| Rita Hazan |
| Karen Marie Shelton |
| Date: 3/23/2004 |
IntroductionOn a recent episode of The Newlyweds the cameras captured Jessica Simpson having a blonde moment at New York's Adir Salon. While Jessica wasn't doing her famous trip on flat carpeting or pondering proper food labels, she was focused on maintaining her famous blonde mane. While the MTV cameras rolled, celebrity hair colorist Rita Hazan masterfully painted light baby blonde highlights onto Jessica's honey blonde base strands while the two, joined by Nick Lachey, laughed and chatted like the old friends that they really are. Rita has been creating all of Jessica's gorgeous blonde hues for many years since they first met at Oribe's former New York salon. Jessica followed Rita to Adir when the famous colorist opened her own chic New York salon approximately one year ago. According to Rita "Jessica comes into Adir, on an average of every four weeks or so, to keep her roots perfectly maintained and her blonde hues looking beautiful". Since visiting Rita at Adir is a ongoing event in Jessica's life it seemed fitting to include her visit as part of the MTV series.
Highlighting For The Cameras I asked Rita if she felt inhibited by the fact that the MTV cameras were recording her color work with Jessica. Laughing Rita reminded me she has worked "live on camera" many times in the past" and is "comfortable doing so". Indeed, Rita does all the hair color and highlights for Oprah's live makeover shows with Ken Paves and recently worked on the Pop Challenge makeovers. She is scheduled to be on another Oprah show in the very near future "when scheduling is finalized".
While Rita, Jessica and Nick are all used to the constant presence of live cameras, I wondered if special arrangements were made to film the Newlyweds episode at Adir so that other clients were not present? Rita told me that during normal business hours, at their specific request, "all of her celebrity clients like Jessica, Brooke Shields, Naomi Campbell and Carmen Electra, to name a few, have their hair colored or highlighted in the main salon with all the other non-celebrity Adir clients". I was surprised since many of celebrity salons make a point of keeping their famous clients carefully secluded. Rita explained her celebrities "like to be part of the crowd action at the salon since everyone has so much fun at Adir, which is a lot more like a happening club for the girls than a hair salon." Of course subjecting the Adir hair clients to the MTV cameras was not an obvious perk. Even though Jessica was perfectly fine with being filmed with her hair in a mass off haircolor foils, most women would rather avoid their hair rituals being recorded for millions to see. Therefore, Jessica and Nick visited Rita at Adir on a Monday night, after the salon had closed for business.
Blonde On Blonde And speaking of Mr. and Mrs. Lachey, what's up with their current haircolor? Rita reported that Nick is staying with his natural darker hair color which is "just the right hue" for his current desired image. Although Rita reported that Nick had experimented with color when he was in his past boy band mode, he now is going for a more suave, sophisticated look with his hair. After all, Nick is now 30 and wants a more mature image. I mentioned to Rita that I had noticed Jessica's highlights were much lighter on the recent Regis and Kelly show. Rita confided that she had done Jessica's hair the night before the show and that I was seeing the most recent results. Embracing an early Spring, Rita noted Jessica had just recently "gone with much lighter highlights" channeling a true "beach baby blonde". As Rita has explained to me in the past, she "colors Jessica's base one hue of blonde and then applies a different shade of highlights on top of the base". This gives Jessica a very natural yet multi-dimensional blonde that is soft and sensual. Although Rita took Jessica's highlights to the much lighter blonde, she kept her base blonde color at a soft honey.
Visit Adir Salon If you would love to visit one of the most happening and celebrated salons in New York City, check out the Adir Salon located at 16 East 65th Street (between 5th and Madison Avenues). Rita owns Adir, which was recently featured in W Magazine. Working nonstop, Rita still sees hair color clients when she is in town. Whether you see Rita or not, it is important to know that every hairdresser and colorist that is part of the Adir team was personally hand picked by Rita for their exceptional hairdressing or hair coloring talents and expertise. Adir is known for their very happy client base. For an appointment call: 212-734-4757. |