George Papanikolas
Hollywood’s Hairy Secrets
Get Your Celebrity Hair Now!
Let’s be honest: isn’t Chloe’s Kardashian hair just perfect? Every shade she goes through seems to be more gorgeous than the previous one. And still – despite all the colour changes – her hair looks healthy and lustrous! Don’t you wonder, how she got so smoothly and naturally from brunette to a bit blonder – then even blonder than a bit – blonder – blonder – blooond 😉?! Don’t you want to have what she is having 😉?! Of course, there are some Celebrity Hair Secrets behind that… And one of them is George Papanikolas.
Recognized as one of the country’s top colorists, George is one of the hottest and most sought after names in Hollywood. Known for his signature sun-kissed color that looks – as George says “like you spent a summer at the beach, not 3 hours at the salon.” But this is only one part of the equasion: George cracked the secret on how to keep your hair healthy and lustrous despite the coloring. He is getting there using sophisticated highlighting technique (French one of course 😉 and special high-tech technology to protect the hair.
I am among George’s lucky clients and I love, love, love his work 😍! His highlights look great & natural with any hair color you might possibly have. I need refreshing 2-3 times a year tops ha ha 😃! For years my hair looked like dishevelled broom after each coloring. Whereas George’s magic touch leaves it soft and healthy: kinda miracle in the universe of bleaching, where hair damage counts as collateral damage.
In his trendy salon in West Hollywood George is sharing with us some of his Celebrity Hair Secrets.
CSS: What else would you recommend to our readers who would like to have the same summer look, and are not lucky to live around the corner from you?
George Papanikolas: To keep this beautiful healthy summer look, you need to keep couple of things in mind:
Celebrity Hair Tip No1 by #GeorgePapanikolas:
CHOOSE THE RIGHT SHADE
For most flattering effect stay couple of shades from your natural tone, and use highlights as a touch. If you are going go lighter or darker with your hair the universal principle is keeping your base colour within two shades from the natural and then highlights should be no more than four shades lighter. Everything that will be more then that will either look ashy or too severe and dark, if you go much darker.
I concentrate on three areas: the face frame, the naturally light reflecting part and the ends. That’s where sun would naturally hit the hair, so you create the dimensions. It is also important not to put too many highlights in the hair, so that its condition is overall healthy, because you put highlights only where the sun would naturally hits the hair. and then the majority of the hair is still healthy and natural.
George Papanikolas: I also recommend keeping exposure to heat at the minimum. People want to look perfect all the time, so they curling them, blow drying and ironing. This is very hard on the hair, as hair fiber.
So all in all is to learn working with the natural texture of the hair to bring up the natural beauty and saving heating for special occasions.
Celebrity Hair Tip No2 by #GeorgePapanikolas:
CHOOSE THE RIGHT PRODUCT
Go Natural: Day & Night – Before & After
I am a big fan of natural oil products. Especially when you are highlighting and blow drying your hair, its super important to add oil treatment before you wash it, it adds this extra moisture and protection.
Oil Treatment Super Star: Pay attention to use high quality products. There’s an oil that I especially like, as it’s 100% natural – Biolage oil. Natural oils are always the best choice. Lots of oils sold out there contain silicones and those reality just mask the problem. They coat the hair but they don’t really have the nourishing qualities the natural oils do.
Nature does the best hair products out there! For optimal nourishing you want to use e.g. jojoba oil or sesame oil, everything that’s not too acidic.
George Papanikolas: Better to avoid olive oil though, because that’s too acidic for the hair. I think the less chemicals the better for the moisture levels of your hair.
Celebrity Hair Tip No3 by #GeorgePapanikolas:
MOISTURIZE, MOISTURIZE, MOISTURIZE
Keeping you hair well hydrated is an absolute must! Normally hair stays hydrated with natural oils, but when you are bleaching and highlighting them, you strip the hair of its natural moisture barrier. So u need to get sure to supplement your hair routine with a lot of moisturizing products, deep conditioning essencial oils, these will keep hair really soft.
In our saloon, we are using a lot of new technology to protect the hair. Like e.g. band protecting technology. What it does is almost like a buffer between the hair and the bleach and it protects the hair during the lightening process, so your hair still feels like hair after the colouring. That’s the bleaching that is usually the hardest thing on your hair but as fashion now everybody wants lighter highlights and its a big thing, but with that comes the damage. So that’s a very important thing to protect it, it’s my responsibility as a colourist. But then let’s the client to go home and do that as well.