SomeHAIR over the Rainbow!

It's everywhere...Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Glamour magazine, Urban Outfitters and Free People catalogs, the spring fashion runways...

the RAINBOW HAIR trend! 

Colorful twin hair!

And I LOVE IT! I consider "rainbow" hair to be one of my areas of expertise. Check out my portfolio on www.kelseysmart.com and you'll see what I mean. I've been rocking rainbow hair myself pretty consistently since St. Patty's day 2010...I started with a little green and added some purple (so I wouldn't look like a freak after the holiday was over), pretty soon I was asking my fellow stylists to bleach out entire sections of my hair so we could add more blue, copper, yellow, hot pink...and maybe some raspberry pink, purple, blue-violet or lime green while we're at it...You name it, I've probably had it on my hair at some point. There was a point when I got more comments from little girls than anyone else, so I decided to dial it back a bit. Haha. This winter, I returned to a solid dark brown color to give my kaleidoscope hair a break from the bleach and schizophrenia. (For the record, it was always nicely mixed in with a natural base color, so I didn't look like a Hot Topic employee.)

SoCap's keratin bond

Now that spring has rolled around again, and especially since I've been seeing tons of colorful hair trend alerts, I was starting to miss my rainbow hair! Gemini14 doesn't carry my favorite products for rainbow hair (I'm going to have to see what I can do about that!), but they do have quite the selection of hair extensions! Which is also great option for those of you who want to avoid bleaching your hair to smithereens trying to get the perfect light pink. Lucky for me, one of my favorite coworkers, Naomi Porto, offered to put the extensions in for me after I ordered the hair from SoCap (quality hair, great selection). They're surprisingly comfortable and easy to style, unlike other extensions I've had. They'll stay in my hair until they grow out enough where I want them removed. 

The key to this trend is not to over-do it, but not to under-do it either. Too much looks cheap and inappropriate on a full-grown woman...we don't want to evoke memories of your punk phase in high school. Too little looks like you can't commit...a statement color is meant to be just that! Let it stand out! Go big or go home, as they say. Another thing to keep in mind is the placement. It's not a natural color, so it shouldn't be placed as you'd normally put, say, blonde highlights...it's going to look "off" if you do that. It needs to be a "pop" of color...on the ends (that ombre look that's so of-the-moment), peeking out of your bangs or underneath your hair. I like to use more than one color, and preferably three for a good mix of contrast and coordination. I have purple, raspberry and dark brown in my hair. I just fell in love with a lilac swatch at the salon, so I’ll be saving my tip money to add those!

Yay, spring!

This is how my hair is now with the extensions.
I love how it melts into my natural hair.
It's great to have some color in there again! Thanks, Naomi!

Some of my fun hair with feathers, colored extensions and "rainbowed" natural hair.
This was for a review I wrote for BehindTheChair.com about the Marilyn Teasing Brush!

St. Patty's Day 2011
Photoshoot for Skimpily Clawd's fabulous green dress!



****Edit by Linz****

 More rainbow hair! This is all Kelsey's work of course:)

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I Rock a lot of Polka Dots..

 

Top: old navy; Skirt: from Francesca's boutique; Pumps: Steve Madden

Outfit! I was shopping last weekend and finally found the perfect outfit to wear with my navy blue pumps! Saw this skirt at a Francesca's boutique and fell in love with the asymmetrical hem. I am not normally a fan of asymmetry when it comes to things like one shoulder tops or anything involving a right vs left side, but I love the front/back asymmetry! I found the burnt orange top on sale at old navy and it really pulled the outfit together. The back of the top that you can't see is a lot lower than the front. I really enjoyed the combo of this skirt and top being high in the front, low in the back.

facebook.com/skimpilyclawd

New dress! I finished making this last week for a friend of mine's little sister. He bought a gift certificate from me to give her for Christmas and she cashed it in for this custom made piece. She is currently in France for a high school trip, lucky girl! Hope she hands out my business card to some Frenchies! ;) I had a lot of fun making this dress. I made a detachable purple tulle petticoat so she can choose to wear it and make it poof or just wear the dress as is with another accent color (like red!). I also really love how the ruffled collar turned out with the white peaking out from underneath. I haven't decided if I will make another one of these but I definitely want to use more of this fabric (it's even stretch!).

Skimpily Clawd Gift Certificates. I owe these to my amazing graphic designer... Amanda Hudson

Lindsey


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Luck be a Lady

What are your St Paddy's Day plans? I don't have any this year but it does remind me of how much fun I had last year!

Last year I made two very green dresses!  (The first dress is still available here.)

 Model: Alana

Photos by Alisabeth; Model: Kelsey!

There was a parade downtown and Kelsey and her salon at the time, The Fix, had a spot in the parade so I decided to dress Kelsey and make her the St Patrick's Day Princess! Well maybe that wasn't the intention, but that is what a little girl in the parade thought when she saw her! Awww.  Since I was sortof an "honorary member" of the salon I got to march right along with them! We both got to show off our Skimpily Clawd originals!

The paparazzi found us!

Hope you have a happy St Patrick's Day!

Lindsey

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The Story of Us

Photo by Cliff Jette for Hoopla, weekly entertainment magazine

This was the beginning of our beautiful friendship. A photoshoot in August of 2010 for Hoopla about crafting featuring our lovely Lindsey called for the best hair and makeup artist in town...yours truly! ;) We opted for the picture-perfect feel of a 1950's housewife with help from "The Shop Next Door". I talked Lindsey into trimming her bangs just a leettle bit...little did she know she'd be rocking Bettie Page bangs a few months later in my portfolio.   We soon decided to trade custom clothes for hair sessions and we were both happy campers. I think it was after I kidnapped her to go fabric shopping to the point of light-headedness (which led to an impromptu sushi date) that we discovered our kindred souls, with a mutual love for shoes, mani/pedis and all things girly. 

Lindsey quickly became my personal stylist. First, she influenced my shoe collection ("Do you have any higher heels?"), and my wardrobe (after you've had a dress custom-made for you, you'll soon abandon the ones you bought off the sale rack in the juniors' department). She's my go-to girl when I'm packing for a trip or can't decide what to wear on a date/interview/concert. I'm constantly picture-texting her outfits for approval. I can hardly go shopping without her! She's prevented me from so many regretful ill-fitting purchases..."Can this be altered?" "Yes, but it's still not meant to look like that..." 

It was only a matter of time before I got my hands in Lindsey's virgin hair...a little purple and blue there, some sweet bangs...later, a little hot pink and purple...okay, more purple! And feathers! Then, let's decolorize the whole thing and go RED!! Oh, we have too much fun together. We reworked her makeup routine with help from Patrick at Vanity & Glamour in Des Moines. We introduced her to concealer and powder foundation to get that flawless porcelain look we both love, blush for a hint of color and definition and we found the perfect bright pink lipstick to top it all off! (Pink lipstick is all over the beauty magazines right now. For the record, we did it first. ;)

Photos by Liz Martin for Kelsey's Portfolio in December 2010...rocking the Bettie bangs! 

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"Are you twins?"

Photo taken in Kansas City, May 2011 Hair styles,  cuts, colors, feathers, and make up done by Kelsey (at right)

"Are you twins?"

 "Nope! But we get it all the time..."

"Sisters, then...right?"

"Nope."

"Then you have to be roommates, at least!"

...Really?

Ooh yeah, that actually happened. Though that was a special scenario, we have been asked if we're twins so often that we decided to just go with it and be fake twins- Two of a Kinda! We have so much in common anyway...and we do kinda look like it.

 Allow us to introduce ourselves.

Kelsey. (photo by Alisabeth)

Lindsey. (photo by Cliff Jette/ the Gazette)

 We are Kelsey and Lindsey, a couple of super girly girls that were both born and raised in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Kelsey is a fabulous hair and make up artist and Lindsey is the designer and seamstress behind her very own clothing label, Skimpily Clawd. Among many other things, we share love for polka dots, purple, hot pink lipstick, Betsey Johnson jewelry, mani/pedis, and shoes! lots of shoes! We discovered we wear the same scent ('Daisy' by Marc Jacobs), and we are known to show up to wearing very similar outfits when we didn't plan it (and sometimes when we do!). Maybe we were separated at birth!  If only our moms had arranged a playdate for us when they were in Tupperware together...we could have been fake twinnies this whole time!

Look! It's Miley! In Kelsey's Salon!

Anyway, about a month ago now-- is it exactly a month? Wow, time flies!--Well a month ago Kelsey decided to leave the mid-west for bigger and better things! She now calls Brooklyn, New York her home and is working alongside celebrity stylists at Gemini 14. And how perfect for the gal who was born on June 14th (June.. 14th... Gemini..14..eh?...eh??)! You'll have to excuse my(Lindsey) dorky sense of humor.

Though we now have 1,000 miles between us, we still talk to each other almost daily and swap advice and tips. I recently got the idea that we should start co-writing a blog together where we both get to share our areas of expertise with others! You can expect a lot fashion, beauty, and hair talk as well as documentation of our shopping and shoe obsessions. I'm sure there will also be boy talk: Kelsey, about her exciting OkCupid scenarios and other random "meet-cutes", and Lindsey, about her boyfriend of 2+ years that is (according to Kelsey) "the only straight guy who's fashion advice I actually respect". Aand whatever else we want to talk about and show you pictures of! So stay tuned!

xoxo

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