Monday, December 17, 2012

D.I.Y. Holiday Hair Gift Ideas

It's just about down to the wire for you to have all of your holiday gifting done, as if you needed us to remind you :) If you've waited until now, you're probably also very aware of how hectic all of the shops and malls have gotten. So why not just avoid them all together, and instead give the gift of D.I.Y. hair care! Who doesn't love a well thought out, personalized, sentimental, labor of love?! And as you know, we always encourage you to "love your hair," so we're sharing some adorable D.I.Y. holiday hair care with you, so you can give the gift of great hair this year. Enjoy & HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Embellished Hair Pins
If you're gifting these pins to a hardcore fashionista, tell her you took your inspiration from the Chanel runway circa Paris Fashion Week S/S'12... She'll know exactly what you're talking about, and love you for it!
  • You'll need: bobby-pins, hot glue gun, and embellishment of your choice. 
  • How to: Use your hot glue gun to attach your pearl/rhinestone/flower/etc. to the closed end of your bobby-pin. You can really go crazy with this one, make a whole set!
Hair Style Kit
Yes, you can literally gift your bestie a new hairstyle! We actually came up with this idea at amika, quite a while ago. We develop looks, and offer sets of the tools+products needed to recreate each specific style, as well as instructions for recreating each look at shop.loveamika.com. For the D.I.Y. version though, it's best to keep things simple, the more complicated the look the more supplies you'll need to include in your set. 
  • You'll need: an image of the desired look, print-out of instructions for recreating the look, the supplies you'll need to recreate the look, something festive to put your kit together in.
  • How to: After you've picked your look, start compiling all of the tools/products necessary for recreating the look. Perhaps pick a theme that goes along with your look, the color red is pretty appropriate :) Don't forget to include everything, like brushes/combs/hair ties. Travel sized products would be perfect for this! Lastly come up with some steps for recreating the look, and include those as well. (Nothing super complicated, if you're including more than one page of instructions... you may have gone a bit overboard). 
Ouchless Hair Ties 
Personally, I try to keep atleast 3 hair ties on my person at all times. One on my wrist for easy access, one in my bag (in case one snaps), and one in preparation for the inevitable question... "Do you have an extra hair tie?!" The perfect gift considering you can never really have enough of them. Customizable and hair-friendly, ouchless hair ties are an easy to D.I.Y. gift!

  • You'll need: an assortment of elastic fabric/ribbon, a ruler, scissors... and a bit of math :)
  • How to: You're going to want to measure the elasticity of your fabric before cutting it down to size. It's really not as confusing as that may sound, but considering all fabrics don't have the same amount of elasticity, you want to ensure that you're band will be cut to the correct length for it to have a tight enough hold. Simply measure out a strip of fabric, then use a ruler to measure the length after you've stretched the fabric out. You're going to need each hair tie to stretch to approx. 8in. long (this will be the circumference of your hair tie when its fully-stretched.) Multiply 8in x (length of unstretched fabric)/(length of fabric when stretched) = (the length to cut each strip). After cutting each strip to size, tie the two ends of each strip together to form your circular hair tie. 
images (in descending order) via: backseatstylers.com, ourvanity.com, amika, fashnberry.com