Dirty Hair: Spring ’14’s Stand-Out Trend

A few days ago, I sauntered backstage at a fashion show sporting hair that was four days dirty. Before some of you get all up in arms about how repulsive I am, hear me out: I am a reformed every-single-day washer, but I hardly ever go more than two days without washing my hair. I have a lot of fine, wavy hair that tends to go super-flat even a few hours into the day — so when I woke up the day after washing with decent volume at my roots (and very little time to get ready before my 7:30 a.m. backstage call time), I decided to play along. I've recently been attempting to rock the J.Crew-messy-chignon look, so I've been getting pretty skilled with the dry shampoo and hairspray.

I woke up the next day, and my hair surprisingly still looked decent. So, instead of a chignon, I wrapped it up into a messy French twist, which helped to give my 'do even more volume to the roots of my hair. That night, I gave myself a pep talk, and vowed to wash my hair the next day...only to wake up that morning with my French twist still totally intact. Readers, it was a hair miracle — so I went ahead and rocked the same 'do at Lincoln Center once again.

The most surprising part of my shampoo-free experiment? One of the biggest trends for spring '14 is turning out to be messy, textured, legit dirty-looking hair. As a result, I had multiple hairstylists point to my wayward updos and claim that they were going for that look. Well, alrighty then — apparently my lax hygiene made me look all trendy. Can't say I'm complaining — while I may not go quite so long without a good lathering in the future, it's good to know that my lazy ways resulted in an apparently covetable texture.

The key, I learned, to getting — and keeping — that right mix of texture and volume? A slow building of lightweight products. Click through to check out my latest texturizing faves, and let me know — would you rock significantly dirty hair in the name of fashion?