Photo Credit: Chris Appleton
It’s no secret that every “It” girl in Hollywood has a glam squad behind her, the members of which each possessing a very special set of skills to make her look and feel like the best version of herself. As a result, some of these aforementioned glam squad members have risen to international fame in their own right, not just because of their celebrity clientele, but because of that signature look they’re able to create that no one else seems to know how to recreate, in addition to an unparalleled attention to detail and an elevated level of mastery. Chris Appleton is one of the few who falls into that group, and is one of the most sought-after celebrity hair stylists in the world, having worked on the tresses of some of the most recognizable women in the world, most notably with Kim Kardashian West and Jennifer Lopez, for whom he created that unforgettable Super Bowl Halftime Show look. During a live Zoom webinar with me for Haute Living, Chris shared some of his coveted secrets, including a quick and easy fix for roots/grays, whether or not you should cut your own hair during quarantine, and a breakdown of his signature snatched ponytail. Oh, and how JLO’s Super Bowl hair almost went awry. See some of the highlights here and scroll down to see the full video for more tips and tricks from Chris.
ON FIXING ROOTS/GRAYS AT HOME WITH COLOR WOW POWDERS
For anyone that’s got grays or regrowth, this is a great way of getting rid of your grays. I’ll show you now a little demonstration of how it works [on a doll head and wig], some quick and easy ways to get rid of grays…Why I like these [Color Wow Root Cover Up] powders is because they don’t transfer and they don’t go anywhere…just hold the hair taut and then you put this in here and it instantly gets rid of your roots…Anyone that knows me knows I love a good snatched ponytail [and] this will fill out hairlines as well, so it gives you a really nice, fuller hairline for anyone we’ve just been talking about with finer hair, receding hair, hair loss…this is great way of instantly making your hair look thicker because it kind of covers the scalp and gives it a more dense effect. You can also have some fun with it as well…you can do highlights. [For example with Color Wow Platinum]…even if you have regrowth here [on the scalp], if your highlights have grown out you can actually lighten it by painting highlights in. So you don’t need to use just one color, you can actually create a highlighted effect…This is a safe way to keep your color looking good.
Photo Credit: Haute Living via Zoom
TUTORIAL ON HIS SIGNATURE “SNATCHED” PONYTAIL
One of the biggest things I do when I sculpt the hair back is I try to get a lot of control. What I always like to do is I’ll load the hair with hairspray. A lot of the success of a good ponytail tends to sit upon where you place the ponytail. So first of all, I’m going to use the Color Wow Cult Favorite Hairspray, so I’ll always saturate the hair in product. I’ll use my fingers to take quarter inch sections and put a lot of product throughout the roots. The reason I do this is because if you truly want to get a laid ponytail, it needs to be controlled. This doesn’t dull the hair or make it flaky, it’s got a nice amount of hold but it doesn’t get heavy in the hair, which is really really important. But you’ll notice that I’m leaving the ends out, so I’m not doing the ends because we want them nice and loose. So we just take a second to saturate the roots, using my fingers, the sections back to back…I’m going to show you a few different ways of doing ponytail. So if you brush the hair straight back and down, I always find that for me, that’s a very professional and a little bit sad…like she’s off to work and wants an easy maintenance ponytail. If you take the ponytail more midway and follow the eye line of the ponytail, when the hair is placed slightly higher and lifted, and if you follow the eye line here, it’s a bit more girly and flirty and a bit cuter. For me, the best and biggest impact you can get when you’re doing a ponytail is to take it a lot higher. I am using a Mason Pearson brush to snatch the hair back and I’m taking it section by section, and the reason I’m not getting any lumps or bumps is because of the hairspray that we saturated the roots in. If you’re doing this yourself at home as well, tip your head upside down because gravity is difficult when you’re doing ponytails and it’s one of the hardest things you can master, is getting a really high snatched ponytail. So, what you want to do is put your head upside down, that’s a great little trick to getting the hair as high as possible and always go a little higher than you aim for…Another tip as well is if you do have particularly really thick hair, I would dry your hair in the direction of the ponytail first. Using your hands then to navigate to create a good place on the scalp, and I like to use the Blax elastics because they don’t break; there’s nothing worse than a ponytail that snaps when you’re halfway through. You can see that when the ponytail is a lot higher, how much fiercer it is. When you do this ponytail, you follow the cheekbone, so there’s a difference; when it’s down it drags the face down; when it’s directly back it’s nice, but when it’s higher, it actually changes the shape of your face and it actually lifts the eyes. I’ll show you a little trick; I always like to add a little extension ponytail. But for anyone who doesn’t like an extension ponytail, I tie a second [Blax] about half an inch above the base of the ponytail that I’ve just done. What this will do is it’ll give you much more height and much more of a volumized ponytail, so you don’t actually need to use [an extension]. When you get a really laid ponytail like that, when you get the perfect shape is the nit’s really red carpet-worthy and it can really make a difference.
Photo Credit: Haute Living via Zoom
ON HOW JENNIFER LOPEZ SUPER BOWL LIV HALFTIME SHOW HAIR ALMOST WENT WRONG
There was so much build up to the Super Bowl. It’s just this huge huge moment where you know everyone is looking. Jen and I were texting back and forth…and I remember I was thinking either the half-up-half-down ponytail, like the Barbie hair…or, Jen likes this side-part glam thing…The easiest would [have been] the half-up-and-half down because it was the most controlled and I knew it wouldn’t give me any grief because she was flipping her hair so much…[but] I thought, ‘You know what, with this performance, we need sexy, the hair needs to move.’ I kind of wanted to have her hair dance with her…and make it bouncy enough. There was a rehearsal because if it was going to rain in Miami, they’d play the rehearsal [as] they couldn’t have all the electrics on the field. There [were] two dress rehearsals and the last one was going to be filmed [to be played as the Half Time show in case it rained]…I don’t know why or what was wrong with me that day, but I decided I was going to use a smaller curling iron that I normally use; because it’s so humid in Miami, [I thought her hair was] going to drop out, [because] it kept dropping and kept falling out as soon as she went out in the humidity. So usually when you make the hair a bit more curly and a bit more bouncy, it’ll drop and you get a bit more life out of it. So, I made it a bit more curly…and then I set it with clips and put cool air on it with a hairdryer to set it, which I’ve not done ever…I don’t know why I did, I obviously had too much time on my hands. But when I took it out, it was curly like coils…I’m trying to brush it and I’m telling her, ‘Don’t worry Jen, it’s going to drop out,’ and she’s like, ‘It’s really curly, Chris…’ And it’s not dropping out. There are videos of me brushing her hair, brushing, brushing, brushing, brushing, and it was so curly. And I don’t know why, but it would not drop out…she did the performance, [and] every time she moved her hair, these coils of curls were falling down, and I remember she came back and we watched the video…and I kept thinking, ‘Please don’t rain on Saturday because it can’t be this hair.’
Photo Credit: Haute Living via Zoom
