BTC Exclusive: Beyoncé’s VMAs Color and Style
When we woke up yesterday morning, the world was talking about one thing—Queen. Bey. And, yeah, it’s mostly because of her show-stealing VMAs performance, but can we talk about that HAIR for a minute? The dramatic new honey blonde shade, accompanied by a sleek, inverted braided updo, stunned on and offstage. “The whole look was meant to have an angelic feel,” shares Rita Hazan, Beyoncé’s official blonder and longtime friend. “It’s a tone-on-tone of many shades of blonde.”
Rita, who was originally introduced to the “Lemonade” singer by her stylist Kim Kimble, said this newest blonde shade might be her favorite Beyoncé haircolor yet. “The tone is really pretty and soft. It looked almost like it was natural,” she says. Rita’s blonding trick? Keeping it cool. “[Beyoncé’s] hair tends to get very warm,” says Rita. “So we want to keep it cool, but we also want it to be bright and not dull…it’s like the difference between sun-kissed and orange.”
To achieve the look, Rita says she used foils on Bey (she prefers foiling over balayage) and never uses toner. For this specific look, she first lightened her dark brown base using Clairol #30 to achieve a cool, neutral color, processing for about 1 minute. She then highlighted with foils using Basic White bleach mixed with coconut, jojoba and sunflower oils (to make the bleach less harsh on the hair), and processed for about 10 minutes. Rita always finishes with the Rita Hazan True Color Shampoo and Conditioner along with her Ultimate Shine Breaking Brass gloss to keep Beyoncé’s hair healthy and her color fresh. Finally, she colored extensions (although Rita says the look was mostly Bey’s own hair!) to match her new shade.
On the night of the awards, Kim styled Beyoncé for the red carpet, and for her incredible 15-minute performance. To get her pre-show look, Kim created two inverted braids on both sides of the head, and braided each of them into one inverted braid going down the back. “Having the hair pulled back really worked to show off the dress,” says Kim.
For the performance looks, Kim used a waving iron to create texture, but says you can also achieve the look by applying a curl cream and a leave-in with some hold, like her Kimble Beauty Bounce Back Curl Cream and Kimble Beauty Bounce Back Curl Revitalizer and then braiding the hair until it dries, then releasing it. “This is the heat-free way of creating soft waves,” says Kim.
So we know you’re probably wondering—how did Rita land the ultimate dream job as The Queen’s colorist? After all, Beyoncé doesn’t let just anyone do her hair. “It was back about four or five years ago when Beyoncé wanted to be a very specific blonde color,” Rita recalls. “Kim knows my specialty is making ethnic girls blonde, so she called me and was like, ‘You have to help me. Beyoncé wants her hair done, and you’re the only one who can do it.’” The rest is pretty much history. It also helps that Rita’s a perfectionist. “[Beyoncé] will ask for hair that’s, like, impossible to color, and she’ll say, ‘Send it to Rita, I know she can do it,’ Rita says. We work really well together, and we get each other on a creative level.”
