Ouidad, salon owner and curly hair expert, and her assistant Ayanna Augustine-John, carefully examined model Monica's hair and declared it a "visor." Intrigued, we had to know more.

"Oh, we have all kinds of names for curly shapes," said Ouidad. "The ‘visor' is a full look with bangs. There's also ‘ear muffs' where the hair is cut blunt around the face causing the hair to lift around the ears; ‘mop head' where the hair is texturized all over and it just expands; ‘lamp shade' where the hair is cut to frame the face and the curls lift; and of course, there is ‘poodle head' where the curls are cut short, causing a perfect round shape."

As the pioneer of the curly hair industry, Ouidad has created more than just terminology to describe interesting silhouettes. In addition to a product and tool line, she has designed several cutting and styling methods to maximize and beautify curls and waves. The "Carve and Slice" method has been trademarked and the "Rake and Shake" is also one of her signature styling methods.

Behind the Cover (September 2010)
Curly hair expert Ouidad (right) poses with our cover model and assistant Ayanna Augustine-John (left).

Behind the Cover (September 2010)
Ouidad's shoot resulted in two gorgeous looks. We couldn't decide which one we liked best, so we used them both!

Behind the Cover (September 2010)
The cover of our Texture! guide. Read it now.

Because of her expertise, we asked Ouidad to shoot the cover of our special Texture supplement (click here to read it) this month. The looks she created were so beautiful, we decided to put one on the cover of MODERN, too!

As the texture category continues to grow, MODERN, with our partner NaturallyCurly.com and CurlStylist.com, will keep bringing you special supplements and online content on the category. Keratin treatments, new perm services, special tools and products and hot trends are dominating the texture market right now.

Behind the Cover (September 2010)
Ouidad adds finishing touches to the model.

Behind the Cover (September 2010)
Ouidad shows off products from her own line.


For reprint and licensing requests for this article, Click here.