Film fest highlight? No, not seeing Clive Owen… it was having two (cute, straight) men Brigitte Bardot-ify my hair

Forget the celebs, parties, premieres and free swag. Possibly the most exciting thing to happen to me during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was getting Sally Hershberger-ized by her her right-hand men, James Vides and Mike Viggue.

Both are hairstylists from Sally’s downtown NYC salon. Both are cute. Both are straight. In the words of my friend Jill (from the website 29 Secrets), “it’s like finding two unicorns.”

Sally, of course, was in town for TIFF too. (Some might say I’ve been working WAY too long in beauty, because I actually found it more thrilling to see/meet her than to come within a couple feet of Clive Owen. Others, such as Janine, might disagree, of course. Her and Clive-O are tight. If it were a contest between Sally and Jon Hamm, well, that’s another story…)

Anyway! Sally and her team—who, if you’ll recall, were in T.O. back in the spring—were here to talk up her new-to-Canada Salon line, available exclusively at Murale:

And lucky, lucky members of the media like moi got complimentary hairstyling—from Mike and James AT THE SAME TIME. Gawd, my job is great sometimes.

(What—you think Sally works these types of events? Ah… no. She charges something like $800 per haircut. Media peeps get spoiled sometimes, but not THAT spoiled.)

I DID, however, get Sally’s thoughts on how my hair should be styled for the red carpet. She declared that I should have Brigitte Bardot hair—and so James and Mike made it happen…

First, they wet my hair, applied Shagg Style Primer all over “to give the hair guts” and Shape Up at the roots for volume, and blew it dry:

Oh! And if you identified with my whinge about all hairdressers wanting to layer even fine, straight hair, THIS will make you happy. I asked James for his opinion on my non-layered ‘do and surprisingly—because Sally is the QUEEN of layers—he said a plain old blunt cut was ideal for my hair type. Validation! YES! There’s just something about New York hairdressers… they get it.

Anyway, once my hair was dry, they proceeded to tease my hair at the roots (with a trusty Mason Pearson brush), spray it with Soft Rock Hairspray, and pin it up all the way around my head:

Et voilà:

Then I had to let this set, so in the meantime I wandered over to the Joe Fresh lounge for a lovely mani in Storm—a dead ringer for Particulière and only $4! I also had my makeup done, courtesy of Murale, using my fave Chanel eyeshadow palette.

At this point—with my hair in rollers like a crazy person—I also had my encounter with Clive Owen, so you can see why I wasn’t really over the moon. Figures.

I also watched James and Mike transform Jill’s tresses from this:

to this:

HAWT.

My ‘do took a bit more time—once they took it out of the pin curls, they had to spray each section, tease all the way from the tips to the root, and then brush it all out to “shape” the waves.

And now for the big reveal…

My dress was screaming out for red lipstick so I switched up the makeup a bit and also pinned back the hair for a slightly more ’50s vibe. I hope the boys would approve!

And that completes my Sally Hershberg-ification.

Ever tried her products?
Ever attempted to Brigitte Bardot-ify your hair? (It’s honestly not that hard—I’ll post a more detailed how-to on this soon.)
Ever had a tag-team beauty service? I HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend it.