Style Your Hair Like A Star

All of a sudden, out here in Hollywood, there is a completely new face on beauty. And when this happens in Hollywood, suddenly or otherwise, it goes round the world faster than a speeding bullet.

For the glamour that has been created for a doll like Elizabeth Taylor is so clearly outlined that it immediately is in reach of every girl. We can’t all have Elizabeth’s exquisite nose or lovely eyes or piquant mouth. Or that figure either. But the glamour mood of Elizabeth, or of Janie Wyman, or of saucy June Allyson, that can be had.

With the start of this autumn of 1950 there is not only a complete change of hair styling, but of make-up and figure-styling too. Hairlines are completely unlike those of last fall. Mouthlines are very new. The doe-eyed look also is here. This is entirely a make-up trick but amusing when you want to go in for it. More cheek rouge than has been worn for years is now very fashionable. And even costume jewelry is related to your make-up.

This being my debut as Photoplay’s beauty editor, and hairlines being the biggest new beauty change, I’ll get on with them first. Look about you on these pages: June Allyson, Jane Wyman, Elizabeth Taylor, Pat Neal, Barbara Stanwyck and Jane Powell. Your personal type should be somewhere in such a company. But remember this: Even if you copy your pet, almost exactly, you should also try to give your hair-do, your make-up and your figure its unique “you” touch.

While the coiffures Photoplay shows here are all distinctive, they all, with the exception of Jane Powell’s, follow the newest edict about headlines. This is it: You must have a “light” look to your hair. No longer should your hair swing like a mop on your neck (remember June Allyson last year?). The heavy look is definitely out. The super-curly look is definitely dated. Your head should look small, little-girl-ish, very, very neat.

Do you want a super-tailored look? Regard Jane Wyman’s newest cut, then. Janie hasn’t got a hair on her head these days that’s longer than four inches. And her bangs are thinned out underneath to keep them from being even half as heavy as they were last year. Last year bangs were lifted from the forehead in a curving bulge. This year that is old hat.

For any girl who, like Little Miss Button Nose, adores straight, tailored lines, this is your hair style 1950. It will probably need every-ten-days’ cutting—for it must be neat and short to the last degree, and it really requires daily brushing of ten minutes at least to give it its high gloss. But that’s all it does need for the smartest appearance.

Barbara Stanwyck’s new crowning style is a complete change of pace. If ever a girl is supposed to know her own mind, it’s Stanny. Said she, last year, “None of this short hair for me. It doesn’t suit me.” Says she now, her hair clipped so that the lower halves of her ears are exposed, “I’m so delightfully surprised. I adore my hair this way.”

Know what changed her? Love. Love and Robert Taylor, aided and abetted by clever Sydney Guilaroff of M-G-M.

Let me digress for one moment. The interesting sidelight on the current haircuts is that men do prefer them. Dick Powell was the main influence that got June Allyson’s hair cut. Junie was also head-styled by Sydney Guilaroff, though her own regular hairdresser, Ethel Neefus, at the studio, has done all the work since Guilaroff’s original clipping. But there the resemblance between her hair style and Stanwyck’s ends.

Bob Taylor had long argued that Barbara’s hair was too long, too thick and too curled. Guilaroff gave Barbara what he calls a “soft, tailored neckline” in back. This means no curls but the hair brushed softly up. With the front and sides thoroughly thinned out, he gave Barbara the kind of permanent you can give yourself or get in your favorite shop.

June Allyson says Guilaroff just “whoophs” her hair. Translated, that means it is thinned and even more casually set. It was Dick Powell’s idea that June have the center part—Guilaroff’s idea that she wear the bangs—and “my own idea,” she grins, “that they leave me some little hair on my head.” Junie has the problem that not many of us face: her hair is actually too curly. It never has a permanent. It can’t be “set” in the conventional meaning of the word. Usually it’s combed with the lightest setting lotion, gently pressed into shape. June has always been a “brusher,” five hundred strokes a day being nothing unusual to her. Junie knows, however, what every smart star soon learns—and you should memorize. “Chic” hair always has “shape.” Don’t just barge around and hope when you toss your head it will look darling. It’s an art that makes hair look that way.

June has to have her hair cut nowadays every three weeks.

Elizabeth Taylor cuts her own hair. Yes, she does—and she drives the studio wild thereby. That girl, who was born with all the lucky fairies in the world hanging over her cradle, has naturally curly hair. It’s thick; it has a natural lustre. And from somewhere, Liz developed her personal mania for cutting it.

Actually, she cuts it very well—but her studio gets nervous when she’s shooting a picture because from one day to the next she may not “match up” with the previous shots. A couple of days before her wedding, Liz came tearing in to Nellie Manley, her hairdresser at Paramount, and admitted she had chopped off one side of her hair much too short. Nellie was “to do something.”

Nellie laughs, telling the story. “All I had to do was to cut the other side to match, give Liz a quick set with some stand-up curls about her face, and there she was. Her hair always falls into flattering lines—around that face that never needs a bit of flattery.”

You can take this lesson from Elizabeth, particularly if your hair curls naturally. Experiment a bit with the shape of your hair. Cut it, once in a while. But do it carefully. If your hair is “straight as a string,” however, don’t cut it yourself. This calls for an expert.

Pat Neal’s hair is straight as a string, fine, soft, difficult golden hair that is as distinctive as Pat’s entire personality. Pat’s hair problem is absolutely the reverse of Barbara’s or June’s. Her babysoft locks are thin. If they were “tapered,” they would look skimpy.

If you are Pat’s type, your hair, like hers, should be cut “blunt”—that is, off crisply, to give it body. Pat’s hairdresser, Meryl Stoltz, keeps her hair classically straight except for one wide lock, combed forward from the crown of the head toward the forehead.

Which brings us to Janie Powell. Janie does her own hair just as she does her own housework and cooking. Her hair is the tiniest bit shorter than it was last year, a little thinned out. But Jane and Geary Steffen, her husband, are the conservative type. Janie likes her hair as it is. Geary is crazy about it. So this small, happy songbird, altering her hair’s general line just enough so that she won’t look dated, is one of the holdouts against the very short cut.

And that makes my final point for this month: You may have any hair-do you wish—but whatever it is, choose it to suit your personality. It wouldn’t suit conservative Janie to be a pace-setter. The cash of Liz Taylor, the bright, brisk sparkle of June Allyson, the serenity of Jane Wyman, the distinction of Barbara Stanwyck, the alert “high-style” modern of Pat Neal, these aren’t Janie.

Find out which one you are—and get out your setting lotion, your hairpins and your brush and go to it. Oh, and write me, will you, in care of Photoplay, 205 East 42nd Street, with any suggestions you may have for future glamour reports.

The secret of all wonderful hair-dos lies in the original pin curls you set. But do you know how to set standing pin curls to glorify your brow, flat pin curls to make the sides prettiest and those perky pin curls that are so cute at the back of your neck? Well, Vicky Riley will show you just how to put up these pin curls, plus other beauty tricks in October Photoplay.

THE END

—BY VICKY RILEY

 

It is a quote. PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 1950