Whether you’re ridding yourself of post-bleach split ends or just fancy a personal rebrand, embracing the bob has never been so chic. The poster girl for the modern cut? None other than Hailey Bieber. From her coveted “boyfriend bob” to her glossy, glassy cappuccino color, the model and beauty founder has been a constant on our hairstyle mood boards. Her latest style? A fluffy French-girl haircut that takes plenty of inspiration from ’90s supermodels.
“I would describe Hailey’s look as a true ’90s power bob. It’s a rounded, layered bob. Very Kelly Lebrock-inspired,” says hairdresser and L’Oréal Professionnel brand ambassador Adam Reed. “To achieve this, ask your hairdresser to cut a bob shape that is concave at the front and creates a very soft, rounded layer at the edges.”
Of course, achieving a chic and desirable hairstyle is effortless in the hands of a trained professional. However, it becomes difficult in the weeks that follow when the professional styling has washed out. So how do you achieve such voluminous French girl texture at home?
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“With Hailey’s cut, it looks really chunky, so you need to blow-dry the whole head to give it some volume and then use velcro rollers to set the volume,” explains Reed. “Blow-drying is really important; use L’Oréal Professionnel TecniART Volume Lift Mousse at the roots and then TecniART PLI at the ends because you want volume and structure.”
To get maximum volume and hold, roll the roller through your hair while it’s still warm from blow-drying. “Then when it cools and you take it out, you get this bounce and movement that’s really sexy. The great thing about Velcro rollers is that they’re looser and bouncier, so they really give you bounce.”
Another advantage of this stylish cut is that it works on any hair type. You only have to look at Hailee Steinfeld’s bob trends to see the versatility of the textured cut. According to Hattie Davis, senior stylist at Spectrum One, All you have to do is adjust your cut a little depending on your hair texture, making sure that it emphasizes the natural fall of your strands.
“When you see Hailey Bieber, a lot of clients think that if they have thin or fine hair they can’t get a bob like this, but that’s not the case,” she says. “I would simply add a few Spectrum One Hair Extensions Invisible Tapes to add fullness and thickness to the missing areas, which are often on the face. The Invisible Tapes are fantastic for transformations like this because the hair goes all the way up and over the tape and they aren’t noticeable in the hair,” she concludes.
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Katie Withington (she/her) is the Beauty Assistant at ELLE UK and Harper’s Bazaar. She works alongside the ELLE UK beauty team to cover all things beauty for print and digital, from finding makeup trends backstage at London Fashion Week and investigating hot ingredients in skincare to opening the makeup bags of Julia Garner and Emily Ratajkowski. Before joining ELLE UK in 2022, Katie (BA) studied Fashion Journalism at the London College of Fashion and has previously written for Red, Good Housekeeping and Prima.
