Top hair products for vintage hair
Jul 21, 2014 | by Becky Oeltjenbruns
A 1923 permanent wave machine – yikes!
Mastering a vintage hairstyle is so much fun. You can mix up your look from a classic, soft Edwardian vibe to a sassy, bold beehive. With a retro style you can change it up as often as you’d like! However, some of the older techniques can be intimidating to tackle. But have no fear, Ashton with Pinup Salon in Austin, Texas is here to give you the best tools so you can create amazing styles with ease. With the list of her top hair products for vintage hair, you will be on the road to perfection in no time…
Best product for big hair
Want to get the ideal amount of volume for victory rolls? Or maybe you’re trying to pump up your beehive? Ashton recommends Redken Powder Grip 03. She uses it on all her vintage, big hair styles. With just a small amount, it holds your hair in place all day long and even expertly grips freshly cleaned locks. Get ready to tease with confidence!
Best hair spray for vintage hair
For a great, medium hold Ashton says you can’t beat Tigi S Factor Vivacious hair spray. It adds shine and makes a great finisher for your go-to curled looks. Even if you’re a bit heavy handed with the spray it will hold it in place without looking stiff and unforgiving.
Swedish jazz singer Monica Zetterlund, rocking some great volume
Best product for sculpting hair
If you want some amazing pin curls or finger waves, be sure to have some Paul Mitchell Flexible Style Super Sculpt on hand. For Ashton, this product helps create the quintessential vintage look: the lady who likes to always look her best and gets styled once a week. Picture the red nails, the Dior silhouette, and the kitten heels! With Super Sculpt you can get good hold without flaking and Ashton says this is now her new favorite. If you’re using gel to create your waved looks, try this product for a more natural and easy result.
Best pomade for vintage styles
For those wispy hairs, Ashton recommends another Paul Mitchell product: Spray Wax. Because it’s an aerosol wax you won’t see where you started to put it in. We’ve all faced that problem with pomade – it’s tough to smooth out and blend in the start point. But with Spray Wax you’re able to tame the rogue pieces without creating a flat spot! This is Ashton’s all-time favorite product for the women’s styles she creates.
Best mousse for starting to style hair
A lot of vintage styles need a good foundation and even though mousse has become a naughty word in recent hair debates, Ashton still recommends a mousse-like product to get you pointed in the right direction. Her favorite is Redken Guts 10 Volume Spray Foam. This is known primarily as a root booster, but it also has the qualities of a mousse which means you can get a great starting point for your style creations!
Virginia Valli and her beautiful hair
Why you should buy styling products from your hairdresser
We’ve listed out a lot of top hair products for vintage hair and that can seem like an overwhelming investment. With anything in life, if you want the expert results you have to have the right tools. And while it’s very tempting to buy the salon quality products at the local drug store or Target there is a good reason for buying what you need from the source. We asked Ashton the age old question: why should people spend more money buying their products from you rather than an outside retailer? Hair styling is big business. So big that there’s even a black market focused just on this industry. Ashton sees it more as a gray market and explains it this way: a warehouse will make a bulk purchase of your favorite salon product and then it will sit in storage until the bar code expires. Once that happens, the warehouse sells it to your favorite retailer and it will make its way to the shelves and potentially to your bathroom cabinet. You may ask yourself what the big deal is… so the product is old, so what? Well, companies like Redken and Paul Mitchell spend countless hours perfecting formulas that perform to exacting standards. If the product is old it’s lost a lot of its potency and therefore the look you’re going for isn’t going to be as feasible. Ashton sees this scenario play out time and time again at the salon: signature looks require the same products to create the same results. So while it may be a pain to fork out those extra few dollars, it will mean that you can recreate your style at home and not waste your hard-earned dollars on a product that won’t perform.
What about hair accessories?
So you’ve got your professional hair styling products, but what about brushes and hair dryers and flat irons? Ashton advises her clients to go to Ulta. Ulta is able to buy straight from the manufacturer, so no outdated, gray market stuff here!
Cause A Frockus would like to thank their tremendous resources: Ashton with Pinup Salon and the people who post their images without restriction.
For our readers: Tell us what your favorite vintage styling products are in the comments!