Highbrow Hippie Blog

Classic, rich espresso brunette, for the always elegant Meghan, Duchess of Sussex for the Invictus Games 2023.  I truly have a soft spot for beautiful brunette hair color. It requires a gentle touch when highlighting or low lighting and adding dimension, and depending on the season, can range from deep and striking, to glossy and regal. For Meghan, and the change of season, I relied on heavy low-lighting throughout the lengths of her hair, followed by layers of glossing for the ultimate movement and tone-on-tone reflection. The result is healthy, long lasting, low maintenance color with superior shine.

Happiest birthday, Cleo Wade. Peerless poet, wonderful human, fabulous friend, and one of my favorite curly queens. When I first met Cleo, her hair was in need of a bit of TLC. The effects of over-processing and back to back pregnancies had wrecked havoc on her hair - which is often the case. To get to where we wanted to go with her color, a complete reset was necessary. A fresh start. For curls to spring and bounce, and the color to be reflective, the cuticle has to be intact. Coloring stretches the cuticle, and if too much is done too fast, you risk disturbing the entire curl pattern. The question remained, could we get to vibrant, golden curls, despite postpartum hair shedding.

Looking back, so much of Highbrow Hippie’s growth has been shaped by and chronicled through places. Whether it be the places that we will forever call home, those that we’ve temporarily made a home, or the places we’ve traveled to time and time again that feel like home, we’ve written about almost every one of them and they’ve come to be an integral part of Highbrow Hippie’s story. Venice is, of course, one of them. It’s the first place, in well over a decade, that we both have called home. It’s also the official birthplace of the Atelier, and for a reason. So much of Venice embodies the spirit of Highbrow Hippie. Venice is unique, inquisitive, and enigmatic. It’s fiercely itself - a place with its own heartbeat and vibration, where ocean breezes and creativity collide.

Highbrow Hippie started as a blog in 2012 but our story began long before that.   Our friendship began nearly three decades ago, during our time at Spelman College, when we were sales associates at the same clothing store in Atlanta. As life would have it, we both went our separate ways after school, with Myka heading to Paris for grad school and Kadi heading to the Aveda Institute in NYC and eventually, working at Frederic Fekkai. 

The other day, we were reading the comments and questions left on the blog and felt warmed by all the insightful input. Whether it was a question about aligning your period cycle to the moon phases or stories left by an old friend about the days, of living and working in NYC, we felt grateful for the reciprocity of this community.