What happens when a girl with natural, rich chestnut hair spends a few months under the California summer sun? She winds up with a seriously sun-bleached and slightly frazzled head of hair. Claire needed to get a fresh, clean cut and style before she headed back to school in the fall. "I spent almost every weekend on the beach and it definitely took a toll on my hair," said Claire, 20. "The beachy look worked for the summer, but I'm headed back to school and I'll be going on job interviews soon, so I needed a more professional look."

Claire likes to keep things low-key when it comes to her hair. "I stay away from using a lot of product, so I want a haircut that doesn't require a lot of maintenance or styling." We called in the experts at the Cristophe salon in Beverly Hills, CA, to give her the perfect back-to-school cut and color.

Keeping Claire's youthful length, hairstylist Jeffrey Jagged cleaned up her damaged ends and added layers to create more volume and texture. "I prefer to do an initial dry cut because I can work with the hair as it will look when dried," said Jagged. "Claire's hair is actually fairly healthy, so I just trimmed her ends before we dyed her hair."

"When I talked about going low-maintenance, I was terrified that Jeffrey would want to cut off all of my hair and throw me on the celebrity bob bandwagon. I was so relieved when I didn't see a pile of my hair on the floor," said Claire. "I love that he kept most of my length, but the layers make it feel like a totally different hair cut. I didn't realize how boring my hair was before."

As a college student, Claire doesn't have the time or money to spend on regular salon visits to keep up with a high maintenance dye job, so hairstylist Paul Desmarre gave her a subtle and natural looking ombré using his Vernissage technique.

"It's a technique I developed in Paris," said Desmarre. "The cut brings out her natural highlights and it's gradual, so she won't have to worry about dying her roots."

After the dye set for 30 minutes, Claire's hair was rinsed and washed with Dove Intensive Repair Shampoo, $3.49, with Keratin Repair Actives that repair proteins at hair's cellular level. The wash was followed with Dove Intensive Repair Conditioner, $3.49, a gentle moisture-rich formula that strengthens hair, helps prevent split ends, doesn't weigh hair down, and (when used with Dove Intensive Repair Shampoo) delivers up to 5x smoother* hair.

*When using shampoo and conditioner system vs. non-conditioning shampoo

Jagged finished Claire's cut on her washed, wet hair, cleaning up the layers and length before blow-drying. Using a large round brush, Jagged created large, loose curls and polished them off with a light shine spray. To give her curls a more natural look, he skipped the heavy hairspray and product. "Claire's hair naturally holds a curl well on its own, so all I really needed to use was a round brush and a blow-dryer to get this look."

"I had no idea that getting curls was so easy," said Claire. "I thought I would have to spend 30 minutes with a curling iron to get this look, but this is something I can easily do myself before heading to class or work."