Ever since I posted those new photos of me on my web page, many of which have appeared on TGForum, I've received quite a few compliments on my appearance. By now, many of you know that I am not a full-time transgendered person, but I can easily pass as a woman if I so choose. I am a true chameleon. During the day, I work for a consulting firm where conservative attire is the norm. No one would ever recognize me as the Sexy Vampire because I am in my "businessman drag" when I am a consultant.
Someone like RuPaul or any one of a dozen top drag queens in the world only talk about businessman drag as drag, but they really don't know what it is. I live it every day and play both my male and female roles equally well.
I am a perfectionist. I am never satisfied with perfecting only one aspect of my look. I have to perfect the totality of my Sexy Vampire image, everything from my body to my clothes to my face.
A great body can only be achieved through exercise and good eating habits. This means limited snacking and eating three decent meals per day. Stay away from cheeses, creams, and any food that is artificially sweetened. Once you perfect your body, choosing clothing is a simple matter of individual taste and complying to a set of fashion guidelines, no matter if they are self-imposed or someone else's.
A great face is never just a great face. The face is only half the look. Great hair comprises the other half, but great hair comes at a price. Many of us either don't have great hair or, because of our conservative work environments, can't wear our hair as we'd like because our workplaces wouldn't tolerate what we as crossdressers would normally think of as great (luxuriously long) hair. You get the picture.
So, when I had the chance this past month to get hair extensions done during my week-long vacation break, how could I pass it up? It would be the pivotal moment in my development as a complete woman, the chance to experience great hair 24 hours a day for a full week, the chance to maintain my appearance as a woman full-time for a week.
The experience would be like wearing a semi-permanent wig. The hair is always with you, so you need to make sure that it always looks good, since you never know who you're going to meet or try to impress. You must be prepared to devote a good portion of your time each day in maintaining your hair. What once was a quick wash-and-air-hair affair can now take a good hour to wash and another few hours to set, style, and dry. This means inserting rollers in your hair, wearing a towel over everything, and basically looking like a Martian Medusa all day. Oh, yes, and this thing called commitment. Glamour queens are never born overnight. Neither are great hair styles. Both take time to develop. If you want to look beautiful at night, you will have to spend some serious time looking like an alien during the day.
Of course, you can leave your hair frizzy and scraggly and I have seen many transgendered people do this, but it looks so unattractive and so unfeminine! If you've spent good money on human hair extensions or if you are letting your own hair grow, you will want to maintain your hair as best you can. Isn't it worth the extra time to be able to look your very best and pass as an attractive woman even under the most scrutinizing eyes?
So what does it take to create the look of great hair? Read on.
You need great hair. You don't necessarily need a lot of hair
because there are techniques for attaching hair extensions to balding
men and women. The fact is you need enough hair. African hair works
best with hair extensions because this type of hair is easy to braid.
When preparing a head for hair extensions, the hair stylist weaves
several concentric circular tracks of thread on the back of the head.
The thread is anchored down by braided, clustered strands of your hair.
The texture of your hair is the key to the success of the technique and
this is where African hair shines above all other types of hair. If the
texture of the hair is too straight and silky, such as that of Caucasian
hair, glue must be applied to each of the anchored points to form a
knot. This glue can be dissolved with a strong hair conditioner. When
all of the tracks are finished, the stylist weaves and sews in the hair
extensions onto the tracks. The hair extensions are strands of hair
that come attached to a long link of fabric that can be measured and cut
according to the required length. The link of fabric is meshed, so the
stylist can take a needle and thread and, literally, sew the link along
the tracks. After the hair extensions are all sewn in, the stylist can
then cut and style the new hair with the old. If done right, the new
and old hair will blend together perfectly.
Some people are amazed when they see the actual amount of hair required
to achieve a full head of hair. It's not that much! When I was
searching for the hair extensions in a downtown beauty supplies store,
the saleslady said that two one-inch diameter rolls would be more than
enough hair to cover my head. Each roll has about as much hair as a
mid-back-length ponytail. If you're familiar with wigs, you may be
wondering how two small handfuls of hair could look as "full" as a full-
looking wig. The answer lies in the fact that the hair extensions
intermingle with your own hair. A wig compresses your own hair to best
display its own. Even three-quarter wigs that display the hair on the
front hemisphere of your head compress the hair on the back hemisphere.
As you can see in the photographs on this page, styling hair extensions is
limited only by your skills and imagination:
You need the right hair products. Now that you have all that new hair, how are you going to treat it? If you had them done at a professional hair salon, you probably paid well over $200. Don't gasp for air yet! Hair extensions can last a long time, at least three to four months. If you are going for an all-out awesome look or are in transition, this may not be a bad investment at all. There are plenty of things you can buy for $200 that don't quite match up to the satisfaction of having beautiful hair that is yours 24 hours a day. To attain this ultimate satisfaction, you will need to take care of your investment. You will need to treat your hair like gold. Buy a fine quality shampoo and conditioner and wash and condition your new hair daily. This will certainly make a difference. If you can, let your hair air dry as much as possible. Do not stay under a hairdryer for too long, otherwise you'll develop the frizzy hair I was warning you about. Apply any hair curlers or rollers in your hair in the morning and don't go outside, especially if you live in a city. The smog will affect the look of your hair. If you don't have the time to air dry and set your hair, you will have to get a little more creative later in the day. Brush your hair straight and blow dry it until it is almost dry, then keep it in a ponytail during the day. You will need to go to a hair stylist sometime later in the day to get a good hair style.
You need a great hair stylist. All of the best hair or hair extensions in the world won't help if you don't have the right hair style. A great hair stylist can help you achieve this look. If you are new to crossdressing or do not have the right tools to style hair, it is time to find yourself a hair stylist and entrust your look to him or her. I know it is terribly difficult to position rollers and curlers in your own hair, so you would be doing yourself a favor by letting someone else do it all for you. You need to develop a good rapport with your hair stylist because this is the person you may wish to see to get your hair done for the rest of your life (hey, you might even fall in love with your hair stylist, too). A hair stylist who is totally comfortable with you and your personality can give you your best look.
You need patience. My hair stylist and fiancee, Mary, spends at least an hour on my hair each night we go out, so I sit there patiently while she does her thing. Styling hair is an art form that few people can do well. Every wig that I have worn has been cut and styled to frame my face. The hair extensions I wore this year at the Henri David Halloween Ball reached well below the middle of my back, but I asked Mary to put my hair up to show more of my face; it was the quintessential beauty pageant look. Little did I know this style would take well over two hours to do! Not only that, but it took over twelve hours to air dry my hair while wearing hair curlers to achieve that Julia-Louise Dreyfus glamour. Upon removing the curlers, your hair gets that crisp curled quality that will hold even further with a touch of hairspray. Very chic and very glamorous.
Remember, good things take time to finish. Like me, Mary is a perfectionist. Every client who leaves her internationally-renowned hair salon leaves looking perfect. Carrie, the stylist who did my hair extensions, is well-known in the Philadelphia area and has done the hair extensions and styling for the Miss Gay Pennsylvania female impersonator pageants. And, let me tell you, these are some of the finest hair styles I have ever seen in my life, so, you see, I would have been crazy to pass up an opportunity like this.
Alas, good things always come to an end. The mental high of being a girl for a week took its toll on me. Looking your best every day is tough work! As it was quite chilly at night that Halloween week, I certainly didn't need a hat or earmuffs to protect my face from the cold, however, wearing the equivalent of a hat and earmuffs 24 hours a day can get rather stuffy. I was both sad and relieved when I removed my hair extensions, but I was happy to return to work the next day, my mind still on a mental high from the week before. Life was good.
One girl who doesn't seem to show up on television anymore is that redhead from Head of the Class. I can't quite remember her name, but I think she is really hot. That smile makes me melt! A number of women now wear very long, straightfall hair styles: Dax on Deep Space Nine, the girl on Third Rock, Brooke Shields on Suddenly Susan, Lisa Kudrow on Friends, and that Marcia Brady look-alike on Clueless. These women are all very sexy, but we, as crossdressers, need to be careful that we don't falsely convince ourselves that we can look just as sexy as these women with long, straightfall hair. Some people look good one way; others look good in another way. Nobody can look good in every way imaginable.
Since I am a techno-geek, I'd like to point out that that short blonde hair style Beverley Crusher was wearing in the new Star Trek: First Contact movie is a no-no. I think Beverley looks atrocious as a blonde... and she seemed to look so good with each passing year, too. Be red, Beverley. Do it for the Captain.
Walking along the main strip of clubs along the famed Delaware Avenue, Mary and I received many compliments, suggestions, and suggestive compliments from horny guys who passed by. Very few things are more thrilling than this! We walked into three of the predominantly "straight" clubs along the strip. Among the crowds of people, I blended in perfectly, almost too perfectly. The only time I was discovered was when a bouncer actually read my ID and found out that I was a guy. That woke him up! A number of guys approached us in the clubs, but I just smiled and must have looked like I was brushing them off. These same guys were successful with much less attractive women later on, so good for them so long as they have us in their dreams at night!
We left Delaware Avenue at half past midnight and drove a few blocks to the Black Banana, one of our favorite afterhours clubs. There were a lot of acid jazz and conga-inspired dance tracks playing that night. Two live percussionists were off to one side adding a layer of percussion on top of the music. The two men were in roller skates and took a break from the percussion every now and again, darting onto the dance floor to move in sync with the music, their skating routine almost flawless. Their enthusiasm grabbed the attention of many of the club's patrons who began filling the dance floor. As the club is now a popular business school hangout, several geeky/preppie types were standing around the dance floor not even making an attempt to approach anyone! These people should have stayed home.
For a short while, Mary and I sat at one end of the bar in the dance room. A guido in a nice jacket kept checking me out and trying to talk to me. I just smiled and nodded my head a lot at whatever he was saying. He stood around for a little while longer before he finally gave up and walked away. We were kind of hoping he'd buy the two of us a drink, but this usually doesn't happen in this club unless the guy knows he was going to get some "action."
Mary and I danced for five or six songs before she got tired (that day was a work day for her). I danced by myself for one song and attracted the attention of several guys. One by one they stepped up to me. For several songs, I had three men dancing with me, one on each side and one in front of me. The three guys were not together as a group. The most active of the bunch was a young Brian Austin Greene look-alike (from Beverly Hills 90210) who bared much of his lean muscular frame beneath his unbuttoned shirt. From his dance movements, I could tell that he wanted me to turn to him and dance with him exclusively. He was trying to move in sync with me and, in several instances, tried to move in front of the guy in front of me.
The guy on the other side of me was a tall lean African man who smiled at me every now and again and was really into the music. The third guy was a short little Latin man in a baseball cap and DJ attire who darted left and right. He moved away from a guy friend to dance with me for several songs. He, too, smiled at me, made some sort of complimentary gesture towards me, and looked like he was competing against the Brian Austin Greene look-alike for dance time with me. Can you tell I was having a good time? Well, what girl wouldn't be totally flattered to have three guys dancing with her at the same time? Mary and I left the club at about 3:20am and headed home. A typical Sexy Vampire night.
Interested in knowing more about The Sexy Vampire? Check out
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