The Early Show

Getting A Bang Out Of Your Hair

By Ellen Crean

April 9, 2004 / 3:27 PM EDT / CBS

If you're fed up with your hairstyle and don't know what to do, think of the "fringe benefits" of bangs! Yes, bangs are back this season, and they're bolder than ever.

Can you pull off this look? The Early Show stylist, David Evangelista, has a few interesting ideas to get you started on Monday Makeover.

Evangelista says the following people should not cut bangs:

If the hair above your forehead has a cowlick or curls up on its own easily, bangs are probably not a wise choice (they'll never stay straight).
If the hair is very frizzy, bangs probably are not for you, as they'll look more like a bird's nest than sleek and polished.
If your forehead is prone to breakout or acne, you should probably stay away from bangs as well (they tend to exacerbate oil buildup on the forehead, thus making you more prone to breakouts).
If your hair is exceptionally oily. Again, the breakout problem comes into play here, plus bangs on women with oily hair tend to look overly limp and dirty.

Before Evangelista cuts bangs on a woman, he suggests measuring the face to figure out what "shape" it is. He measures from the forehead to the eyebrow, eyebrow to the tip of the nose, tip of the nose to the chin, and then the width of the face. Based on these measurements, which aren't taken with a ruler - just eyeballed, you can figure out what shape face you have, and what styles suit your face the best.

There are a few basic facial shapes, which are:

Oval- A well-balanced face; the top half balances the bottom half.
Round- A large, curved forehead with a rounded chin. The face looks full and has very few angles.
Heart- The forehead is the widest part of the face, then it narrows gradually to the chin, which is slightly pointed.
Oblong/Rectangle Long, narrow face (oblong) with a square chin (rectangle).
Triangle- A narrow forehead where the face gradually becomes fuller at the cheek and chin area
Square- A wide forehead, cheek and chin area, where the jaw is relatively angular in appearance.

Evangelista showed co-anchor Julie Chen four looks he created on the following face shapes:

Oblong face Model is Audrey.
Audrey has very angular features. "They're sharp," Evangelista says, "a little pointy." So he gave her a side sweep bang, which is a very thick and layered bang that sweeps to her side to soften her angles and shorten her long face.

Round face Model is Isolde.
"Isolde has a wide face," Evangelista points out, "and it's pretty round." He decided that Isolde's face needed more structure and angle, so he gave her what he calls a "sexy rocker bang," (straight across the forehead) which will lessen the wide look of Isolde's face and make her features look more angular. The bangs Evangelista gave Isolde square off a bit over the eye, and they're quite heavy. He layered them inside by lifting the hair and cutting into it to give more fullness to the bang, which gives the illusion of extra angle to the rest of her face.

Oval face Model is Dana.
Typically, the oval face is the most envied shape because it can typically carry off any hairstyle. Dana's hair before was triangular (flat on top, full on bottom), and she had no layers to speak of. Paying extra attention to the wave in Dana's hair, Evangelista re-angled the front of the hair, and cut long bangs swept off to side. "These bangs create soft angles around her face, soften her features, and give a more modern feel and more versatility," Evangelista says.

Upside-down triangle Model is Yolanda.
Yolanda has what Evangelista calls an "upside-down triangle" shaped face. Her forehead is very full and wide, but as you go down her face, the shape tapers off and leads to a somewhat pointy chin. So he gave Yolanda a very blunt bang, which softens and reshapes the look of her features. "It is Selma Blair hair," Evangelista says, "the style she has worn with a very blunt bang."