STYLECASTER
Dolly Parton once said?brilliantly?of her signature bleached-blonde, boobs-out, giant-hoops-on, red-lipstick-at-the-ready aesthetic, “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.” A similar principle applies to cultivating a sense of effortlessness in your appearance, which is not and never has been achieved by the actual absence of effort. Fact.
For me and anyone else who has a separate photo album in their phone dedicated to screenshots of French actresses and models who perfectly exemplify the mythical je ne sais quoi as far as hair is concerned (Mélanie Laurent, Clemence Poesy, and Jeanne Damas, if you’re curious), the idea of effortless hair is best summed up as lazy, loose not-quite-waves. Why are the French so good at this" I do not know. But I do know, and they probably know too, that to get that hair, you’re going to need one of two things: really good genes or really good product. (Both would be ideal, but that’s a lot to ask for.) That’s why I’ve been reaching for Oribe Matte Waves Texture Lotion ($42) before every blow-dry.
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A magical potion of sorts that delivers the kind of texture we’ve come to expect from salt sprays without the crunchiness, dryness, or sensation that your hair has instantly become dirty, this lotion gives my fine strands a bit of grip and a boost in definition that coaxes out my natural (very slight) wave. The result is hair...