Soft Chignon

" Hi! I'm Leah Wyar, the beauty director at FITNESS magazine and today we're at the Warren-Tricomi Salon in New York City where celebrity stylist and Garnier Fructis stylist, Marc Mena, is creating an updo that works perfectly for day or night. Today we have Lauren, who is our assistant Art Director at FITNESS and Marc's going to be creating a soft chignon on her. Marc: Great. So, Marc, the most important prep step for this is really about adding texture, right?"

" Marc: Absolutely. You can either set your hair in rollers or set your hair in pins -- whatever it takes to get some texture for this hair. Because you want it to be soft, but you also want it to have some texture to it. Leah: And it will help hold the look? Marc: It will help hold the style, absolutely. Leah: Okay. Marc: So one of the first steps we're doing is we're doing three sections -- two in the front of the hair and then one large section in the back. And it's gonna be really easy to create our chignon because it's just three simple steps. So the first step is we're going to create a low ponytail, and it doesn't need to be tight -- it can be really loose. This whole look is going to be really loose and organic, so you don't have to work too hard on making it look great. Once I have the ponytail, I spray it. Once it's nice and sprayed, I begin to tease the ponytail. Tease the ponytail -- make it really big and full. The texture is going to help hold the pins in place. Once I tease, I smooth it out with a paddle brush. And once that's all smooth, I loop the ponytail and start to create a chignon. It doesn't need to be super fancy -- the messier it is, the better actually it works for this one. Leah: Because messy sort of makes it modern, right? Marc: Absolutely. Use big pins to secure the bun. I like to use large pins on her because she has a lot of hair. Depending on your hair texture, you can either use large pins or small pins -- whatever you're comfortable with."

" Once the chignon is in place, I re-spray."

" Then we begin to interpret these side parts. Spray the side. Just softly and casually loop it over the chignon. Pin."

" Like I said, this is organic and very casual, so if anything gets left out, just leave it. Leah: It looks fresher that way, right? I mean, it's not so forced. Marc: Exactly. Right. I do the same with the other section, wrap it around the other side -- very casual-- and pin. And there you have it -- loose, soft chignon. "