Riding off with Sunset Divas

While everyone is obsessing about basking in or avoiding the sun while at its daytime high this summer, L’Oreal Professionnel is channelling all attention to the sun at end of the day, when it begins its blazing daily tango with the horizon.

L’Oreal Professionnel, a branch of big-time beauty brand L’Oreal, creates innovative hairstyling, haircolor, and haircare products used by renowned hairdressers all across the globe. Adhering to the brand philosophy that each individual is different, and therefore unique (curtailed into the brand tagline, "all different, all unique"), L’Oreal Professionnel comes up with Color Collections twice a year, events that marry the brand’s technical hairstyling expertise with the latest trends on the fashion runways.

For spring-summer 2005, L’Oreal Professionnel showcased its Sunset Divas collection, a series of haircolor products that capture the intense and varying colors of the setting sun. The Sunset Divas color scheme, worthy of an Impressionist master’s canvas, groups the colors of this daily miracle into three different series bannered by names depicting places where the sunset can best be enjoyed: Latin Diva, Riviera Siren, and Morocco Muse. Different colors highlight each collection, as with the warm mosaic tones of Morocco Muse where gold, mandarin, apricots, and beige, the colors of the birthing sunset, warm up the color scheme. The Riviera Siren collection gives reverence to the sunset at its peak; fiery reds, oranges, and yellows give a strong and sensual vibe to summer hairstyles. The Latin Diva series ensnares the colors of the sun as it dips lower into the horizon. Amber, terra-cotta, ruby, and violet come together to create a more muted collection.

On Asian shores, where the shining sun is revered as a spiritual symbol, its setting was given emphasis at the L’Oreal Professionnel Hair Fashion Week in Bangkok. In its second consecutive year, the Bangkok event loaded up on artistic energy as it put on the catwalk not only the latest haircolors from L’Oreal Professionnel, but also the season’s most prominent trends in cutting and styling, courtesy of L’Oreal Professionnel’s creative director and artistic ambassadors from Bangkok’s top salons.

L’Oreal Professionnel’s Bangkok launch of the Sunset Divas collection was presented all in one night, with three shows each highlighting a particular series, shown half an hour apart. The façade of Siam Discovery Centre was transformed into a L’Oreal locale, with a tent housing seats for the audience and a rectangular catwalk enclosing a long pond.

In the first show, an interpretation of the Riviera Siren line, bare-chested male models cavorted in the makeshift pond, as models dressed in brightly-colored streamlined clothes lazily paraded the catwalk. Dazzling auburns, reds, and orange haircolors tinted glamorous upsweeps, intricate buns, edgy bobs, and big, Medusa-like curls. The impact was strong and confident, and infused with the lazy sensuality of a Caribbean romp

Half an hour after the first show ended, the Latinas sashayed onto the stage. In this show, you could pinpoint the pervading trend for hair this season: curls. The wilder, the better. Curly locks were big and glorious, cascading or swept back into towering ‘dos, in corkscrew fashion or small and tight. They ran amok in shades of copper, amber, gold, ochre, and magenta, emphasized by big braids, erratic extensions, feather appliqués, and bohemian clothing. The Latin Divas collection was wild, sexy, and eclectic. It was a Bangles reunion at their ‘80s best, a glorification of the "wake up and wear" hairstyle – you can skip the washing, entirely.

The show took on a subtler, more ambient mood for the Morocco Muse presentation. Amid Moroccan lamps, floating candles, embroidered pillows, and embellished tapestries, models showed off hairstyling techniques that rightfully deserve jaw drops. Hair in different shades of brown, from caramel to coffee to fawn, was first fashioned into turbans that elegantly wrapped the head. Then Moroccan Veronica Lakes came on, hair falling over an eye and perfectly waving over the shoulder. The interpretations became more inventive. Taupe-colored locks, woven together to resemble a straw hat, vied with a stiff netted veil of hair for the night’s most artistic piece. Runner-ups were hair strands slinking over pink-painted faces and bird’s nest ‘dos accessorized with gems, flowers, and an expected feather. These highly fashionable hair sculptures set off L’Oreal Professionnel’s Sunset Divas collection as summer’s most desirable hair accomplice.

Recently, Manila also offered its own interpretation of the Sunset Divas collection with a presentation at the New World Hotel in Makati. Guest stylist, renowned British hair guru Andrew Barton, and his partner Tracey Gallagher displayed their expertise, along with L’Oreal Philippines’ artistic ambassadors Danny Katalbas of Emphasis Salon, Francis Quinones of Piandre Salon, Meldy Miriam of Hairbytes Salon, and Nelson Cruz of Essensuals Toni and Guy. These hair experts made use of L’Oreal’s Majirel Absolu’s line, touted as "the most technologically-advanced haircolor range today."

Before summer sets on all of us, update your hairstyle and Diva up.

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