latest hair trends and styles

Are Braintree's Seasonal Trends Right for Your Lifestyle?

By Kim Messing, Owner and American Board Certified Hair Colorist at Kimberly Messing Hair Design

The difference between a trend that looks incredible on you and one that makes your morning routine miserable comes down to three variables: whether the trend works with your natural texture, whether it fits your realistic daily styling capacity, and whether it holds up in our specific New England climate. Evaluating those three things before making a change is what produces a result you will still love six months later.

I am Kim Messing, owner and American Board Certified Hair Colorist at Kimberly Messing Hair Design with over 38 years behind the chair. Trend translation is a daily conversation in my chair. Let me walk you through how we assess whether a trend is right for the specific person in front of us rather than for the person in the photo.

Matching the Trend to Your Texture

The most common disconnect between inspiration photos and real-world results is texture. An inspiration photo shows a result on one specific hair type. That result may or may not be achievable on your hair, and if it is achievable, it may require a completely different approach to get there.

A fringe that reads as piecy and effortless on fine, straight hair looks entirely different on curly hair with a natural tendency to shrink and spring upward. A client with natural curls who wants that fine-hair fringe needs a fringe designed around her curl pattern's behavior rather than around the length in the photo. The feeling of the trend can usually be captured. The exact result in the photo often cannot and should not be attempted.

Thick, coarse hair cut bluntly into a bob that looks sleek in a photo frequently produces a triangular silhouette because the weight of the thick hair expands without internal structure to manage it. The same trend on thick hair requires internal layering to remove the bulk that the photo's subject does not have.

Amara came to me wanting the piece-y fringe she had seen on a celebrity with pin-straight fine hair. When I assessed her at her consultation, she has natural waves that would cause the fringe to spring significantly shorter than the photo and clump differently than the photo showed.

We designed a face-framing section that captured the soft, slightly undone quality she was responding to in the photo but was cut specifically for her wave's contraction and natural grouping.

Finishing the waves with a small amount of the KMS HairPlay Dry Wax gave the face-framing sections the piecy separation the original photo had without requiring any heat styling to achieve it on her natural wave pattern. At her six-week follow-up her waves were framing her face exactly as intended and she told me it was the first fringe she had worn that did not require daily straightening to look like what she imagined.

Assessing Your Realistic Maintenance Capacity

Every style has a maintenance cost and the consultation is where we identify whether that cost fits your actual life rather than your ideal one. A heavily layered cut that looks effortlessly tousled in a photo may require twenty to thirty minutes of round-brush work every morning to produce that result. For a client who is at the door within ten minutes of waking up, that cut will look very different in daily wear than it did in the salon.

We discuss the morning routine honestly at every consultation. How long do you have? Do you use heat daily or prefer to air-dry? How often do you want to be in the salon for maintenance? The cut we design should work within the honest answers to those questions rather than within the aspirational answers.

For color specifically, the maintenance gap between different techniques is significant. A solid single-process color requires a return visit every six to eight weeks as the natural root grows in. A balayage or lived-in color technique designed with a root shadow built in extends that interval to twelve to sixteen weeks because the grow-out is part of the design rather than a visible departure from it.

Hyacinth had been coming in every six weeks for a full single-process color and was feeling the schedule was too demanding. When I assessed her at her consultation, her natural base was a medium brunette that would work well with a balayage approach. We transitioned her to a full balayage with a root shadow that softened the grow-out naturally.

At her follow-up four months later she had been in once for a gloss refresh rather than twice for full color services and her color was still reading as intentional and dimensional.

Transitioning Color Between Seasons Safely

Moving from a lighter summer color to a deeper autumn shade requires a specific preparatory step that most clients do not know about. When hair is lightened, the warm underlying pigments are removed from the cortex along with the natural pigment. Going directly from blonde to a rich brunette without replacing those missing warm pigments first produces a color that looks flat, cool, and hollow and fades to an unflattering tone within a few washes.

We fill the hair with a diluted warm pigment in the appropriate tone range before applying the target dark color. The fill gives the cortex the underlying warmth that makes the brunette look rich and dimensional rather than flat. The dark color applied over the filled hair also holds significantly longer because it has a foundation to bond to rather than porous, depleted sections.

The reverse transition from dark to lighter requires a different kind of care. Progressive lightening over multiple sessions prevents the hair from being pushed past its structural tolerance in a single appointment. We assess the hair's elasticity at each session and determine whether it is ready for the next level of lift rather than committing to the final result in a fixed number of appointments.

Giavanna had been wearing bright highlights through the summer and wanted a deep, warm brunette for autumn. When I assessed her at her consultation, her highlights were lifted to a level that would produce a flat, greenish-toned result if we applied the brunette directly. We ran a warm-toned fill at her appointment before applying her target brunette shade.

At her six-week follow-up her color was vibrant and holding without the flat or faded quality she had experienced when attempting a similar transition at a previous salon years before.

Protecting Your Investment Through New England's Climate Swings

Braintree's summer brings the coastal humidity that accelerates both frizz and color fading. The UV exposure around Sunset Lake and other outdoor areas specifically oxidizes color molecules and shifts blondes warm and brunettes flat through the season. The Amika The Shield Anti-Humidity Spray applied before significant outdoor time creates the UV-filtering and humidity-blocking barrier that slows this photo-oxidation between appointments.

Our winters bring the opposite challenge. Freezing outdoor temperatures followed by dry heated indoor air deplete the hair's internal moisture and make color-treated hair feel brittle faster than it would in a more moderate climate. The Keratin Complex Color Care Smoothing Shampoo is the winter shampoo we put color-treated clients on through the cold months because its sulfate-free, pH-balanced formula preserves the cuticle integrity that keeps color looking fresh without the stripping that harsher formulas accelerate in already-depleted winter hair.

For clients wearing extensions, the seasonal adjustment is especially important. Extension hair does not receive the scalp's natural oils the way natural hair does and is more susceptible to the dryness that our winter heating produces. We recommend specific products from our professional lines, including Keratin Complex and Milk_shake, for extension care specifically because they provide the moisture the extension hair needs without the heavy buildup that accumulates at the attachment zone.

Terminology That Helps the Consultation Move Faster

Understanding a few professional terms helps you communicate what you want more precisely so we spend consultation time designing rather than translating.

Internal layering removes weight from beneath the top canopy of the hair without changing the visible length. For thick hair that reads as heavy or triangular, internal layering is often the specific adjustment that makes the same length behave more like the inspiration photo's result.

Lived-in color describes a color approach where the root shadow is built into the design rather than being a visible line of demarcation between natural and colored sections. The grow-out reads as intentional dimension rather than as regrowth, which is what extends the comfortable interval between major color appointments.

Face-framing refers to either cut pieces or colored pieces placed specifically around the face to draw attention to the eyes and cheekbones. This is the single-section adjustment that changes how a full style interacts with your specific features without requiring a complete restyle.

Bringing a photo of a previous result you disliked alongside your inspiration photo is often more useful than the inspiration photo alone. The disliked result tells us what your hair does not do and what your face does not benefit from, which narrows the design decisions immediately.

When a Trend Is Not the Right Choice

I want to be direct about the cases where the honest answer is that a specific trend is not appropriate for the client in front of me. When the texture genuinely cannot produce the result without daily heat work that the client does not want to do, the trend is not the right choice and I say so. When the color goal requires a level of maintenance the client's schedule cannot support, we find an alternative that produces a similar feeling with a compatible appointment frequency.

The goal of the consultation is a result the client will love in week eight as much as week one, not a result that looks perfect leaving the salon and becomes a frustration within a month. Sometimes that means redirecting from the specific trend the client came in wanting to the version of it that actually fits her life.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often will I need to come in for a vivid or copper tone?

Rich copper and vivid tones deposit at the cuticle surface and release more quickly than tones that are integrated into the cortex. A glossing or toning appointment every four to six weeks keeps the tone vibrant between major color services. We discuss the realistic frequency at your consultation so the appointment schedule is planned before you commit to the color direction.

Will extensions work with a low-maintenance lifestyle?

Extensions require a specific home care routine for washing and brushing that differs from natural hair care. Many clients find their overall daily styling time decreases after an installation because the extensions provide the body and length they were previously spending significant time trying to achieve with styling tools. We assess your specific routine honestly at the consultation to confirm the commitment is compatible with your lifestyle before recommending an installation.

How do I know if a trend will work on my hair type?

Book a consultation before committing to a significant change. We assess your texture, density, and daily routine and tell you directly whether the trend works as shown, needs adaptation, or is not the right fit for your specific situation. If adaptation is needed we show you what the adapted version looks like before any cutting or color is applied.

Ready to Find Your Next Look?

The right seasonal change for your hair starts with an honest conversation about your texture, your life, and your New England climate before any scissors or color are mixed. Come in and we will assess your specific situation before recommending anything.

Call us at (781) 817-5077 or visit us at 533 Washington Street, Braintree, MA 02184 to book your consultation.

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