My eldest brother, for some inexplicable reason, hates bangs (or fringe, as they say in Britain).

At the mere mention of it he scrunches up his face and lets out a freaksih ‘Eeeeee!’ before shaking his head violently as if to banish the image from his head.

Most of us girls have gone through bangs, because let’s face it, it’s cute! And recently, Hollywood has brought the bangs back – stars like Anne Hathaway, Rachel McAdams and Jennifer Garner look awesome in bangs (although I must admit some of the most beautiful women in the world like Megan Fox, Olivia Wilde and Angelina Jolie would probably look a little strange with them).

I’m currently faced with a tough decision. My hair has gotten to that stage where you either choose to let it grow, or decide whether you want to go with bangs for the next few months.

Late last year (having given up bangs for 12 years) I got long-ish bangs which flowed from a side partying into the rest of my hair and kept it that way for nine months. All my girlfriends loved it, and many of my guy friends hated it, but couldn’t quite put their finger on why.

My bangs in May

The question that begs to be answered is, are bangs for everyone? Or are there certain people that just can’t pull them off? (and am I one of those people?)

So, last week I called up a friend of a friend, director and master stylist, Bambang Sutrisno, to get his low-down on the subject.

The award-winning stylist said that although bangs can work for everyone, people with round and square face shapes need to be careful about the type of bangs they decide to sport.

”Those with round and square faces are not best suited for bangs, unless they are cut longer, starting from the cheek area and flowing downwards into the rest of the hair,” said Bambang.

”Think about Jennifer Aniston’s face shape and how the bangs work for her despite having a face shape that isn’t very oval.”

While the common belief is that if you’re over 35, you should forget about bangs altogether, Bambang says this isn’t true.

”People of all ages can pull off bangs, for example I had a 40-year-old client who wanted to look younger so I gave her longer bangs to go with her long hair,” he said. ”Although, some young girls that take on the ‘cleopatra'(straight thick bangs) look, they can actually make you look a lot older.”

”Ok, so what about curly hair?” I asked.

”Curly bangs only work if your hair is very curly. If you have tiny, tight curls and if your whole head of hair is like that, bangs look good,” he answered.

”When the tiny curls bounce up on your forehead, it looks really nice.”

If your hair isn’t very curly or is more wavy, bangs work if you have time to blow them semi-straight every morning, says Bambang.

Guess the mystery of bangs is now solved, somewhat, but yeah, I still haven’t made up my mind yet. (Actually I did, over the weekend. Read about it here)

What they say

For extra feedback, I got three friends to give me their opinions on bangs.

“Generally, it only works on young girls, although I do like the Monica Belucci or Nigella Lawson hairdos. Very sexy.” “But just because it looks good on them, doesn’t mean it will do the same wonders on just anyone.”

Muhammad Yunus, 30.

“Not everyone can pull bangs off. You’ve got to have the right face shape because bangs make wide faces look wider, they look more flattering on people with big eyes and bangs only look nice on people with thick hair – stringy bangs don’t look nice.” Janelle Lee Shu Xian, 21

Ellie

“I love how my bangs gives a frame to my face and I feel naked without them. I’ve had them since I was 16, when I realised how bangs can change an entire image.” Ellie Chee, 21.