Trimming Your Bangs At Home

I put cinnamon and allspice on my sweet potato tonight. It was wonderful! It made it taste just like Christmas! Lucy, bless her dear sweet big heart, reminded us today, that Christmas is only six weeks away. Have you all been good little girls & boys?

Christmas has always seemed to sneak up, then very quickly disappear each year, ever since I've grown up. I hate that. I loved the anticipation of Christmas to come, when I was a little child. It always started in earnest at Thanksgiving, when you saw Santa Claus in his reindeer drawn sleigh, in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, in New York City. One of the things that always focused my attention on the coming of Christmas day, was the Advent calendars that my sisters and I always received shortly after Thanksgiving. I loved them! I was always fascinated by the little windows that you opened each day, and waited eagerly in anticipation of the picture that lay behind the next window. As each small opened window revealed another Christmas story character, or various cherubim and seraphim, the anticipation grew, until finally on Christmas day, the grand window was opened, revealing the manger scene, with Mary and Joseph, the angels, the animals, the shepherds, and the wise men, all focused on baby Jesus, in all his innocent glory!

I am an agnostic, but I love Jesus! Is that too incongruous? I don't think so. I love Buddha, Gandhi and Martin Luther King too! In fact I love anyone who stands up for love. I'm going to get an Advent calendar this year. In fact I think I'll get several, and give them to family members.

Want to know how to trim your bangs? I got this in an email, from Hair Boutique.com, and thought it might be of interest to some. I edited out their obnoxious embedded sales pitches for various hair care products.

Trimming You Bangs At Home

Step 1: Shampoo and condition your bangs and the rest of your hair with your normal products designed for your current hair type, texture and condition.

If your hair is highlighted use either a moisture enhanced or color enriched formula. If your hair is dry from chemical processing, consider diluting the shampoo formula to protect your strands.

Skip any rinse-out conditioning products, especially on your bangs, that might make hair too slippery soft and more difficult to trim. If you must use a rinse-out conditioner, make sure that you limit how much you use and that you concentrate on the middle to the ends.

Step 2: Towel blot bangs. De-tangle bangs completely to remove knots. If your hair is prone to frizzing, apply a anti-frizz product before you blow dry.

Step 3: Blow bangs completely dry. If bangs are wavy or naturally curly, use a boar's head paddle or natural round brush to blow bangs completely straight.

Step 4: Optionally you can blow dry the rest of your hair at this point or leave the non-bang area wet. Either way, separate all the bang hair from the rest of your strands. Clip the non-bang hair up to keep it out of the way of the bangs.

Step 5: Locate a good mirror with a great light source for easy viewing of your trimming tasks.

Step 6: Separate bangs into three equal sized sections.

Step 7: Clip the two end sections away from the middle section. Firmly, without stretching hair, grab the middle section of bang hair hair between the index and middle finger of your dominant hand so that it forms a smooth even line.

Note: Do not stretch the bangs tightly or else you won't be able to accurately gauge the length as you trim.

Step 8: Hold your trimming scissors at a 45 degree angle to avoid crooked slicing when chopping straight across. Start very slowly and snip off tiny pieces of the bangs with the scissors moving from the right to the left. Finish clipping the middle section. Check the length. If you need more hair removed, repeat the same action cutting from left to right.

Continue moving back and forth, alternating directions, until the bangs are the perfect length that you desire. Avoid lifting your eyebrows or crossing your legs while trimming since this can also impact the ultimate length.

Note: Remember to take your time. It is better to snip too little hair than too much. While you can keep snipping you can't glue cut hair back on.

Step 9: Once you are happy with the length of the middle section, un-clip the right side. Using the finished middle section as a point of reference for the length you desire, cut the side section.

Remember to go slow and cut back and forth from right to left and then left to right.

Step 10: Once both sides have been trimmed, study the complete sweep of bangs from edge to edge. Make any adjustments to the middle or either side.

With a little practice and a good pair of trimming scissors you can definitely get the best bangs for the buck. Happy snipping.

OK! Now that you've been given this lesson, there will be no excuse for showing up at any Christmas parties, with anything less than perfectly fringed bangs!............but then, I could never imagine any of you, looking anything but fabulous at any Christmas party!

Love,
Melissa XX