Hairstyles for Straight Hair

The cool thing about straight hair is that, if you've got it, you've got no shortage of options for what to do with it.  The other cool thing is, hey, if you don't like it, you can always buy a curling iron.  But for this article, we're going to focus on what you can do with straight hair - without the curling iron - and different hairstyles you can do with different lengths of hair.  For our purposes, we're just going to point out right now that, with almost any length of hair, you can do a ponytail if you aren't picky.  We're not going to consider that a haircut, as it is more utilitarian than focused on the actual look.  There are several different ways to approach straight hair hairstyles, and we'll try and divide those up into easy groups, but before you pick your hairstyle, look at all the categories and combine them to find what's best for you.

Length

Probably the most versatile category, the basic question with straight hair is what length you want it to be.

Short Hair - Short, straight hair, is surprisingly versatile.  You can go with the classic, flat, unlayered look, or you can feather your hair or spike it out, with more of a modern, hip, or punk look.  Often, short feathered hair looks good with highlights or hair dye.  Obviously, before choosing which way you want to go with this, try and figure out what you can pull off, and what works with your line of work.  If you're Secretary of State, I'd ease up on the pink dye, though, for the record, it would look GREAT on Hillary.  It'd take decades off.  You can also do a more traditional but trendy layered look, much like Ellen Degeneres.  Play with hair colors and highlights, and, with hair this short, why not experiment?  You can always lop it off.

Medium Hair - Medium length hair lends itself to a more classical look, and is probably the most versatile.  You might not be able to do as much with coloring with hair of this length, but unlike short hair, you can do a LOT more with the hair itself.  Practice with parting from the center, parting from the side, and toy with the length of your bangs.  The key, with this length, is framing your face.  The framing elements are the bangs and the parting, and which directions you curl your hair in at their tips.  Outside gives it a more crazy look, and turned in is a more conservative, demure look.

Long Hair - The focus of a long hair hairstyle is the hair itself.  If it's long enough, you can really just let it hang.  Mess around with layering, if you like, but having flat, single-length hair can look good good too.  The key here is that you have to make sure the hair itself looks good, so make sure you're using the right shampoo and conditioner.  The drawback to having long hair, of course, is that you're limited in styling it, unless you want to take the time to curl it.  Also, if you have naturally frizzy hair, it will take a lot longer to dry the hair straight if you have long hair.

Texture

Texture is most important when you have long hair, because the focus will be on the hair itself.  If your hair is frizzy, when you dry it, be sure to use a straightener and to brush your hair out so your long locks don't turn into a fro.  You could have very fine hair or very coarse hair, and this directly effects how your hair will look in any given hairdo, so when you talk to your hairstylist, be sure to ask them what shampoos and conditioners are necessary for your style hair.

Look

Straight hair hairstyles covers a pretty broad spectrum of hair, since straight hair is one of the three basic hair types (the other being curly and wavy).  So naturally, none of this is any use if you don't know what it is you're looking for.  The good news is that straight hair hairstyles can fit into pretty much any look you're going for, so decide what you want and proceed.

Punk - If you're going to do punk hair, you probably want it to be short enough to mess with.  Some of the retro-80's punk, Patti Smith style hair is a bit longer, but usually, you need it to be short and feathered or heavily layered.  It doesn't hurt to throw some sort of dye or highlight in there too.  Typical blue-mohawk punk looks really aren't in right now (I mean, they were never IN, and I think that was kind of the point), but a more trendy pink and blonde highlight look is definitely in right now.  A subtype of this is, of course, emo, which is fairly close to punk.  Emo is different in that it tends to focus a lot on the bangs, which are usually heavily draped over one of the eyes.  The best celebrity example of emo is Adam Lambert, of American Idol fame.

Classical - The more classic look fits best with medium to long hair.  Classic hair focuses on texture and waves, and with medium hair, it can be let down or put into an updo, which, if done right, looks great.  For the most part, this hairstyle doesn't involve much coloring, outside the occasional highlight.

Trendy - For a younger look, you're going to want medium short hair.  This hair is multi-layered and usually has at least some sort of highlights.  It can be feathered out or left perfectly straight.

Once again, the point of long hair is the hair itself, rather than the style, so if you have long hair, rather than focusing on the style, focus on the quality of the hair.  Styling products can help you here, so ask your hairstylist what they think.  A good idea is to look through celebrity pictures and decide which of their hairstyles you like, and then judge if you can pull it off.  If you can, bring a picture of that celebrity into your hairstylist and ask him or her where to go from there.  You can do hundreds if not thousands of things with straight hair, so don't be shy!  Experiment!