Tag Archives: hair

Makeover: Mae’s Before and After, Hair Edition

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I got a makeover. Not intentionally, but I totally got remade just by cutting my hair by over half after an incredibly bad day on Friday. Again, unintentional, but the hair is very Jennifer Anniston’s choppy, incredibly layered, flippy bob after The Rachel got played out and she snipped the long layers off. I went from a long-haired blond Asian with locks down past her nipples to a brown Jennifer Anniston with very healthy, late 90s layered hair with a slight ombre gradient dye trend.

I normally prefer to stay away from inexpensive styling services and vendors, like SuperCuts, Fantastic Sam’s (which I found to be not so fantastic), BoRics, Master Cats, etc. But this time, I actually went to Master Cuts, got a $15.99USD haircut, because it was just a straight bob with no additional styling. I used to go for trendy hair cuts… this time, I wanted it simple. My long, haystack hair was getting too dry to manage, and I was done with it. (Plus I had an insanely bad day.) It turned out well. I’m absolutely shocked, but happy the gamble paid off.

{ Before }

Before long ombre hair
Before: Long ombre Asian blond hair
Before: Long ombre Asian wavy blond hair

Often worn this way recently:
Messy Top knot Asian bun

{ After }

Before and After Asian choppy layered Jennifer Anniston hair Style

The plus side after chopping off the locks I’ve been so dedicated to growing out for the last three years on a whim? I wake up looking like this:

after Asian choppy layered Jennifer Anniston Style

VOLUMINOUS GOODNESS! I don’t need a comb any more. (Just a washcloth for those raccoon eyes) WIN.

The down side? I have had short hair for years and years. All throughout high school, most of college, with maybe off and on slightly longer locks. It hasn’t grown past my boobs since the age when I was so young, I didn’t even have boobs (aka, 13-14). Needless to say, I do miss my long hair, and I’m back to the length I was when I started style blogging back in 2008. But this is a nice healthy feel, despite the “Phantom Limb” effect I’m having. I keep lifting my hand to flip my hair over my shoulder or tie it up in a high bun, and being taken aback when the weight of the locks isn’t there. *Laugh*Face Palm*

What is the last thing you did absolutely impetuously that turned out extremely well?

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{ Building the Outfit Architecture } Go Big, or Go Home — Big Heels, Bigger Hair

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Building an outfit architecture is all about the details. For me, the highlight of this outfit is the “bigness” of it. Not necessarily gargantuan elements within the outfit itself, but in the ways it’s styled.

The exaggerated contrasting plaid print, big bib necklace, big waffle cuff, humongous wire ring, towering heels…




and stupendously immense hair.




I never taught you how to do the double chignon… so I plan on doing a video of this big top knot and the double chignon. Both are ridiculously easy, you’ll shit your pants when you see.

Full Architecture tomorrow.

Don’t forget to enter my $300 GUCCI/NYX COSMETICS/THE BODY SHOP/BLUE LAGOON SKINCARE/ORIGINS/CLINIQUE/DR. HAUSCHKA/CHANEL GIVEAWAY BONANZA! [ends July 1]

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Week in Pictures ~ May 16 – May 21, 2011

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I think this will be a weekly thing with me.

Being that I carry a nice 5MPX camera with me at all times (it’s nice, this iPhone, isn’t it?), I’ve been snapping a lot more photos than normal, even though I have a lovely 10.1MPX camera with a Leica lens (Panasonic Lumix LX5). It’s just easier to tote my iPhone around without the extra bulk of a HD/Semi-manual camera. You already know I’m a huge bag lady, but after almost a year of carrying 1 iPhone (3G 8GB), 1 iPod (80GB), a large notebook AND a half face of makeup for touch ups, it was time to de-bulk….

Having a phone that is also faster than the iPhone I was using for a year… I get a little trigger happy with the Lomo-esque camera apps. I think I now have 7 camera apps on my phone, including photo editing software. Ahhh. Joy.

No dog I have ever known is this “well-documented”. I take pictures of Bear[dog] whenever I can, because he’s always doing weird and/or cute things. I may not have a maternal instinct/inclination in my psyche toward children, but toward my own furry “child”, I could never be accused of negligence or being unloving.



After I gave him a corrective “hair cut” after he had come from the groomer (trimmed his “Snoopy Ears” down to the Bear-like short style).


Picked out a birthday card for my BFF Lily.

Why do 95% of all cards created specifically for females look like a cupcake bakery that threw up on a Crayola Box? I think greeting card designers are playing a joke on us. Thankfully I found 1 that didn’t make me yak, but only after I had scoured the racks for 15 straight minutes. *barf*

When I had work to do….

I doodled instead, about what I looked like…

…and how I felt.

Spent a LOT of time on the phone (at work).

Some of which I was on the phone with my friend CK, to whom I dedicated several Instagram/Tumblr picture posts since we’d spent SOOOO Much time emailing and phoning each other.


Lomo app crazy.


I cooked and ate lots of delicious, nutricious vegetarian or vegan food.


Thursday, my father-in-law took me out for sushi as a belated birthday lunch. (Yet moar food!)

Um… Sushi boat?? WHAT!

Bad weather. SICK of Bipolar weather in Lake Country. 86F/30C and sunny and humid one day, 58F/14.44C the next with thunderstorms & clouds. What happened to Spring? Oh, there it is! Wait, no, it’s summer. Wait no, it’s spring again. WTF. #Detroit.

Hair & Clothes (’cause I went shopping on Friday with my girl friend A, with whom I haven’t hung out in months).

(Yes, still wearing this T. I love its drapiness.)


Saturday woke up, feeling hung over from actually getting rest after a week of insomnia…. drowned myself in 3 mugs of Green Tea just to wake up…


…cleaned the kitchen, while entertained by The Voice [Hello, Mr. Adam Levine... you are so fine].

Joy riding to the lake.

Went to the Lake on Sunday, and saw my close friend E’s house for the first time. So charming I had to take pix on the tour.



I have a thing for Kitchens & Bathrooms–the two rooms in the house I use the most. Most brill vintage stove vent in their main kitchen.

Laid out by the lake for Girl Talk & cocktails in SPORTS BOTTLES with E. *Classiest broads on the Lake.*

Gave myself a facial & tried a new towel tying technique.

Project 808 Research (for our relocation to Hawaii in Jan), and the birthday card my MIL got me two weeks ago… reminds her of me when I was a little girl [oddly, very similar].

Cooking another new dish: Roasted Portobella mushroom steaks marinated in onion garlic balsamic vinegar sauce (also vegan), served with Roasted rosemary lemon potatoes with sea salt, lemon pepper & butter & herb salad. (I made enough potatoes to last us 3 days.)



…Max ate very, very precisely [he always does this] while Mummy cooked.

Finished product:

… I miscalculated the amount of time to prep the potatoes and mushrooms, and ended up taking 2h15m to cook the meal. We ended up eating around midnight.

So that was my week last week!

How was yours? What did you do? See? Or, most importantly, EAT?

I also hit my 1 year blog anniversary today. I’ll have a BIG giveaway coming up soon in appreciation, and I’ll be launching thereafterish’s namesake domain with a brand new website SOON! Yeay!

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“My Style” Guest Post: AsianCajun Lauren “Lar”

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The second guester at thereafterish. is the lovely “Lar” Lauren of AsianCajuns. Lar is a brilliant, vibrant graphic designer with some serious urban/downtown flair, based out of Decatur, Georgia (the extremely trendy/stylish suburb of Atlanta).

Here, Lar dishes one of the elements that is quintessential in her style:

The Hair Pouf

I remember when I was about 14, I was pretty sure I would know myself completely (or close enough to it) by the time I was 20. This was a somewhat arbitrary age, but 20 seemed a safe distance away from 14. Knowing myself would also include my more superficial attributes. By 20 I would be completely comfortable with myself AND have an iconic style.

It sounds arrogant, but I think I was just being naive and/or overly ambitious. I am now 27 and do not have a definitive style let alone an iconic one. What I do have is… a hair pouf. As you can see in the photos pulled from my blog over the past year, I am rarely without that gravity-defying swoosh of hair on top of my head.

How did it get there? I have no idea. I don’t remember being inspired by Suzy Menkes, or anyone else in the fashion world for that matter. I’ve always hated to have my hair in my face (one reason my twin sister Cath can pull off bangs with aplomb and I can’t). I remember pinning back the top bit of my hair one day and thinking it looked weird pulled flat against my head. I teased it a bit underneath, scrunched the hair forward, and clipped it in place. Voila! The hair pouf was born.

If you would ask me if my hair pouf is fashionable or trendy, I wouldn’t have an idea (though I’d probably lean towards “no”). However, I think it’s enough of a fixture that most would consider it part of my style.

Now I’ve just got to get everything below the neck figured out.

I beg to disagree, Lar, I’m quite certain you’ve gotten it all figured out. Maybe you just don’t realize it yet.

For more of Lauren and her twin sister, Cath, you can catch up on their style and exploits at AsianCajuns.

Photo credit: Lauren, AsianCajuns.

Thanks, Lar!

{ Architecture of an Outfit } Child’s Play

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In a severe bout of self-image issues, I bought a few dresses and shirts from ModCloth which arrived on Wednesday. As happens when you often buy things online, a couple of the dresses didn’t fit right–I believe they were manufactured for women with longer torsos and broader shoulders but tiny waists and large chests. Barbie, basically. Which I am not.

With a bit of tailoring, they’d look amazing.

The Row Your Bow Dress stood out to me as a reasonably priced, airy, light dress good for summer, with cute details and dynamic stripe patterns. I knew immediately that the v-stripe of top portion of the dress would play down my chest a bit. Fine by me!




I decided to play on the playful charm of the included satin bow belt by tying one of my satin sashes around my head as a bow. Because the sash was too long (actually a belt to another dress), I folded it in half and tied it as a regular square knot on top of my head. Since one half of the knot is actually a loop, and the other end had two parts, the knot had a bow-like effect.

The material is like a light cotton sweater, which sounds too hot to wear on these hot Michigan summers, but the fabric is airy, allowing maximum comfort. I wore it yesterday, which was a true wet, hot American Summer. It started out humid and extremely hot, and then transformed into warm, thunderous, pounding rain. We went out to an Irish Pub for dinner, during which hurricane strength rain storms pounded down on poor Southeast Michigan. We got totally drenched, but by appetizers, my dress was dry. I can’t say enough good things about this dress.

The hem height kind of borders on questionable for an office setting, even for Casual Friday, so I added a flouncy, ruffled slip I got at Urban Outfitters three years ago to lengthen the hem. Of course, the visible slip ruffle is usually a fashion faux-pas by standard reckoning, but who gives a damn? No one in my office has ever said a word about it, so I will continue to wear them visibly until someone writes me up for it. In the three and a half years I’ve worked there, no one has berated me on my clothes except for some usual critic who thinks he’s qualified to make comment.

Anyway!

Because of the busyness of my outfit, I decided to keep my makeup and accessories simple, but with a touch of red on my lips for the lack of colour everywhere else.

I’m wearing two colours, both of which I think work well with golden/caramel Asian American skin. I’m kind of on the medium-darker side for Asian skin, but luckily, I’ve been able to find a few reds that suit my skintone. It took me a good three to four years of experimenting to find the right shades, but now I swear by them.

The darkest but brightest red I’ve found is Fire Down Below by NARS. NARS claims it’s a semi-matte finish with a moisturizing formula, but honestly, it’s kind of a lie. It’s a matte finish, and the application is pretty heavy, and settles into lip lines (as you can see in the picture), so it’s best to wear a lip balm first. I use LypSyl SPF 15. Let it absorb thoroughly, then apply the lipstick using a lipstick brush. It gives you a better, more even coverage. For a sheen to it, with additional SPF protection, I layer a sheer red by Neutrogena over it. It lasts with colour for about three hours before having to retouch.

I use a lot of other red lipsticks, so if you’re interested in finding out more about the red lipsticks I’ve found that flatter more golden/darker Asian American or olive skintones, feel free to email me or comment on this post!

{ Outfit Architecture: Row Your Bow Dress (Sold Out), ModCloth. Belt as hair bow, Forever 21. Garnet necklace, gift. Chinese Character necklace, boutique in Monterey, CA. Mary Jane shoes (no longer available), Bakers Shoes. Ruffle Slip (no longer available), Silence & Noise via Urban Outfitters. }