The one thing that always remains the same about Jennifer Aniston, 50, is her gorgeous hair. The actress who created “The Rachel” hairstyle from her character on the TV show, Friends, has had stunning hair for years and it’s all thanks to her colorist, Michael Canalé. As of recently, Jen has been rocking a golden shade of brown and Michael spoke with HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY, about how he achieved her look and how you can recreate it at home.
Explaining how he achieved Jen’s golden hair, Michael said, “I see Jennifer every five weeks. When I do her hair, we always take into consideration what the color looks like before we start – sometimes I have to add more gold or gold highlights – depending on the time of year. Depending on whether it’s downtime, (between movies) or red carpet season, we play to that. One thing that doesn’t change is that I always use paper-thin highlights throughout, and particularly around her face. Seeing her every five weeks gives me the opportunity to intensify her look for those red carpet events to make it more dynamic and pop on camera, and sometimes we pull it back a little bit for movie roles or just for in between. She always looks so natural with that sun-kissed look, which is what I love so much about her style!”
If you want to try out Jen’s look at home, Michael reveals, “If you’re asking if people should color their hair at home, let’s just say I’m not a fan – so much can go wrong with what is currently available on the market – and trust me, I’ve seen it all. I think the key to great color is to find a great colorist. Do your research, ask your friends, and read trusted reviews and salon sites. There are a lot of really great colorists out there – and there are some who are really great at PR – so do your homework! Reputation in this business is everything, and I’ve worked hard to build my business with an incredibly loyal clientele – and I currently work in seven different cities. Sure, having some beautiful women from Hollywood help, but that isn’t by accident – I work really hard every day to make every single woman look and feel beautiful. Nothing is worse than yellow hair so be careful with those box colors.”
As for what you should ask for at the salon if you want hair like Jen’s but don’t want to do it yourself, Michael admits, “I can’t tell you how many clients walk in for the first time and ask me to ‘fix’ them. Either that or they want to look like Jennifer Aniston. Usually, these are women who like something really trendy, or they’ve over-bleached, or they just had a bad color job along the way.” Michael is meticulous when it comes to finding the right hair color for different clients, explaining, “I look at eyes and skin tone and go from there. Some of the trends today are very aggressive and super damaging to the hair and might work on Instagram for a celebrity but they just don’t work on everyone! Here’s my deal: classic works, and trends last like 12 minutes. You just can’t go wrong going with classic – that’s my deal. So readers should do their research, but ultimately, the success in great color is work with the base coloring you’ve got – if you go too much in one direction, you’re going to be back in the chair in a shorter period of time. Build off of your base color and go from there!” As for how you should upkeep your new golden locks, Michael suggests, “It really is all about great products – like those I’ve created, available on www.canaleproducts.com“