Drenched With Style : Summer Is Ideal for Trying Cool, Clever New Ways to Wear Wet Hair

THE WET HEAD is definitely not dead. In fact, it’s alive and living quite stylishly in Los Angeles. As the sun gets brighter and the days get hotter, wet hair designs make sense--at the beach and beyond.

“This is the only time of year when a woman can wear her hair wet without looking foolish,” says hairdresser Blase, who represents Redken at many of its seminars on hair care and styling. Another single-name stylist, LeMaire, who tends to the tresses of actresses Helen Slater, Stephanie Powers and “thirty-something’s” Melanie Mayron, says that more and more of her clients are asking to leave the salon before their hair is dry. “It’s a fresh, clean, summer look,” she says.

Hair that is purposely left moist shouldn’t be worn slicked straight back a la Laker Coach Pat Riley or Brigitte Nielsen. “It looks too mannish,” says Henry Abell, co-owner of the trendy A. T. Tramp salon on Melrose Avenue. Besides, wet hair combed straight tends to dry flat and lifeless. “There should be a lift at the top that’s achieved by creating wet finger waves, wearing a comb right at the hairline or wearing a headband,” LeMaire says.

For short hair, a perm creates the easiest wet look and adds texture. To look best, it shouldn’t be a curly perm, Abell says. Instead, he prefers “soft, wavy hair that’s cut to accent the eyes.” When hair is longer, braids, twists and loose knots keep wet hair off the shoulders. The goal is to create a small, controlled look in keeping with summer’s body-hugging clothing silhouettes.

Ryan Boyd, owner of Hair, Ph.D. on Robertson Boulevard, says that accessories are the key to control. Clips, combs, barrettes and headbands not only hold, “but they’re a means of letting the woman vary her own hair style,” he explains.

“The days of simply pulling wet hair into a traditional ponytail are over. That looks like you didn’t know what else to do.” Blase suggests that an “I Dream of Jeannie”-type tail, perched high on the top of the head, is a viable beach look for wet hair. But for the office, a wet French twist, French braid or chignon are the styles often recommended. LeMaire suggests using a chopstick to secure the twist. “You weave it in. Then when the hair dries, it falls into beautiful waves.”

Hair is vulnerable when it’s wet because it expands as it absorbs water, Boyd says. “It is apt to break with the slightest pressure,” he says. Exposure to chlorine dries and damages the hair, “so it should be protected before entering swimming pools, not just after,” he cautions. He notes that using an acidifying protective gel, such as Redken’s Phinal Phase, will prevent drying from chlorine.

Abell says that the wet-head look for off-the-beach wear “should look casual. If it’s a French braid, a few hairs should be popping out. That’s only natural. Generally, women try to have their wet hair looking immaculate, and it ends up looking ridiculous.”

Hair: Henry Abell/A.T. Tramp; makeup: Wendy Osmundson/Cloutier; styling: Polly Hoyt/Celestine-Cloutier; models: from left, Suzy Cohn, Kathy Emerson and Sylvia Moyers