Straight Hair

Julie Mitchell's long, wavy hair normally coils into an unruly mass. "I'd spend all this time getting ready, and I'd still be a big ball of hair walking down the aisle," said the 38-year-old flight attendant for Southwest Airlines. That was life P.P.--pre-perm. Now her shoulder-length hair hangs ramrod straight, and her daily battle with the blow dryer is over.

Kerry Washington's baby bump, draped in custom Jason Wu, was at the center of her gorgeous Oscar ensemble, but her relaxed waves punctuated the look. Takisha Sturdivant-Drew, Washington's hair stylist of the last 15 years, breaks down the "Scandal" star's winning Oscar beauty: "I saw the Jason Wu dress and knew right away that she had to have a lot of hair and texture," says Sturdivant-Drew. "Also, I wanted it to look kind of beachy, because of the dress was strapless and skin baring.

It started where so many trends do, on the runways in Paris and Milan. Models sported Cher hair--the long, straight signature hairdo of Cher when she was with Sonny, before "Moonstruck" and all those tattoos. You could catch glimpses of it on the streets of L.A. Madonna vamped in it on the cover of February's Harper's Bazaar. And then a few weeks ago, Cher hair became official--Gwyneth Paltrow wore it to the Golden Globe Awards. "People want simplicity in their hair.

We're putting more gels, dyes, herbs and general gunk in our hair than ever before. But, in fact, there's something beautiful about simplicity. "People say they have bad hair, and they need to do a lot to it," says Dr. Zoe Draelos, a consulting professor of dermatology at Duke University and a fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology. "The opposite is true. The less you handle your hair, the better. " Let's take a look at the basics. Each hair is a strand of dead cells coated in natural oils and the dirt that you pick up throughout the day. Remember: We're talking about one of your better features here.

Straight hair will always be the holy grail of the curly-haired. I should know; I am a member of the curly class who aspires to the ranks of the straight. In the past, I have blow-dried, rollered, gelled and sprayed to try coaxing my hair into a seal-like sleekness. Now I pretty much just pay people to do it for me. Of course, the straight hair trend of the past few seasons has only encouraged my obsession.

Acknowledged by many in the "art crowd" as the most beautiful exhibition space in downtown San Diego, Anuska Galerie (2400 Kettner Blvd.) has within a year become a prime site for exhibiting contemporary art. A small room beyond the office in the far left-hand corner off the exhibition space is a surprising clue to the gallery's origins. It is a one-chair hair-cutting salon.

Thanks a lot, Gwyneth Paltrow. It's been more than 10 years since the actress and style icon showed up at the "Shakespeare in Love" premiere with long, stick-straight extensions. And suddenly, boom ? "Blow-out salons [popped up] across the landscape. It also was when hairstylists started Japanese straightening treatments and then Brazilian," says Kristin Perrotta, executive editor at Allure magazine. No matter, she adds, that not everyone could pull off the look. But although we might not have always tried to achieve stick-straight hair, many curly-haired women have been fighting the good fight for generations.

As fashion and style director of Mode, the new fashion glossy for women size 12 and up, Michelle Weston's biggest challenge has been finding the right clothes to photograph for the magazine's stylish pictorials. "Matte jersey is my new crusade," she said last week while preparing for a fashion show at Bloomingdale's Century City store. Said Weston, a size 16 herself: "There are those of us who like a modern, clean look."

In Madonna videos, Versace ads and runway shows, the newest kink in longer hairstyles is crimping. A nice change for straight hair, the wild, voluminous texture of crimped locks looks great with hippie and grunge fashions. Geri Cusenza, creative director for Sebastian, may well be the unofficial queen of contemporary crimping: Sebastian's first product, introduced in 1973, was a crimping iron she developed to facilitate the quick "zapping" of hair for editorial fashion shoots.

Those closely cropped bobs and shags may be the hallmark of the carefree waif look, but they are anything but carefree if your hair is too straight, curly or limp. To make these new 'dos work for a variety of hair types, stylists are rediscovering the hair-shaping benefits of that barber shop staple: the straight-edge razor. "By removing excess bulk, a razor cut gives your hair more body. It also gives the hair mobility, because it doesn't blunt the ends like a scissor cut does.

Despite our differences and grass-is-always-greener attitudes, there is a common enemy that binds women of all hair types: Frizz. This poufy, unruly mess of fluff can affect us all but it's up to the individual to find a way to fight it. "Frizz is caused when water in the air, like humidity, seeps into the hair shaft and makes it swell," explains Kristin Perrotta, executive editor at Allure magazine. "Certain types are more prone to frizz ... thicker hair, curly hair. [And] all the things we do to style it damages the cuticle, which is the protective layer that keeps the water out. Once that's damaged, humidity seeps in and you have a big mushroom cloud.

Thanks a lot, Gwyneth Paltrow. It's been more than 10 years since the actress and style icon showed up at the "Shakespeare in Love" premiere with long, stick-straight extensions. And suddenly, boom ? "Blow-out salons [popped up] across the landscape. It also was when hairstylists started Japanese straightening treatments and then Brazilian," says Kristin Perrotta, executive editor at Allure magazine. No matter, she adds, that not everyone could pull off the look. But although we might not have always tried to achieve stick-straight hair, many curly-haired women have been fighting the good fight for generations.

In the past, Chris Rock has joked about how he is determined to keep his young daughters "off the pole," or away from working in strip clubs. But in his new film, "Good Hair," he talks of a moment that caused him a different type of fatherly concern. Said Rock, "One day, one of my daughters came to me crying and saying, 'Daddy, why don't I have good hair?' " The question reignited interest in an idea that had struck Rock about 15 years ago when he attended a convention in Atlanta revolving around black hair fashions and the extreme lengths African American women with kinky hair go to to obtain "good" or straight hair similar to that of white women.

Julie Mitchell's long, wavy hair normally coils into an unruly mass. "I'd spend all this time getting ready, and I'd still be a big ball of hair walking down the aisle," said the 38-year-old flight attendant for Southwest Airlines. That was life P.P.--pre-perm. Now her shoulder-length hair hangs ramrod straight, and her daily battle with the blow dryer is over.

Straight hair will always be the holy grail of the curly-haired. I should know; I am a member of the curly class who aspires to the ranks of the straight. In the past, I have blow-dried, rollered, gelled and sprayed to try coaxing my hair into a seal-like sleekness. Now I pretty much just pay people to do it for me. Of course, the straight hair trend of the past few seasons has only encouraged my obsession.

It started where so many trends do, on the runways in Paris and Milan. Models sported Cher hair--the long, straight signature hairdo of Cher when she was with Sonny, before "Moonstruck" and all those tattoos. You could catch glimpses of it on the streets of L.A. Madonna vamped in it on the cover of February's Harper's Bazaar. And then a few weeks ago, Cher hair became official--Gwyneth Paltrow wore it to the Golden Globe Awards. "People want simplicity in their hair.

Here's a hairy story: long, curly perms are back. But, before you get out your bell bottoms and your high school yearbook, here's the twist--you must wear all those curls globbed with grease! "We're giving people both tight perms and medium perms," says Mitchell Field, owner of the Antenna hair salons in Reseda and Burbank. "But they're not like the old perms, because the look isn't frizzy. All that grease makes the curls look like little snakes. It's kind of a Medusa look.

Here's a typical pre-party scene: a straight-haired woman tearing her hair in frustration before the mirror because . . . it just won't curl! Or a curly haired woman also tearing her hair because . . . it won't curl the way she wants! Oh, sure, they could set it, but not everyone can manage that these days. And a permanent, well, that means permanent damage, at least until the hair grows out.

I've always been especially sensitive to my students who march to the beat of different drummers: the one with blond and black hair in a tomahawk, the one with silver rings in both nose and lip, the one who wears dreads. There were many times I rushed to the defense of these students, reminding others that differences must be respected and a person's looks or choice of body jewelry is not an opportunity for making hurtful remarks.

As fashion and style director of Mode, the new fashion glossy for women size 12 and up, Michelle Weston's biggest challenge has been finding the right clothes to photograph for the magazine's stylish pictorials. "Matte jersey is my new crusade," she said last week while preparing for a fashion show at Bloomingdale's Century City store. Said Weston, a size 16 herself: "There are those of us who like a modern, clean look."