A few months ago, I was lucky enough to take some classes at Bumble and Bumble’s flagship location in Chelsea, New York City. I learned a multitude of invaluable things, but what surprised me most was all of the tiny tips and tricks that have changed how I style hair. Coincidentally, the week I was at Bumble was also Fashion Week, and with that in mind, the geniuses at Bumble University came up with an activity to show us that editorial styling can be made accessible.

We were given a packet of looks to choose from, and I picked something a little out of my comfort-zone: a style that had almost no volume on top, was nearly in the model’s face, and was not overly polished overall. This look is something I would rarely do in the salon, therefore forced me to look at styling from a different perspective with everything from product choice to how I went about drying it. To mimic the picture, I wet my model’s hair down with Prep, then applied Surf Foam Blow-Dry on the midsection of the hair, and twisted small sections before hand drying them without a nozzle on the dryer.

When the look was complete, it was identical to the picture, but not something that one would be comfortable walking around town with. This was when the head of education at Bumble and Bumble taught me something extremely valuable. He congratulated me on achieving the look, and then challenged me by asking, “How can you personalize this look to your model?” I realized then that I’d been so focused on copying the picture exactly, that I had ignored the features of the person in front of me, and had failed to do them justice.

Christiaan took a canister of Does-It-All, Bumble’s light hold hairspray, off the shelf, along with a boar bristle flat brush. He used the brush to gently rake the hair away from her hairline and up, while misting the Does-It-All from a foot away. When the hair fell, it had a new life breathed into it, and complimented the model’s face infinitely better.

Since then, I’ve used this trick dozens of times with my clients, and it is a hit! If you’re looking to add something new to your styling routine, try this, or maybe experiment a bit with other things you might not normally pick up, the results might surprise you!