How To Get Daisy Jones Hair, According To The Show’s Lead Stylist

We're calling it now: You'll want to cut bangs ASAP after watching Daisy Jones & The Six, the Amazon Prime miniseries based on the enormously popular book. With the first three episodes out now (another three will drop this Friday, then two on the 17th and again on the 24th of March), we’re already seeing the series’ cultural impact. There’s a Free People Daisy Jones & The Six collection already on the racks — and about the hottest hairstyle for spring? Many stylists are referencing a strong ‘70s inspiration to kick off the season. 

As Maryann Hennings, the show’s lead hairstylist explains, there is a lot of storytelling communicated via the hair, specifically as it relates to Daisy Jones (played by Riley Keough) herself. "There are days when she's just so messed up," says Hennings, which determines the degree of tousled-ness of Daisy’s copper hair. "Those days, I pictured what it felt like for her to get out of bed, for her to drag herself to be around a bunch of people she doesn't want to be around."

Getting into the storylines (no spoilers though!), Hennings explains exactly how she styled Daisy Jones and the other lead characters, divulging the exact root concealer, hot rollers, and mousse that went into making everyone look so damn cool.

As the lead in the show (and soon in the band), Keough as Daisy Jones is in almost every scene. "Her character is so complicated," Hennings says, "because there are so many things going on in her life, between her childhood, her drug use, the band members, Billy..." 

Keough and Hennings worked together to create the signature Daisy Jones look. For Keough's part, she researched Daisy Jones fan art connected to the 2019 novel. "[In] most of them, she had bangs," Keough explained in an interview with Hello Sunshine (the show's production company), adding that the long length and slept-in waves were also inspired by the fans' interpretation.

Hennings says that Daisy Jones’ signature hair is actually not all that different from Keough's natural style; they just cut bangs and emphasized the wave. "Her hair is insanely perfect naturally; she's got so much that you'd guess it's extensions, but it's all her hair," says Hennings. "It was easy to pull a lot of curl out of her hair by diffusing it."

As for the red color? "I felt like red was a good, hard color that reads like, ‘I don't care what anybody thinks of me,’" says Hennings. It’s convenient that Keough has been coloring her hair red for years with the help of celebrity colorist Tracey Cunningham. In between color touchups while filming the show, Hennings would use the Color Wow Root Cover Up in red to hide any regrowth. (Red is notorious for fading quickly.)

Camila Dunne (played by Camila Morrone), the wife of the band's lead singer Billy Dunne, is the antithesis of Daisy Jones. "I wanted people to fall in love with Cami and I wanted people to fall in love with Daisy — but make them polar opposite," says Hennings. 

The quintessential Camila Dunne hair is "beautiful and soft," Hennings says, but it also evolves throughout the series. "When the band becomes successful, they have more money, and [Camila] starts doing more with her look," says Hennings. "On her own, she's stunning, and then when the hair and makeup and costumes came, we were like, 'Oh my god.'"

The secret to styling those loose, natural-looking waves? Hennings used the Dyson Corrale Straightener. "With Camila, I used the straightening iron to do a 'C' wave [flicking the iron back and forth for a bend] all the way down her hair," Hennings explains. "I did it super quick so it just looked like she just let her hair dry." Plus, the Corrale is practical for behind-the-scenes use. "What's great about it is that it's cordless, so I can grab the iron and run onset and fix something," Hennings adds.

As for the band's keyboardist, Karen (played by Suki Waterhouse), there was a specific style inspiration in mind: Brigitte Bardot. "At first I was just Googling 'looks from the '70s' and then I saw this one picture and I thought, that's it," Hennings explains. "It's Brigitte Bardot with big hair and her legs spread, throwing dice with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. I was like, ‘That’s Suki.’"

The goal for Karen’s hair: big and full. "With Suki, she has a lot of very fine hair," says Hennings. "I started her with LolaVie Detangler and Leave-In Conditioner to protect her hair. Then I loaded it up with mousse — I used Living Proof and IGK — which gives that stiffer feel, but without weighing [the hair] down."

Then came the hot rollers. "In the '70s, people didn't use curling irons," Hennings explains. Instead, she used era-appropriate hot rollers on almost every character. "I went for the original large plastic hard roller,” she says. If you’re looking to recreate Karen’s lush texture, you can use a YouTube video or follow this guidance courtesy of Hennings: "I like to blow-dry the hair, giving it direction, but leave it fuzzy so that you have the volume — then add the rollers. You brush out the hair with a vent brush. I don't know the last time anyone used a vent brush, but that's what works best."

In a pinch, the Dyson Airwrap works, too. When Hennings had to do a touchup and didn’t have time to re-hot-roll the hair, she used this. "It wraps the hair with air, so you don't get that tight, shiny wave," she explains. "It wasn't a curling iron look; it was a hot-roller look."

Simone Jackson (played by Nabiyah Be) wore wigs. "That's part of her character," says Hennings. "She has an Afro; she has Dianna Ross looks. We did four or five different looks on her." Hennings says she had most wigs, like the Afro, custom made, but also used other hair enhancements to "tweak" existing wigs to better suit the character. "In New Orleans [where the series was filmed], everyone wears wigs, so you go into a beauty supply store and they have a thousand," Hennings adds. 

Collecting products was part of the fun of working on the series, Hennings says. "I went to CVS and cleaned them out of hot rollers," she adds. "We had so many actors in the show; there were days where we had 500 to 1,000 background actors. If you saw a suede headband that could be from the '70s, you bought it." She said some days were like a big costume party.

"Everyone liked the way they looked," Hennings says. "The '70s were fun."