The Real Reason Celebs Have Such Incredible Hair

From butt-grazing waves to technicolor dye jobs, fans of red carpet hair have been well fed the past few years. But if you think your favorite celebs are out here sprouting these magnificent manes from their own heads, or if they’re somehow the result of a magical supplement or shampoo, it’s time to face the truth.

“Ninety percent of people you look at [in Hollywood] wear extensions,” says Reece Walker, a celebrity hairstylist, colorist, and extensions specialist based in New York City. And if that statement just rocked your world, you haven’t been paying attention. Where once wigs, weaves, and extensions were a secret whispered about in the private rooms of upscale salons — or NDA-bound between celebrity and hairstylist — hair pieces these days are just another aspect of the getting-ready process. And while many celebs are only too happy to be upfront about their extra help up-top, others still remain tight-lipped. But that doesn’t mean the fascination hasn’t grown exponentially (see: this DeuxMoi episode dissecting which celebs are wearing wigs).

The transparency of Instagram and TikTok can be credited in part with the recent obsession with celebrity (fake) hair and the discourse around it. “In the past, our superstars were kind of unreachable in ways where we didn’t know anything about their lifestyle,” says Lacy Redway, ambassador for Nexxus, TRESemmé, and Dove Hair & Shea Moisture, and whose clients include SZA, Zazie Beetz, and Nicki Minaj. “We didn’t know how they were getting their styles, because there was a lot of privacy that was created around them and a kind of separation between stars and [regular people].”

“Ninety percent of people you look at in Hollywood wear extensions.”

“Most of the glam process wasn’t a conversation when I first started my career,” adds celebrity hairstylist Joseph Maine, whose clients include Katy Perry, Chloe Fineman, and Nicole Scherzinger. “You would do a shoot, and then you would have a final picture, and how you got there wasn’t of much interest to people.”

But then along came social media, and suddenly celebrities — and their glam teams — were more accessible to the masses. Everyone wanted to know not just what a celebrity was wearing, but how exactly they got the look. “When I first started, taking a picture of your client and their finished look before they hit the red carpet was really taboo,” Maine says. “Now with TikTok, celebrities are part of the process and are willing to be filmed.” They’ve even joined the ranks of influencers and everyday people fueling the massive #GRWM (Get Ready With Me) trend, which last year boasted 161.2 billion views on TikTok and 6 billion on YouTube.

A Reality TV Turning Point

Social media can’t take all the credit for why the mainstream can easily talk about the pros and cons of K-tip extensions versus sew-in wefts, or who makes the best lace front wigs. Vicki Casciola, artistic director for Hairtalk Extensions points to none other than reality TV as a driving force for the growing discourse on how to get longer, fuller hair instantaneously.

“[The people on reality TV will] have one style one day and a different style the next, and I think that’s really impacted society in general,” she says. Casciola, who works with many Bravo celebs, including The Real Housewives of New Jersey’s Teresa Giudice and Shahs of Sunset’s Mercedes Javid, says reality stars are a driving factor for many of her real-life clients when they decide to take the leap to get extensions or try a wig for the first time. “If a normal person comes into the salon, whether it’s a model or a client, they’ll come in and show me a picture of a Kardashian or a Housewife,” she says.

Adds Maine, “Truthfully, [the popularity is] largely due to the Kardashians and those types of [reality stars] that were using wigs a lot. They were getting a lot of flak for it in the beginning, and people thought that it was weird, but they were really the front-runners of playing with these different looks and it had a trickle-down effect.”

The Destigmatization Of It All

If it feels like you’ve been seeing some truly epic hairstyles this year, it’s likely because using wigs and extensions has become so normalized. Tai Simon, a celebrity hairstylist and founder who works with Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Zendaya, and super-stylist Law Roach, notes how freeing it is for both the stylist and the celebrity once wigs and extensions are involved, allowing them to create more unique looks.

“If you see somebody one day and they have a bob, then the next day they have 50 inches of hair, you know what’s happening,” she says. “Method dressing is a thing right now — people want to take the idea of what’s happening for the movie and adapt it to their clothes — and you can adapt that to the hair. We can create more [with wigs].”

It’s also led to a more relaxed atmosphere between stylists and clients, says Maine. “In the beginning of my career, if you wanted to do something that was a real departure from a celebrity’s everyday look, there was a full conversation about it and they had to really get behind it,” he says. Now, because reality stars and pop princesses have made having different hair for every event the norm, there’s less stigma for other celebrities. Maine references his client, comedian Chloe Fineman: “With her, if we have a week at Fashion Week, I can bring many different links of hair, knowing [she’s down] for a really long look, or a short, clean look [the next day]. There’s definitely an ease at that sort of exploration.”

The Healthiest Hair Secret Is…Wigs...

Wigs’ protective nature is, in particular, one reason why many celebs may be drawn to them. “[Wigs] are used to keep your hair safe by covering it,” says Simon. “They [make sure] that you can hydrate your hair, keep it moisturized, wash it, and put it away.” The less you manipulate your actual hair, the less damage and breakage you have — so wigs in particular can actually keep natural hair healthier, or be used as a solution for an awkward grow-out phase. Celebrities whose signature hairstyles may have required extensions that damaged their hair over the years (ahem, Ariana Grande), might now opt for wigs as a safer, foolproof option (or they might just opt to slick their natural hair, as Grande has done).

However, Walker is quick to point out that not all extensions are bad, especially if a celebrity is going through a drastic hair change that may have otherwise damaged their mane. “Some people want to be really blonde, but their hair can’t handle all that bleach through the ends time and time again,” he says. “So rather than keep bleaching it out, we add really blonde extensions with blended roots, and we give them the hair color they want through extensions. Extensions don’t destroy your hair. They can actually improve your hair.”

...But Don’t Call It A “Trend”

Between Mormon Wives and TikToks, many people are just discovering the transformative magic of wigs and extensions. But it would be a mistake to call their mainstream adoption a “trend” simply because the general public has caught on to how beneficial they can be. Women of color have been using hairpieces for decades (technically centuries, if you delve into the history of wigs in ancient Egyptian times), and they’ve been part of Black culture for as long as natural hair discrimination has been present (read: always).

“Being a Black woman, extensions and wigs have always been a thing in our community,” says Simon. “We’ve been doing weaves and glue-ins and extensions and all of that for decades, so the topic has never been taboo for us. I feel like influencers and people teaching [consumers] how to make wigs or extensions and color — the Black community has taken it to another level to make it OK for everyone else to talk about it.”

Redway agrees, adding, “In the Black community, it can sometimes feel that only when something is borrowed from [our] culture and other cultures embrace it, that’s when the narrative changes around it.”

Why Some Celebs Remain Mum

For all the radical transparency in the beauty industry, and with celebrities being more upfront on everything from their Botox to menopause, there are still some occasions when celebrities remain tight-lipped on their use of extensions and wigs. “I think it’s a generational thing — like a majority of the older ones you don’t see talking about their hair extensions,” says Walker.

Then, of course, there are the celebrities promoting or angling for big deals with major hair-care companies, which is where things get more secretive. “With the whole Corporate Transparency Act, it’s forced advertisers to be very transparent about when they’re using digital enhancement or physical enhancement,” says Maine. “There was a big crackdown on hair companies to say if they’re using hair extensions in [hair commercial] ads. And so that certainly is something to think about if you are going to be transparent about how much of your hair is fake.” (For reference, multiple celebrity hairstylists when reached for comment declined to be interviewed, citing client relationships and hair contracts, while others gave no reason at all.)

All the experts say they’ve seen a significant increase in clients requesting wigs, as well as an increase in education on the stylist’s side on how to apply hair pieces. “I’ve been doing hair for 25 years and fell in love with it because of the transformation of it, and the only way you can truly get that transformation is by utilizing extensions or wigs,” says Casciola. “Nobody talked about it [back then], but now, schools are starting to educate stylists on how to put extensions in and install wigs.”

The Best Wig & Extension Brands

And while the array of brands available are dizzying, a few in particular rise to the top. Casciola loves hairtalk’s quality for extensions, and VP Fashion for customizable human hair wigs that won’t break the bank. Simon uses her own brand, TLC with Taije for her clients, but also praises What Wigs and Kendra’s Boutique for their quality. Walker is a fan of Hair & Compounds but also sends his clients to Bellami and The Hair Shop for clip-in extensions because of their range of colors, textures, and types of extensions. Redway frequents Extensions Plus and True Hair Company in NYC, which she says is her fave because they source raw, natural hair, meaning it’s unprocessed and easier for her to work with when creating her lace front wigs. Maine uses Babe hair extensions, citing their transparent sourcing as a major pro for him.

“There are a lot of shady dealings that happen within the hair extensions industry, and there are very few companies that have a whole chain that you can actually track to where the origin of the hair extensions came from,” he says. “So with there being more transparency around hair extensions, there is also more transparency of where they’re being sourced from. I think it’s really important when you’re choosing the best company for you.”

So the next time you’re envying a celebrity or influencer’s long, luxurious mane, before you start looking for the nearest hair supplement to pop to get your locks growing, remember that odds are that they’ve got some help taped, glued, sewed, or woven in. Extensions and wigs are on track to become a beauty enhancement as common as haircuts and colors. Just be forewarned: Once you start, it’s an expensive new habit, and one that’s hard to break.

“The more openness there is about it, the more people have realized they can have [the hair] they want now,” says Walker. “It’s just [you have to ask yourself], how much money do you have, and are you prepared to look after it — because it’s expensive, and it’s a lot of work.”