Last month, L’Oréal Professionnel hosted Hair Fashion Night with 70 participating salons nationwide. In celebration of the nights festivities, Naté Bova, Senior Stylist at the Warren Tricomi Salon in New York City, demonstrated two looks: the zipper pony and the crown braid.
Look One:
"The zipper pony is fun, easy and beautiful," Bova says. I mean, what more could a stylist ask for? To get the look, Bova prepped her model's hair with a tiny bit of L’Oréal Professionnel TECNI.ART Next Day Hair texture spray and brushed the hair into a slicked back ponytail. To keep the pony taught, Bova added a generous amount of L’Oréal Professionnel TECNI.ART Extreme Lacquer on both sides.
After you secure the pony with an elastic, take a small piece of hair, the zipper, from the bottom of the pony tail and halve the remaining section. Then, weave the smaller section in and out of the two larger sections. While the zipper pony looks very similar to a braid, the look is achieved by weaving rather than intertwining.
"If you have a client that's in a hurry and they want a cool look that can last all night, you can do this look in about five minutes," Bova adds. Another plus? The look is simple for your client to take out when the night is over.
Look Two:
You've surely seen this look all over Instagram: the famous crown braid. To prep her model's hair for the braid, Bova added L'Oréal Texture Expert True Grip Texturizing Powder. "It helps the hair stay in the braid really nicely and your client won't have to worry about it falling out all night," Bova says. "It's a great addition for a lot of updos and a lot of braids."
"I want this braid to sit right around the occipital bone," says Bova. She parted her model's hair into three sections: one on the right side of the head, one at the crown and one at the back of the head. It's important to plan out where you want your clients hair to fall and where you want the braid to sit prior to starting the braid.
Following her own 'palm, pitch, feed' braiding method, Bova starts the braid on the right side of the head, about half way between the nape of the neck and the crown, and slowly pulls in pieces from the top section. "Of course, there's more than one way to do a braid so do whatever way you feel most comfortable doing," she says.
Once you finish braiding, the crown braid can be pulled and loosened to make it a little more abstract. "That's the beauty of hair these days," Bova adds. "Everything doesn't have to be so completely perfect."