by Maffew James

Created on: August 25, 2009

Emo hair may just be a label, but the idea behind it is expression and culture. The culture it derives its roots from is that of the emo music scene which tends to combine punk and hardcore. Music is one of the best ways to express yourself, and it helps if you actually feel inclined towards the type of music emo fashion and style derives itself from, but even the least concerned with social crazes and scenes can benefit from a few key tips based on the major generic qualities that apply to all 'emo hair'.

1. The first main generic factor that applies to nearly all emo hair is that it is straightened.

Now if you've never straightened your hair before it's a bit of a learning curve. You'll need a straightening iron - it doesn't have to be a ghd or a sedu for it to be good: it just has to be ceramic or titanium plated, preferably with tourmaline and ionic technology to give a smoother straighten and not damage your hair as much.

Straightening uses high heat up to about 230 degrees celsius to change the texture of your hair, so you need to buy a heat protecting spray to use when you straighten, this will protect your hair from heat damage.

A middle-range tourmaline-ceramic straightener with ionic technology will set you back from $40-$60, and the heat protectant can cost up to $30 for a high quality salon product, though a $5-10 spray is fine.

The good thing is, both of these will last a few months before they need to be replaced so it's fairly cheap in the long run.

You can use sectioning clips to layer your hair how you want to straighten it and move through all the layers, or just grab sections by hand and straighten that way. Personally I only get good results by sectioning, but I know a lot of guys that do it the other way so it's whatever works for you. It takes about 15-20mins when you get proficient at it so that's not too bad for the effect it gives.


2. The next factor most emo hair has is a base colour of black.

I'm treading on rocky ground here with a lot of people who will yell stereotype. I'm not saying it's always black, obviously, just that the majority of times it is, and a lot of non-black hair is more 'scene' in cut and style anyway.

Anyway, this step is quite easy, you don't bother going to a hairdresser to dye black cos it's too easy to do it yourself to be worth the expensive cost. Just bye a box of black hair dye that will cost about $10-15 and you put on the gloves and apply it by brush or the bottle they give you (using the gloved hand not holding

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