Celebeauty Sit-Down: Emma Roberts’s Colorist Explains How She Perfected Her Brand-New ‘1984 Brunette’ Wavy Do

Published Jul 10, 2019

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4:36pm

Celebeauty Sit Down is a new franchise from PureWow in which our editors chat with some of the biggest names in the celebrity beauty world exclusively. We uncover their tips, tricks and best-kept secrets so you can recreate your favorite A-lister’s look IRL.

Emma Roberts is going back in time and it looks great on her.

Yesterday, the 28-year-old American Horror Story actress debuted a new rich brown hairdo for AHS: 1984. Since we could definitely see ourselves rocking her new hue come fall, we chatted all about it with her colorist Nikki Lee.

“This new look is for American Horror Story, the theme is 1984,” the Nine Zero One salon co-founder told PureWow. “So, the challenge was how do I create a look for Emma that she will be shooting with for the next few months, that’s also modern for her day-to-day life?”

What Lee and her co-founder Riawna Capri, who handles Roberts’s cut and styling, came up with was a warm chocolate brown with a little more length than Roberts had previously.

Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic/Getty Images

“Riawna created a mid-length blunt cut that could be styled very ’80s for the show. But for her real life we did a modern kind of wave, so she’s not walking around looking like she’s in 1984,” Lee explained.

To give Roberts’s hair some more length and body, Capri and Lee opted to add Great Lengths extensions “to create fullness on the mid-length blunt cut.”

Once her cut was set, Lee went about creating Roberts’s color. “With her color I obviously took her brunette: ‘1984 brunette,’ which is just a rich warm brown. It’s pretty classic and very Emma,” she said.

Roberts was previously blonde and has made several major hair changes in the last year. Lee says she keeps her hair hydrated despite color changes with Lee’s go-to “prep product,” Magic Myst ($35). Before styling, Lee applied the Myst to Roberts’s mane. Once she was ready to style the AHS star’s freshly colored waves, she used Oribe dry texture spray (a $46 favorite of this editor’s as well) and applied R&Co Trophy glossing spray ($32) to her ends.

All we can say is 1984 looks good on you, Emma.

Lex Goodman

Cat mom, yogi, brunch enthusiast

Lex is an LA native who's deeply obsessed with picnics, Slim Aarons, rosé, Hollywood history and Joan Didion. She joined PureWow in early 2017.

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