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Hair News Network
Thursday, November 29, 2012
The Nonblond Leading the Blond: New York’s Go-to Colorist for Swedish Blondes
LIKE Russian cheekbones or Italian suntans, Swedish hair (or the idea of it, anyway) has always been one of those discrete national features envied by women the world over. Flaxen-pale and fairy-tale-fine, it’s what American women have been trying to fake for decades, ever since Anita Ekberg swished around in the Trevi Fountain.
“She just does what goes with your complexion,” she added. “She is the Bergdorf’s for the Swedish posse of New York.”
Hair News Network
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Yana Paskova for The New York Times
Mirjam Bayoumi, in her salon, shows Gunilla Lindblad, right, her freshly cut hair.
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You see these towheaded ice queens strutting through SoHo in perfect
Acne pistol boots and Filippa K stretch jeans — but what remains
invisible is the help they get.
Her name is Mirjam Bayoumi, and you would probably never find her on
your own. Tucked away into an anonymous Yorkville block on the Upper
East Side, her salon, all
clear wood and bright light, attracts not only Princess Madeleine of
Sweden, but also some of her most stylish subjects: Swedish designers,
Swedish bloggers, Swedish media moguls, Swedish makeup artists — an
almost exclusively Swedish group, all after that ineffable snowy blond
that the rest of us always assume is natural.
“Most women in Sweden are dirty blond, and I would say 96 percent color
their hair,” said Ms. Bayoumi, herself naturally brunet. “You’re born
blond, and as you get older, it gets a little darker, a little ashier.” But, she added, “blond, that’s what you saw as you grew up, and that’s how you want to be the rest of your life.”
Ms. Bayoumi, 34, opened her salon, which carries her name, in 2009 and
is now a sort of den mother for the city’s Swedish expats, who go there
for the raw blond highlights and stay for the native-tongue gossip,
Gevalia coffee and dog-eared issues of Scandinavian fashion magazines.
“When I first came here, I went to a cheap place in the West Village, and they ruined my
hair,” Olivia Malmqvist, 30, the marketing manager for H & M USA,
said in a phone interview. “After that, I did some research.”
Four years later, Ms. Malmqvist is a loyal Mirjam devotee. “Your hair is
very personal,” she said. “When I lived in Sweden, I went to the same
hairdresser my whole life. And I now feel safe again.”
The Mirjam mystique arrived in the United States in 2005, when a friend
and fellow hairdresser who had just opened a salon in Manhattan Beach,
Calif., summoned Ms. Bayoumi from Stockholm.
“She called me and said, ‘Mirjam, I really can’t find any good
colorists,’ ” Ms. Bayoumi said. “I was shocked. I was like: ‘You’re in
L.A.! That’s where all the celebrities are, everybody’s blond.’ ”
But when Ms. Bayoumi arrived, her new boss’s complaint was confirmed.
“I had a few clients who used to go to salons in Beverly Hills and pay
tremendous amounts of money, and they still weren’t happy with their
color,” Ms. Bayoumi said. “They didn’t even know that it was possible to
get this certain shade of blond.”
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Yana Paskova for The New York Times
On a Yorkville block on the Upper East Side, Mirjam Bayoumi makes Swedes' hair dreams come true. |
She has heard similar frustrations from the clients she’s acquired in
the four years since she moved from Los Angeles to New York, where she
spent her first months coloring friends’ hair out of her Upper West Side
studio apartment. Word-of-mouth recommendations soon outpaced her
square footage there, and by the time she opened her salon, Ms. Bayoumi
already had a cadre of loyal Swedes who were fed up with American
hairdressers whose tones, they say, tended more toward warm orange than
their preferred neutral beige.
Elin Kling, the founder and fashion director of StyleBy, a fashion
magazine, and a longtime patron of Ms. Bayoumi, caused a minor upset in
the comments section of the beauty blog Into the Gloss last month when
she told its editor, Emily Weiss, that “Americans cannot do blond hair.”
“It’s always easier to explain in your own language exactly what you
want,” said Sofi Fahrman, 33, a close friend of Princess Madeleine and
the host of “Project Runway Sweden.” “It’s always safe to have a Swede
doing your hair.”
But fluency isn’t Ms. Baymoumi’s only currency. She’s also highly
trained. In Sweden, she said, most hair colorists go through five years
of schooling, learning color theory and chemistry.
Ms. Bayoumi was born in Budapest to a Hungarian mother and an Egyptian
father, and moved to Sweden with her family when she was 2. At 15 she
began her first apprenticeship, volunteering her floor-sweeping services
to Stockholm salons during school vacations. She studied in London at
Toni & Guy, then worked for Bjorn Axen and Wella as a color
technician, traveling to cities like Taipei and Amsterdam to educate
foreign hairdressers in color blending.
Ms. Bayoumi’s global tutelage makes her something of an expert in
international beauty standards. Compared with women in Mediterranean
countries, where they exaggerate their femininity, she said, Swedish
women seem downright androgynous.
“Scandinavian style in general is very simple,” she said. “They want to
do as little as possible. They’re very independent — many don’t even
wear makeup.”
Marina Andersson, a makeup artist and friend of Ms. Bayoumi’s from
Stockholm, agreed. “Swedes just want to look natural,” she said.
“There’s brassy-yellow on the one hand and that kind of almost-gray on
the other. What everyone wants is hardest to maintain.”
Ms. Andersson described the national aesthetic as nonchalant. “We look
more to the Frenchwomen, not so Hollywood,” she explained. “More
Charlotte Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, you know, out-of-the-shower cool.”
And Ms. Bayoumi, she said, is the person to help achieve this.
“Mirjam’s extremely talented,” Ms. Andersson said. “Her custom blending
is very, very good. I don’t even tell her anything.”
“She just does what goes with your complexion,” she added. “She is the Bergdorf’s for the Swedish posse of New York.” Hair News Network
Monday, November 19, 2012
Salon Client Data iPhone and iPad App!
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Hair News Network
http://www.salonclientdata.com/
The app can be purchased on iTunes for one time fee of only $9.99, plus tax.
To buy it now - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/salon-client-data/id542839110?mt=8 iPhone and iPad App for Salon
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Hair News Network
Laser Light Hair Growth Device to Treat Hair Loss and Thinning Hair
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Hair News Network
That's a Wrap...The Makeup Show 2012 Recap
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Hair News Network
Sunday, November 18, 2012
December 3 CC Holiday Event! Celebrate. Learn. Be Inspired.
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© 2012 Cosmetologists Chicago | 330 N. Wabash Ave. Suite 2000 | Chicago, IL 60611
312-321-6809 | www.AmericasBeautyShow.com |
Hair News Network
Constance Moofushi Resort in Maldives
This ultra-luxurious 5-star Constance Moofushi Resort in Maldives
combines a ravishing natural setting with a holiday-inspired design and
promises exquisite services: “Impossibly elegant, with 110 land and
water villas in an intimate location of pure lagoons, sandbanks and
woodlands, this barefoot idyll offers a rare experience for its
visitors. Reassuringly luxurious, Constance Moofushi is on the South Ari
Atoll, a paradise regarded as one of the best diving spots in the
world. The resort is perfect for lovers of fine dining, divers and those
seeking luxury beach-front relaxation“. Prepare to enrich your
gastronomic experience by tasting the food courses and drinks offered by
an array of six bars and restaurants. Adventure enthusiasts are also
welcomed in this location, as it features one of the best diving spots
in the world, plus many others outdoor leisure opportunities.
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