Experts talk secrets to straight hair
MANILA, Philippines - Hair issues can overcome language barriers and geographical locations. This was apparent during a brief interview that was held last Friday at White Space for the re-launch of the Best Ever Sunsilk range, a line of salon-quality haircare products co-created by Sunsilk and a team of international hair experts.
Flown in as guests of honor to the event were two of the style experts, Yuko Yamashita of Japan and Teddy Charles of France. Each sported long locks, which was no surprise.
Po-poker poker-straight
Yamashita is known for the Yuko Hair Straightening System, which she developed in 2006. Also known as Japanese Hair Straightening or thermal reconditioning, it’s a haircare technology development that has been lauded the world over and was born of Yamashita’s fascination with straight, smooth locks. In fact, a beauty blog quotes her: “All women deserve to have glossy, poker-straight hair.” It’s a bit unnerving to hear a generalizing statement like this from a hair expert (“poker-straight hair”?), but there is a chance that a bigger context of that opinion exists, or that maybe the rest of her statement got lost in translation.
Backstage at the Best Ever Sunsilk re-launch, hours before the program begins, Yamashita sits with a friendly smile, her translator by her side. The first question was, why the focus on long, straight hair? In halting English, the translator relayed Yamashito’s answer: “Men like to see women with long, straight hair: touchable, soft, unknotted. But it’s a trend not just in Asia. All over the world, on the catwalks of New York, Paris and London, it’s the basic style.” Sure, maybe men and mainstream fashion should be blamed for a lot of Filipinas’ desire to have their locks rebonded and straightened within an inch of its lives, but influential stylists everywhere should also take initiative to buck trends that force women to fit in specific boxes (again: poker-straight hair!). Surely, they have the power to do so.
Nevertheless, Yamashita was charming, sharing tips on how to care for hair whether it’s straight, wavy, or straight-up curly: “Put hair in socks or wrap it in a silk scarf at night before going to bed to keep strands from rubbing against the pillow, as the friction causes breakage”; “For instant volume, use a roller brush to lift the hair from the roots”; “For those with straightened hair who suffer from frizz, indulge yourselves with a hair spa treatment once a month, but never slack on the daily maintenance part by using specially formulated products for treated hair.”
Yamashita emphasized particularly the importance of daily, do-it-yourself haircare, comparing the number of times in a year that a woman goes to a salon to the number of times in a year she shampoos and conditions her hair. “Your hair is (part of) who you are,” she says. “It’s important to pay attention to how you care for it on your own, from the products you use and how you apply them to your hair.”
The Big Easy
Teddy Charles, for his part, is known for styling “big hair” for fashion editorials and runway shows in Paris; he has created catwalk looks for designers Luca Luca, Marchesa, Badgley Mischka, Sari Gueron and Yigal Azrouel, and has worked with Karl Lagerfeld, Patrick Demarchelier, Mario Testino, Glen Luchford and Mikael Jansson. A firm believer of conditioning hair every day, Charles’ experience of working with different hair types has made him aware of the particular needs of each type. “Asian hair is pretty strong,” he says. “It’s easy to style, but of course, there are different techniques you use to style each hair type.” What he has noticed most among Filipinas during his brief visit is how our locks tend to look greasy at the end of the day due to oil buildup at the roots, compounded by frequent shampooing (the massaging motion stimulates oil production), wrong application of conditioner (it should be applied only from mid-strand to tips and not at the roots), and the humid weather. Girls who have frizzy hair try to control their locks with too much products but end up weighing their strands down instead. “The shampoo I developed with Sunsilk, the Straight and Sway, smoothens hair strands but isn’t too heavy on them,” he says. “There is natural-looking movement and bounce.” Charles adds that long, straight hair is a particular demand for Asians whereas South Americans look to add more volume to their locks, hence the Sunsilk Volume variant he developed for that region. “Hair needs are really weather-dependent, that’s why different hairstyles work for different places,” he notes.
Magic Seven
That is the beauty of the Best Ever Sunsilk range. Not only does it aim to make secrets to beautiful hair available to a wider public, it also makes it easier for women to find the best shampoo to use on their hair. The most flexible variant it seems is the Smooth and Manageable one, sporting the key qualities that all women wish their hair had. Sunsilk brand manager Jem Perez says, “This variant works for hair types that would need more manageability, like wavy and curly strands.” Smooth and Manageable works by coating and nourishing frizzy and fluffy hair with keratin yogurt nutri-complex. Co-developed with Yamashita, it’s the gateway variant of sorts for the whole range, the perfect bottle of shampoo to get any woman started on the Sunsilk brand of haircare.
The Straight and Sway variant, as already mentioned, was co-created with Charles. Enhanced with amino collagen complex, this shampoo cleanses hair strands and gently relaxes their bonds to make them softer and give them a more natural movement. Developed for women who have had their hair straightened, it’s the best way to maintain locks healthy in-between treatment touch-ups at the salon.
Other variants are: the Strong and Long, co-developed also with Charles and enriched with active fruitamin complex, which fortifies hair fibers to make them 10 times stronger and three times smoother as you grow your hair long; the Damage Repair, co-created with Tom Taw’s BobSoho Salon of London, with its olive serum nutria-complex for reconstructing hair and filling in damaged cracks strand by strand; the Soft and Smooth, also co-created with Taw and formulated with ceramide macadamia complex to help rebalance dry, rough hair; the ZPT citrus complex-enriched Anti-Dandruff variant co-developed with Dr. Francesca Fusco of New York; and the Hairfall Solution with its soya vitamin complex that strengthens hair stands against breakage and split ends.
It’s a great idea that makes one wonder why it took so long to take off: Sunsilk’s search for and partnership with specialist hair experts from all over the world now benefit women who can’t afford or can’t be bothered to go to beauty salons frequently. Expert daily maintenance is available in a bottle, easily identified by its function to repair and nourish specific hair types: straight, wavy, damaged, treated, dandruff-afflicted, brittle, etc. “That really is the aim of Sunsilk, especially now with the competitive market for shampoos,” Perez says.
To complement the Best Ever Sunsilk product line, the brand is also set to have roving, pop-up salons in Market! Market!, Cebu, and Davao within the next few weeks, where people can have local expert stylists analyze their hair to determine the best Sunsilk variant to use with their hair.
