New to Van Clarke? Subscribe to our newsletter for 15% off your first order. Start your haircare journey today.
Here we shine a light on some of the things the industry would rather you didn’t know. You’ll be better prepared for more conscious choices with a little knowledge.
Now I’m not speaking to our own salon clients here but the wider readership online. Do you remember stylists telling you why you couldn’t have x, y or z style and it not making any sense to you? The inspiring picture you brought in which the stylist dismissed for some reason? How your haircuts have been taking less and less time over the last few decades?- If you are old enough. Or the style that you both agreed to at the beginning wasn’t how it ended up? Or the style that looked passable when you left the salon was so difficult to manage once it was washed at home?
Well that’s because hairdressers stopped learning how to layer and shape hair properly 30 years ago. It’s why you see far fewer short hairstyles and it’s why nearly all mid to long hairstyles do not stray far from a one-length Bob. See Sara’s hair above and many of the other ‘In the Chair’ blogs like Mandy and Georgina.
The no-layers Bob is the first haircut the student learns at college and well, that’s pretty much it. Other than how to over-blowdry and use flat irons, the only other cutting that’s mastered is at the other extreme - clippers. So the choice for most people is either a fairly brutal number 1, 2, 3, or a one-length bob at various lengths.
Bobs can be classically beautiful, but plain one-length Bobs are frankly quite boring. They’re mostly used to save the hairdresser time, and they’ve become the bog standard go-to for the lazy hairstylist. Even if a Bob in essence, they’ll all be improved with a little shaping and layering. But that takes a lot more skill and time. At Michael Van Clarke we take an entirely different approach to sculpting shapes and layers with our precise signature method, The Diamond Dry Cut™. Read What’s The Diamond Dry Cut™ to understand why this is the premiere method for cutting hair.
Michael Van Clarke
None of us know what’s going to take us out. Life’s full of surprises. But we do know that the body starts to degenerate from about age 30 (more cells destroyed than created, barring excess weight gain) and also, crucially, that we can affect the speed of that ageing process.
Introduced by Portuguese merchants in the 16th century, and adapted over time to suit Japanese tastes, this light bouncy sponge is considered a traditional Japanese speciality. More delicate and airy than a regular sponge cake, castella ( カステラ, kasutera) is famous for a fine and moist crumb.
