it off. I'm familiar with wax and all that; any other pointers I should be aware of?

Mr Maddy was all about trimming his regularly. Wax is pointless unless you're trying to shape it in a direction it's not entirely happy to go in.

Well, mine's gotten long and I like it that way...when its behaving. Problem is, the left half wants to curl up and the right half wants to point down. Understandably this looks quite silly without regular maintenance.

Plaid. Is it good? Is it bad? Most importantly, does it look odd when a teenager wears it to the exclusion of everything else bar suits?

It's not bad in andof itself, nor is it intrinsically good. It is very easy to wind up looking like a clown or a crooked used car salesman if you wear too much of it at once. And it can be very difficult to find several plaids that work well together.

Generally you need to choose plaid depending on what your skin tone is—if you look good in warm colors, red or yellow or the like. If you don't, blue and green and gray.

You also want to make sure the pattern won't dominate your frame if you're thin or short. Fine-lined plaids with low contrast◊ will act pretty much like pinstripes without making you look too thin, while solid blocky plaids◊ work better for larger frames.

edited 29th Jul '11 10:52:06 PM by Leradny

Well, my typical formula is a plaid shirt, blue jeans, and boots. Hat optional but encouraged.

I wear both sorts of style, cool colours usually, and as far as body type. . . Here ya go.

http://s1181.photobucket.com/albums/x438/CelticBloke32595/

edited 29th Jul '11 10:55:16 PM by Diamonnes

Yeah, that looks just fine. If you want nitpicky input, a dark background with light lines would be the most ideal, but I wouldn't throw out your entire wardrobe.

Lera: I agree. My favourite shirt is a blocky-plaid white-on-dark-blue.

I personally prefer the red and black, blue and black, and grey and black buffalo plaid for a shirt to wear with jeans. Bonus points for being available in flannel.

I'm looking for advice on how to keep my hair, I'm male and have pretty long hair, it goes down to the middle of my back when not tied up and I have been keeping it either in a a ponytail or in a simple three strand(?) braid and am wondering if there is another way to braid it that doesn't look ridiculous and isn't too hard to learn.

this◊ a picture from a year ago but it's pretty much still that length and colour.

Have you tried French braiding? [1]

Looks interesting, thanks. Now I just have to try doing it myself.

This page has quite a few braid styles but I'm not sure about how well the instructions will translate from "doing it in front of you to someone else's hair" to doing it backwards to your own. "

@mahel: Lucky bastid, having hair like that. I recommend a simple half-tail; easy to do, keeps it out of your eyes while still letting the world admire your mane.

The cost of my long hair: Inability to have a beard because of hair colour and if I get lice it's chop-chop time because I'm not combing lice out of long hair ever again, but otherwise it's nice as long as it doesn't blow in my face, which is why I braid it.

I believe I figured out why I have problems with braiding, all the guides try to shift the hair to the front as soon as possible, while I braid it al the way behind my head(it sorta kills my arms though).

Trouble is, most hairdressers won't cut hair if they even suspect it has lice. I guess you could just hack it off with scissors and go get it fixed up once you'd cleared out the infestation.

Yeah if I get lice I'll just cut of as much as possible shave the rest and then let it grow after making sure there are nothing left. I'm not that worried about getting lice now that I'm out of "high school" but I'm sure as hell not going through it again.

I have short hair and I'd like to try doing more things with it - like, hair bands and hair clips and stuff. The trouble is, I don't really know how to use hair clips. Whenever I try using them to pin back the hair over my ears, the pin just sort of sits there attached to the hair but not actually holding it down.

Do I just have the wrong hair for this sort of thing?

How would you describe the texture of your hair? Is it fine or thick or straight or wavy? And are you putting the clips close to the roots or halfway down the hair shaft?

Very thick and wavy. I guess I'm putting it halfway down the hair shaft?

OK, I don't know if I can explain this without a visual but here goes. If you are putting the clip halfway down the shaft and not catching hair closer to the root then the clip is just sitting on your hair and isn't holding it. If the clip is anchored closer to your head then it can't flop around as much as it can when it is half way down the shaft. Does that make any sense at all?

Also if your hair is super thick and wavy some clips just aren't going to work. My hair is fine with a slight wave and my friend's is super thick and very curly and we trade hair doodads for that very reason.

But wouldn't that defeat the purpose of using a pin to pin my hair back?

I think I just need to practice more =/

Tell me about it; when I used to have long hair and put my ponytail up in ibis clips a lot, I learned quickly that anything other than metal wouldn't cut it with my hair.

What I am trying to say is that you catch the hair half way down the shaft with the front part of the clip but then catch some hair closer to the root with the back part of the clip.

Ibis clip?

OHHHH so that's what those things are called. I always just called them hair clips.

edited 26th Oct '11 9:59:20 PM by blackcat