Could a celebrity hairstylist dramatically improve your locks?
What I've learned after spending an absolute fortune on my hair.
I feel the need to start this piece by sharing a few ways I am, in fact, quite frugal: Never in my life have I owned a car and rarely do I uber—I walk and subway just about everywhere. Instead of buying a kettle, I boil water in a pot on the stove every day for my afternoon tea. I’m still using a phone cord that’s on that final stage of a cord’s life when it’s missing some of its skin and you have to finagle your phone in just the right position to get that little lightning bolt to appear. But when it comes to my hair, I’ve been the opposite of frugal. In the past 15 years alone, the amount I’ve spent getting my hair cut and coloured totals, I’m quite certain, the cost of a sedan.
It began when I swapped my $8 box of Herbal Essences hair dye (of course, the same one that’s in the opening credits of Legally Blonde) for a $400 USD (plus tax and tip) cut and colour by celebrity hairstylist Riawna Capri. I started to see her once or twice a year when I’d fly to Los Angeles from Toronto to visit my sisters. At the time, Riawna was at Ken Paves’ salon (you know—Jessica Simpson’s noughties bff?), working primarily on the heads of the coolest millennials, like Blake Lively.
The salon was in a tiny vine-covered cottage that looked like it belonged more in the Cotswolds than on Robertson Blvd. Upon arrival, you were brought into a garden where you’d sit in your black robe and sip cucumber-essenced water until your stylist was ready for you. The first time Riawna saw my hair, she cringed a little—and I didn’t blame her. It had been blanketed in a coat of cheap bleach, after all. But she transformed it: With ridiculously impressive precision, she painted in a blend of low-lights and highlights, giving me back my natural colour so new growth would blend in seamlessly while making my locks appear as if they’d been gently kissed by the California sun.
I left the salon that day with a golden mane that looked and felt healthier and fuller than it had in my life. And do you know how that made me feel? Rich. As someone who was still living at home, going to school, and paying for it with the tips I made as a server on weekends, I’m unashamed to admit it felt glorious to have really great, expensive hair—and it still does.
Riawna eventually opened her own salon, Nine Zero One, and became arguably the most in-demand hair guru in the city. But when her client list piqued at Jennifer Lawrence, she had less time for us regular folk. So I switched to another stylist at the salon, Morgan Parks, who has worked on celebs like Sarah Hyland and Nina Dobrev. Morgan’s been giving me natural-looking blonde locks for 10 years now, but when I can’t make it out west to see her, I’ve relied on two hairstylists on the east coast for touch-ups: Maddison Cave (whose clients include Manhattan cool-girls like Selby Drummond) at David Mallett in New York and Jason Lee (whose clients include basically every mag editor and in-town celebs like Erin Foster) at his own salon in Toronto.
Today, my hair costs about double what it did 15 years ago. But here’s why I won’t stop going to the best-of-the-best hairstylists, even though it means I have to make financial sacrifices in other areas of my life: Paying the price for skill has prevented me from a dye-job disaster and/or irreversible dried-out locks that many people I know have painfully experienced. Not only that, but these hairstylists have taught me the best hair-care secrets that have helped get my mane to a long and healthy state.
Here’s what I’ve learned:
Turn down the heat
Use only styling tools that have a temperature knob, and always turn it down as low as possible. “You can’t cook your hair at the same temperature you’d use to bake cookies!” Riawna once told me. High heat can cause the hair cuticle to crack, leading to split ends, and dry it out, resulting in a dull mane.
Stop fighting against knots
For really knotty hair post-shower, use a leave-in conditioner like Unite’s 7 Seconds Detangler (which I wrote about for InStyle). I’ve been using it since that very first day at the Ken Paves salon—it makes hair soft and hydrated so tangles basically fall right out. For tiny knots in wet or dry hair that won’t budge, don’t yank the strands, but save as many individual pieces as you can and cut out the rest—it’ll prevent split ends.
Don’t rush back into the chair
If you can handle your roots or grays showing, wait a little longer before getting them coloured again—it’ll help keep your hair healthy. (Bonus: This look is quite French.)
Know when not to trim
If you want long hair, don’t get trims. Turns out, you don’t need to cut off dead ends for your mane to grow, old wives. For a decade I thought this was true, and had to resort to clip-in extensions to have the long locks of my dreams. It wasn’t until I stopped getting trims completely that my hair finally grew—and I was able to chuck those extensions for good.
Take your beauty supplements
Hairstylists can often tell when their clients have been taking supplements that support hair growth—their manes grow in fuller and sometimes thicker. So if hair loss or thinning is a concern, beauty vitamins are worth talking to your dermatologist about. (But there may also be other more effective options, which you can read about in this story I wrote for Best Health.)
Change up your part
If the front pieces of your part, near your hairline, are looking a little more sparse than they once were, your part could be the problem. Since we’re often tugging at those strands, they’re more likely to shed. But changing up your part, whether flipping sides or just moving an inch or two to one side, can help.
Tools matter
The Dyson (not sponsored!) really makes a huge difference when it comes to the health of your hair. This is particularly because it has a special function that prevents the tool (and your hair) from overheating and getting damaged. It’s pricey, but worth the investment.
Until next Sunday,
Renée