Just a little quickie

Hey folks,

Sorry I haven't had time to finish part 2 and 3 in the haircare series. I've had a couple of late nights at work and tonite I only have about 5 minutes tonite before I get ready to go hit an open mic downtown.
I will try and finish part 2 and 3 before I leave on my trip Wednesday.

Wow Lynn, where are you going? I'm glad you asked. I will be spending 5 days in Denver with one of my dearest sisterfriends. It is an annual girls trip we make because we all live so far apart. It's hard enough finding the time (and cash) to visit each other individually, so much harder to get the whole gang together. So we chose an event and decided that every year we would go. Husbands, boyfriends, sometimes girlfriends (unless they are involved in the event too), kids all get left behind. So what is the event, you ask? WOWps (Women of the World poetry slam), is a national spoken word poetry competition featuring some of the most bad-ass female poets in the nation. Our little crew met years ago through our mutual interest, formed an artist collective, and a non-profit org, and these women have become like my true sisters, I miss them like crazy all year long. For 5 days it's like one big slumber party. As an added bonus, we also get to see WOWps, which is the most mad, crazy, dope, fly, awesome poetry slam on the planet. Over the years I have made friends with so many poets across the country and many of these chicas come every year either to compete or watch. I have never competed there yet, but our sis Succinct has competed twice, and last year our baby-sis Safia not only competed but made it to finals. During each night the actual competition takes place. In the daytime the host city has open mics, just for fun slams, workshops.

Me and the lovely Legacy from 2010

2010 WOWps champ Eboni

Succinct, Legacy, and Ms. Scorpiana X (a.k.a. me)

doin my thang at an open mic

finals night after party

imani & me

me, legacy, mani, and safia

dinner with the detroit contingency

Attending a large poetry event like this, is a lot like going to a hair show. You get a hotel full of crazy artistic types. A lot of serious partying. And fabulous hair. I love checking out everyone's hair and outfits, poets have just as much style as hairdressers.


As you can see from the pics, I don't wear vintage everyday, and when I don't, I usually have some variation of this choppy layer, somewhat emo haircut, flat-ironed, the lighting didn't do the color justice.

On to something more hair related. Like I said, I don't do vintage everyday, partly because I don't have enough vintage clothing, but mostly because my style is too ecclectic to rock the same look everyday. I maybe wear a vintage/retro looking outfit about once a week. But even in modern styles, I will mix in a vintage hairstyle and red lipstick about 2 to 4 days a week. Like today: skinny jeans, t-shirt, lace-up military/doc marten style boots, shrunken cardigan. The hair: rolled fake bettie bangs, curls, victory rolls, and a red and leopard print hairflower.

I think my first tutorial will be on how I did the bangs. I know there are a ton of tutorials on these type of bangs, but my hair has a unique challenge that i'm sure some of you also face. My real bangs are too long to be real bettie bangs, and most videos of the rolled under bettie/bumper bang are done by girls that either have no bangs or long,long bangs. My bangs arent long enough to roll up properly, even using a rat, so i have to kind of pin the rat in place, comb the bangs over, tuck the ends under the bottom of the rat and use a million pins. It's really very ghetto, but unless you get up close, it works.

Also coming this month: in addition to part 2 and 3 of the haircare series, I have had some topic requests, which I will hit in the order I recieved them. I did promise months ago to do some curly hair articles, so I want to do at least one. I've been asked for a post dealing with Sun In (yes, they still make that crap). And a request dealing with safely bleaching the hair. I won't be showing you how to bleach at home, in all honesty, I believe that should be left to us professionals (and yes I know some of you may have succesfully bleached at home, but at most maybe 10% of home bleachers do well. If you are one of the successful ones, that means you have the potential to be an awesome hairdresser, and might want to consider a career, the industry can always use more fresh talent) but i'll give you tips on how to keep the hair healthy, what to ask your stylist, and how to tell when your stylist has no idea what they're doing (so you can run).

So now I'm off to find a phone booth to change from mild mannered (ha) hairdresser Lynn Brooks, and into superhero poet Scorpiana X

smooches
Lynn