Celebrity Lookbook: Ariana Grande

Whether you’re a fan of her music or not, unless you live under a rock at some point you may have bumped into one of Ariana Grande’s songs - over the radio, at your local cafe, on television, or perhaps hitting high notes from your daughter’s phone. And if you’ve ever seen Ari, then you know that her musical talent isn’t the only distinguishing trait of hers - have you taken a good look at her hair?

Ariana Grande’s hair is a widely discussed topic, and there’s a reason why. Let’s have a look at her most iconic hair looks, hair transformations, and more.

1. Ariana Grande’s Real Hair

Ariana Grande’s real hair is naturally curly, almost wavy. Its texture is uniform and face-framing, with beautiful baby hair. She is rarely seen sporting her natural hair nowadays, but the occasional social media reminder of what Ariana Grande’s curly hair looks like is a blessing.

2. Ariana Grande’s Red Hair

Although you might think that her most iconic hairstyle is the ponytail, way before that there was the red hair. At the beginning of her career and throughout her acting roles for Nickelodeon shows Victorious and Sam & Cat, the singer sported a berry-red mane that she wore for around four years. As her natural hair is quite dark and she had to dye it red every few weeks, years of playing Cat for Nickelodeon led Ari’s hair to get prone to breakage, and her stylists had to think quickly - a situation that eventually led to her most famous hairstyle ever.

3. Ariana Grande’s Ponytail

According to Ari, the ponytail was initially chosen as an easy way to wear and style bleach-damaged hair. Although her explanation dates back to 2014, both she and her hair stylists seem to have agreed on making this her signature look, as her high ponytail quickly became viral and fans all over the world were looking to recreate this style. Ariana Grande made the wrap-around ponytail famous, but not without the aid of hair extensions. Just like her, you can easily achieve the iconic high ponytail by adding length and thickness to your natural hair with a clip-in ponytail hair piece.

4. Ariana Grande’s Blonde Hair

During her Sweetener era, the singer experimented a lot with hair colors and different aesthetics - and much to our delight, she ventured into the dangerous zone of shades such as platinum blonde and even silver. The crowd praised her new looks, and Ari embraced lighter tresses for a while, both on and off stage. Although the album look is a bit more extreme, Ariana had her hair bleached again to rock a warm caramel balayage. In 2019, Ari released her album “thank u, next” - with a music video inspired by the iconic Y2K flix “Mean Girls”. To channel her inner Regina George, the singer went back to light blonde hair - as seen on the mean queen bee of the movie.

5. Ariana Grande’s Pigtails

If a big, peppy ponytail works magic on Ariana - why wouldn’t a pair of pigtails? Other celebrities such as Hailey Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Kylie Jenner, and even eternally glamorous Gwen Stefani have rocked pigtails before her, making it obvious that even though it’s labeled as a “childish look” pigtails can be extremely cool at any age. During the summer of 2020, Ariana took this hairstyle and made it hers with her unique glitz and glamour, posting on Instagram to wish everyone a “happy VMA day”. The result is a flirty, elegant look with ombre wrap-around pigtails and a soft side part for an exquisitely Y2K-inspired finish.

6. Ariana Grande’s Short Hair

If it’s pretty impossible to even think of Ariana Grande with super short hair, it’s not so hard to imagine that at some point she probably wanted a change and to give her hair a well-deserved break, with the aid of a couple of scissors. The closest we’ve ever been to seeing Ari with short hair is when she decided to give it the chop and air it on her social media, revealing a cute middle-length hairstyle styled straight and parted on the side. Expectedly, Ariana Grande’s lob hairstyle sent her fans bananas!

7. Ariana Grande’s Y2K Tendrils

Hopping on the Y2K trend train, Ari followed other artists such as Dua Lipa and model Bella Hadid and adapted the 00s fashion’s comeback to her own aesthetic. The result is stunning, with thick, long, face-framing tendrils parted in the middle and a shorter ponytail.

8. Ariana Grande’s Dark Hair

Last but not least, during spring 2022 Ari went against any expectations and dyed her hair to a “darkest brown” shade, close to black - but not quite. As she tagged her hairstylist Josh Liu on her Instagram revealing post, Ariana sported her new hair look in a promotional shot for her beauty and makeup line, R.E.M. Beauty. The singer’s beauty line just launched its R.E.M. chapter 2: goodnight & go series, which includes a shimmering roster of eyeshadows, wispy eyelashes, eyeshadow gloss, cheek & lip blush, and skin care products such as under-eye balm and face mist.

9. Ariana Grande's Hair Extensions

Although it's not impossible to see Ari with her hair down, it's always pretty impossible (for the untrained eye) to see if she's wearing hair extensions or not. Luckily, I have salon experts sitting next to me to help me figure out what's going on. And whilst Ari's iconic ponytail has been openly disclosed as a hairpiece on more than one occasion - both by the star herself and the stylists - no one is mentioning her long, thick, shiny, and voluminous hair down looks.

With all the stress her mane has gone through to keep her fans in awe at her hair transformations, it's only natural that even a star like Ariana Grande has to resort to hair extensions for a plumper, luscious mane. If you'd like to recreate a glorious Ariana Grande hair-down look or one of her famous half-up, half downs, then look no further than clip-in hair extensions to add thickness, length, and volume!

10. Conclusion

Ariana Grande isn’t the most chameleon-like celebrity out there, and all of her hair looks and transformations keep it real to her authentic aesthetic, which she embraced and built around in class, style, and absolute grace. As time goes by and the singer’s career grows and evolves, I surely can’t wait to see how she will adapt her musical style and fashion choices to a new generation of Ariana Grande hair cuts that will send the world wild!