The return of the ‘Curly Girl’ How to make the most of your twisty tresses

Straight hair has become the uniform of 21st century beauty. Jennifer Aniston made her name with it. Gwyneth Paltrow won’t be seen in public without it. Julia Roberts hasn’t made a movie with waves for years and now it seems that every woman of every race is busy erasing, relaxing, blow drying and processing her kink.

But it’s not for everyone. On very young girls it looks conformist and conservative. On women over 30 with long chins or angular features it looks aging. And on African American and Latin women it evokes an era when cookie-cutter hairdos and wigs ala The Supremes were the norm. Curly hair and wavy locks have been relegated to special occasions. But why not wear them everyday?

Lorraine Massey, the twisty-tressed author of Curly Girl: The Handbook, argues that curly hair is not only sexy, it’s also way healthier than blowtorching your head every morning before work or applying savage chemicals to get poker-straight hair. Wearing your hair curly means no longer having to fight the elements, apply heated rollers or pull at a stubborn cowlick minutes before a big meeting in an attempt to look chic.

Curly hair opens up fashion possibilities too. It looks romantic, it looks relaxed and it frames and softens the face like an angelic halo. To return to your inner Botticelli angel takes three steps: The first is to identify the type of curl you have. The second is to know how to have it cut properly. The third is a daily care regime that gives you goddess bounce instead of metal-head mop or freaky frizz.

No one, according to the new curl liberationists, has bad hair, just hair with special needs. Curly hair is more porous than straight and absorbs the harmful detergents in shampoo like a sponge. The more dehydrated and heat damaged the hair cuticle, the duller (and frizzier) your hair looks. One of the best things for curly hair, according to Massey, is to stop using shampoo and to wash instead with a small amount of conditioner just once a week, with warm water rinses in between. Curls love moisture and spring back to their natural form when not loading down with product.

"Occasional chemical treatments such a dye and highlights are less harmful than daily abuse," according to Massey. "One week at the monastery, one week in Vegas," she says, laughing, "Curly and wavy hair care is all a matter of balance."

For curly girls, less product is more, says Massey, who runs the SoHo salon, Devachan. Less detergent, less heavy chemicals and less shampoo actually applied in the shower. Just half a teaspoon worked into the roots and scalp is enough — hair itself never needs to be foamed up. EVER.

With those basic radical reversals you can go fast-forward with your curls. And join the ranks of the curly pinup girls: Nicole Kidman, former “ER” players Gloria Reuben and Julianna Margulies, Keri Russell of “Felicity” fame, Sarah Jessica Parker and Julia Roberts.

The curl index

Here’s how to care for your kind of curls.

1. Corkscrew curls are tightly wound ringlets that have a tendency to stick straight up, get frizzy and feel extra-dry. They need a lot of moisture and half a teaspoon of conditioner only for each weekly wash. Air-dry upside down by patting with a towel. No squeezing please!

2. Botticelli curls come in different sizes and are easily weighed down. They need less conditioner than corkscrew curls but can be dried the same way. When pressed for time, use a diffuser (a big nozzle that disperses hot air) on a low setting.

3. Wavy curls are loose and full and sometimes lie down and play dead. Natural waves go frizzy in the rain or humidity and sometimes make the hair go flat on the crown. This breed of curl loves to be washed and dried like Botticelli curls and given extra help at the crown with gel, pin curls and regular spritzing and scrunching throughout the day.

4. Afro curls can be tight and kinky or loose and curled depending on the tightness of the hair spiral. The curly revolution for black hair has been the return of the Afro and natural styles. But whether you wear extensions or a crew cut ala Erykah Badu the most important hair care tip for African American hair is hydration. Winter is hard on Afro curly girls. Weekly oil treatments for the scalp and resisting the urge to apply heat keeps hair supple and unfrizzed. The trick with corn rows and other tightly-braided curly dos is to tend to the scalp, making sure that hair is not strained to the breaking point and that the roots are well conditioned with every rinse. Conditioner instead of shampoo is recommended.

Since the seventies the college uniform has been denim. Denim skirts, denim totes, denim hats and denim jeans (from hipsters to 501s and back again). Since the seventies the business uniform has been suits. Pant suits, velvet suits, pinstripe suits, summer weight suits and basic black suits.

Making the leap from the world of casual to the world of corporate chic isn’t easy. It’s hard not to feel like your dressed like an air hostess when you suddenly have to button a blouse and wear those strange creations known as pumps. And despite radical changes in fashion, there are certain classics that bosses seem to love: the crisp tailored shirt, the pencil skirt, the neat cashmere sweater and the well cut suit.

Few women aggressively power dress these days, with shoulder pads ala Working Girl, but a certain formality to work wear endures. No matter what job you’re going for after college you’re going to have to dress for it. It seems unfair to add a new wardrobe to your expenses when you’re probably already shouldering a huge student loan, but there are savvy ways around it. Build yourself an economical little capsule wardrobe — a small group of pieces that can get you out the door to any interview anytime and have you looking organized on a Monday morning no matter how hard you reveled the night before. Start like this…

INTEGRATE YOUR STYLE

Unless you attended a Mormon college, it’s doubtful your wardrobe is already equipped with knee length skirts and navy blazers. Just the idea of sensible, classic, “basics” is offensive to a free spirit. What about color? What about dread locks? What about wearing more than one earring on each lobe? If your style is more Lauryn Hill than Laura Bush you can still land that job; simply learn to work your style over to balance eccentricity with elegance. Buy a blazer in chunky corduroy or cotton velvet for fall, team it with a basic black knee-high boot, a black turtleneck and a narrow tweedy skirt. Express yourself with a gorgeous vintage scarf or a pair of hand knitted gloves. Such little pleasures worn outside the office keep you feeling quirky and alive. Nobody types in gloves!

MODESTY BLAZE

Skimpy singlet tops, low rider jeans, sheer peasant blouses and other flirty items reduce your smarts off campus. Older co-workers, leering old farts and bosses have predictable reactions to the prime of youth so it does pay to veil it. Wear a bra (yawn!), wear slightly more neutral makeup (double yawn!) and lower your hemline to the knee. It might feel like you’re going to church rather than to work, but a sense of modesty will take you far. The best protection against female envy and male sexism is a little black dress and a tasteful trench coat. Dressing chic rather than cheap gives you an authority beyond your years.

EXPERIMENT WITH DIFFERENT STORES

Malls are divided tribally. There are “girl” stores and Mom stores and a weird category in the middle that sells cheap little suits and black high heels to women who are neither. No one under 25 should have to wear chocolate brown, navy blue or sand! With this stated, I urge you to experiment with your shopping. Blend a trendy item from a store like H&M with a smart piece from Banana Republic. Try a straight looking pair of black Capris with a cool beaded cardigan. Some lace stockings with sober ballet flats. Cross-shopping shifts your mindset away from the idea of a total look,and, each store has their own. You might find a perfectly good long sleeved black jersey top at the Gap that is screaming for a velvet jacket from Betsey Johnson. Whatever you do, don’t let one sales assistant make you over for a job interview. I still own the hideous black wool “slacks” bought at Country Road one insecure moment when I was 27 that made me look 57.

BUILD YOUR BASICS

I left college fifteen years ago, and I still need three black skirts (one for day, one for PMS bloat, one for evening), a nice cashmere cardigan, a neat short black overcoat, a pair of black flats and crisp white blouse. Without these basics my wardrobe spins into a vortex of ragged vintage dresses, strange caftan blouses, leopard print camisoles and other thoroughly un-professional indulgences. Your capsule wardrobe wish list might be a little different. You might prefer burgundy to black, pants or boots to flats but the reigning principle is this: It doesn’t matter how plain an item is if you can wear it six ways, make it last six seasons and see it in more than three very different situations. A little black dress that stretches from job interview, to office to cocktail party is your new best friend!

GROOM RATHER THAN SPEND

Looking smooth is more important than looking expensive. Invest in a manicure set, cuticle oil, tweezers, a weekly hair at-home hair treatment and a haircut that can shake and blow dry in five minutes flat. Make sure your shoes look clean and shiny and carry extra hose in your handbag. Before you leave the house check for pilling, creases, fallen bra straps and VPL (visible panty line). Once you harness the Joan Crawford routine of giving yourself a once-over in the hall mirror, you’ll have the power to make the simplest outfits look presentable. Basically, it’s a confidence trick of looking more together than you are. Over time you’ll start to believe your own publicity.

Lingerie fashion can be positively fascistic when it comes to the breast. The modern bra can make every bosom a perfect, foamy sphere.

While the bottom ala mode jiggles freely in a G-string thong, the breasts are tightly confined — more so than in the 30s when camisoles were the vogue, more so than in our mothers’ day, when women bounced freely in 70s tank tops, and more so than in the early 90s when bias-cut dresses invited us to wear no bra at all.

I myself am addicted to the demi-cup underwire bra. When I take it off at night I feel a dreadful deflation, a loss of drama and spice and oomph. Like so many women, I identify with my bra-shaped breasts so much better than my real and modest ones. Like wearing the same makeup everyday or sticking to the same old perfume, your breasts can fall into a routine…same old bra, same old shape. But the truth is that boobs like a little variety in dress and in undress and that we can be as big and brassy or as soft and sexy as we like, it just takes a little more imagination.

Building a bra wardrobe

The first time I saw those bras with invisible straps made of sheer plastic I laughed. Now I’ve come around. Asymmetrical dresses and tops with a single strap demand a more creative method of support. One bra really won’t do for all. Here are some building blocks for your modern bra wardrobe:

1. A crossover bra for halter dresses.
2. A soft stretchy bra for t-shirts
3. Wonder bra for “go-get-em” hot dates.
4. A nice white lace bra for the first Monday of every week.

A sheer cashmere sweater demands a bra with few seams and a cable knit looks pretty awful with a padded bra. Next time you shop for a bra, take a swag of tops along and be generous with yourself. A good bra can make you look 10 pounds lighter and a good deal younger.

Buying up big

The seduction of instant cleavage, a gorgeous pin-up silhouette is powerful. Sometimes a pair of heels and a killer bra is like romantic jet fuel. But like strong perfume it’s not a look for every day and over-use of the uber-bosom bra starts to negate the natural beauty of a less superhuman set of breasts.

A “body” bra is like having silicone implants, the breasts look much bigger and they DO NOT move. Foxy in an angora sweater or a low-cut dress, these foamy shells give you porn star curves but really draw attention to the chest. I was addicted to these bras all winter until I started to notice girls on the street with exactly the same look up-front, the generic “Pamela” rack. There’s not a lot of room for personality, erect nipples or even playful jiggling. In some ways this style of bra mimics the silicone implants of film-stars and lingerie models, there is something impersonal and almost insulting about that ideal.

If you want the vavoom, but don’t want to wear a bionic booster bra with chunky foam or lacy little pads sewn in you could try those slithery little sacs made of silicone or saline. Way less dangerous than implants, these chicken-fillet-shaped boosters slip into the bra and curve around the natural shape of your breast. They feel cold at first but by the end of the day are strangely warm and familiar.

I tried a pair of bio-form boobs for a day and felt about five months pregnant. Unlike a padded bra they had a natural weight to them which felt nice. They say this is how Julia Roberts put the oomph into her Erin Brockovich corsets and I believe it. Suddenly you have extra meat under each bosom without puppy fat anywhere else. It was fun to heft about as a 36DD but I would have much preferred these sneaky treats at the age of 13 when it really mattered. If wearing falsies teaches you anything it is the sensation of having much larger breasts which, as many women will tell you, can be both a blessing and a burden.

Big alternatives

For the larger woman taking a break from overly constricting bras might involve some creativity. Most lingerie designed for you looks like armor. And fashion is generally designed for smaller chests.

My girlfriend Marta never lets her fabulous bustage get in the way of being chic. She wears clothes designed for extra support; leotards, velvet lace up corsets and stretch lycra tops. She also refuses to wear “sensible” Mama-style bras. Many prettier styles give just as much support. Big breasts don’t need a generic bra but a wardrobe of styles for different outfits and moods, just like smaller breasted girls. For breezy sports models and sexy alternatives to the maternity model go to biggerbras.com or try a lycra camisole for a day of relative freedom. Support is important, but so is accepting your real shape and a week without underwire might be just the trick to discovering a more natural outline. For more information on pretty things in larger sizes call Big Girl’s Bras etc… (972) 475 8110. The lacy goodies on their website look like lingerie not advanced engineering.

Dressing for less

Going braless is not just aesthetic it’s political. No one has jiggled defiantly since they burned the bra back in ’72 and since then fashion has changed too. Lycra and mesh t-shirts mold to pumped up cleavage, sheer fabrics bare the nipple. But there are ways to dress for less bosom and less coverage. Cameron Diaz and Kate Hudson frequently go without; they simply emphasize other parts of their bodies: a great collar bone, lovely arms, a graceful neck. Making your wardrobe less breast-centric involves looking for softer styles. Vintage dresses from the 30s and 40s are very sympathetic and so is the lingerie of that era. A silk camisole slip is modest but sexy. Worn under a jacket it is sensual rather than overt sexiness. Suddenly Marilyn breasts seem a lot less chic.

It usually begins in the office, that first little tinkle of holiday cheer expressed by a receptionist in a reindeer  sweater or a jolly co-worker
dangling Christmas bells from each ear lobe. Ho, ho, oh no! Not holiday dressing, that weird time of year when grown women wear white lace tights, floppy velvet scrunchies and way too much red.

Come December, you’ll see polyester stretch velvet, tartan taffeta and little black patent leather pumps, all on the same body. Taking too many cues from the children’s department and Norman Rockwell, Christmas dressing is often an act of
sentimental regression. Suddenly we wear clothes for emotional reasons: every gold chain ever given to us by a boy, the ugly hand-knit sweater Grandma sent from Baltimore, a red ribbon for good luck, or weird church shoes with ankle straps.

With an odd mix of piety and pigging out, Christmas Day poses a challenge for chic dressing. Who can think about donning diamond drop earrings when hunched over an oven or wrestling a stack of toddlers under the tree? You don’t want to look pretentious in front of the in-laws, and yet there remains that secret urge for something special, a little reward for what a good girl you’ve been.

Let the tree be baroque and bulbous, let Dean Martin croon about snowflakes and frisky elves, but you need to glitter with more subtlety. Scan my list of the five absolute fashion faux pas for the holidays and then comfort yourself with 10 stylish solutions.

Five holiday fashion mistakes

1. Abuse of white and cherry red. White shoes, white tights, white angora sweaters with satin applique and glittery bits hanging off them, white blouses with pie-crust collars and mutton-chop sleeves. Red satin skirts, red overcoats with little black velvet buttons (a la Princess Beatrice), big fat red ribbons (a la Bakery window) worn on too-tight cavalry pony tails. Stop right there.
2. Tartan and velvet in the same outfit.
3. Clothes with Christmas motifs printed, embroidered or knitted onto them. Remember that ghastly moose sweater in Bridget Jones’s Diary?
4. Christmas accessories like look anything like tinsel or bulbs.
5. Fluffy hair.

10 tips for holiday chic

1. Limit yourself to one red accent: red cashmere shell, red lipstick, red French bra, red suede gloves. One great red dress needs very plain accessories: no paste, no patent leather; pearl or diamond stud earrings are fine.

2. Love a little white lace Edwardian blouse or angora polar neck sweater, but modernize them with a pin-stripe floor-length riding skirt or even black velvet capris. Think crisp tailoring meets romantic style. If anything you are wearing makes you think Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman or Stevie Nicks, stand back and then pare back.

3. Instead of swathing yourself with emerald green velvet, Scarlett O’Hara style, get that sensuous touch with accessories: velvet ankle boots, velvet handbag, velvet belt on a pretty knit jersey dress, or sew a little velvet ribbon to the edge of favorite beret.

4. One piece of great costume jewelry. Sweep your hair up and clip on some vintage crystal drop earrings or a pearl choker, frame them with a sweetheart neckline. Don’t forget cameos, pin a vintage button to a strip of thick velvet ribbon, then tie the knot. The holidays may be the only day you really have an occasion to wear a big gorgeous brooch, so put it somewhere cool like on the hip of a dress or at the center of a taffeta sash.

5. Choose great shoes. A pencil skirt and mules. A ballerina skirt and kitten heel boots. A little black dress, sheer stockings and satin ballet flats. I have a pair of black velvet Manolo’s waiting under the tree as pointy as an elf’s cap. (Budget tip: I bought them on sale in the middle of summer!)

6. Try a kilt. Mini kilts look adorable with long black boots and a plain black sweater.

7. For the annual Christmas party, try some big-band style: a veiled cocktail hat or a gardenia corsage on an electric blue dress. Think Liza in New York, New York.

8. Rent Dr. Zhivago, then invest in a really great coat. Snow feels glamorous in a long sweep of white wool.

9. See the New Year in with a dainty gold mesh handbag. Search online for Whiting and Davis ’20s and ’30s bags.

10. Collapse at the end of the day in silk pajamas, baggy enough for the ravages of the feasting, sexy enough to keep romance alive despite in-laws and screaming offspring.

Perfume is clouded with pretension, prohibitive prices and high-gloss ad campaigns, but everyone still needs a scent. That invisible self portrait that leaves an indelible mark; a wispy, mysterious trail that becomes part of your personal legend.

The scent you love could be as basic as a dab of patchouli oil or as complex as a bottle of Joy.

The pleasure dwells in the fact that it’s yours. Cleopatra understood this concept — practically doping Mark Antony with incense, waxed perfume and essential oils at every one of her grand banquets.

Marilyn Monroe told the world she slept in nothing but Chanel No. 5 and a million mid-century moms followed suit.

The perfumes most of our mothers wore were classics. Today the marketplace is much more aggressive, diverse and mercurial. Confronted with so much choice, you want a scent that doesn’t smell like it fell out of a magazine (remember Giorgio?) and you want a perfume that is appealing but appropriate (don’t try Fracas at the board meeting).

Above all, you don’t need to be intimidated or swayed by the charm of packaging or the daunting displays in department stores. The first and best tool to lead you out of the maze is your nose.

Every perfume is constructed of three notes; the top note, the heart note and the base and these are arranged according to how the scent disperses. The top note is your first impression and lasts about a minute. The heart note is the body of the perfume. And the base note is the way a scent lingers and rounds off at edges. To love all three you have to live with a perfume on your skin and take into consideration the seasons (summer suits a lighter scent because of the way we perspire), the oil level of your skin (darker complexions hold a scent whereas dry skins need more) and the magic of your own chemistry.

Some perfumes are compelling but unwearable. I love the idea of smelling like a Zen Buddhist (NU by Yves Saint Laurent) or a cookie factory in a Colombian rain forest (Jungle L’Elephant by Kenzo) but can’t do it day to day.

To find a perfume worth committing to, Jan Moran, the author of “Fabulous Fragrances II” (Crescent House Publishing), recommends sampling only four perfumes with each outing and getting scent samples out of a department store and into the elements and your own lifestyle to see if it fits.

Her book and Michael Edward’s “Fragrances of the World” (both available from www.fabulousfragrances.com) give the skinny on why we are attracted to specific scents and what groups they belong to.

Moran concentrates on the luscious history behind famous perfumes and Edwards provides a color- coded guide linking 2,695 individual fragrances to 12 basic scent categories.

It seems ambitious to apply a system to something as personal as smell, but perfume is part poetry and part science. If you are drawn to Arpege, First and Chanel no.5 you are responding to the soft florals created by substances that are found naturally in rose and citrus oils and used synthetically to create a powdery, almost charred, soft floral. Flip through Edwards book before you go the perfume counter and you are armed with the knowledge of 12 perfume categories (spanning from citrus and oceanic notes to incense and oriental resins), and the thousands of Fragrance finds fragrances that correspond with them. Like a personality test, the Perfume Wheel system tells you clearly which specific notes attract you and why.

Women who want to smell like lemonade and bleached bed sheets (Cristalle, Aqua Di Parma Colonia, cK ONE) are citrus lovers. Women who love heady, candied, almost plum-pudding scents (Boudoir, Bal a Versailles, Poeme) are classical Floral Oriental types.

Find the perfect perfume: 7 tips

1. Be bold! Hound the cosmetic counters for a sample spray a day until you find what you want.
2. Make a list of your favorite scents no matter how obscure (white chocolate fudge, sea spray, cut grass, peaches, sugared almonds) and look for them in a perfume.
3. Go retro. Many of the greatest scents were designed between 1900 and 1945. Faithful to the original recipes, perfumes like Joy (1930) and Mitsouko (1919) have tremendous intensity, luxurious layers and earthy naturalism.
4. Ignore packaging. A scent may come in ugly bottle or a granny box. Set the trend by wearing an unadvertised perfume.
5. Search while you travel. The smaller apothecaries in Europe (Penghalion’s in London, Santa Maria Novella in Florence) have great little known scents. Markets in the Caribbean, Morocco and North Africa also sell rare oils and perfumes.
6. When you find your true love, invest in parfum rather than cheaper dilutions, especially in winter when the dry air evaporates the scent.
7. Buy small and build a seasonal fragrance wardrobe. Perfume lasts up to 18 months and longer when tightly sealed. Put your winter scents in the fridge during summer and try lighter less serious “accessory” scents such as Aqua Allegoria by Guerlain that comes in everything from grapefruit to violet.

If you can’t smell your signature perfume anymore you may have olfactory fatigue. Refrigerate your favorite and try something new.