- Encourage your teen to experiment with color. There are a vast array of box hair color options on the market, so your teen should be able to find something to help her express herself. When your teen finds something she is interested in, read the box and help her to understand the directions. You can allow her to experiment with the hair color on her own, but you might want to supervise the process just to ensure that she is doing everything properly, and to ensure that she coats her hair evenly. Discourage her from attempting highlights, as those are more difficult and require a professional.
- Braids can be used in a variety of ways by teens in order to achieve certain hairstyles. Your teen can learn to cornrow her hair by finding instructions, diagrams and videos on the Internet. Or, she can create a French braid or pigtails using braids. If she wants a look similar to a perm, encourage her to braid her hair while it is wet and remove the braids once her hair has dried. The result will be beautifully wavy hair that rivals the waves created by perms. How wavy her hair is will depend on the size of the braids she does when her hair is wet.
- Encourage your teen to express herself using hair accessories. For a sporty teen, this might involve throwing her hair up into a ponytail at just the right height. For a goth teen, it might be a black headband and some funky punk-style barrettes placed in interesting places throughout her hair. Yet another teen might do a bun or French twist fastened with rhinestone bobby pins.
- Your teen can use hot rollers to create beautiful curls and waves or to set her hair for a formal up-do. Your teen can section her hair by doing two rows of rollers on each side of her head, one row down the middle, and then two rows in the back of her head. She might also consider checking out a book from the library detailing a plethora of roller sets she can practice doing.
