Celebrity Hairstylist Matthew Collins on His Red Carpet-Tested Tricks For Frizz-Free Hair

Celebrity hair stylist and long-time Dyson global ambassador Matthew Collins knows his way around a hairdryer . The Los Angeles-based hair stylist is a fixture in red carpet glam squads, and behind the scenes at international Fashion Weeks, counting Gigi Hadid , Cindy Crawford, Kristen Stewart, Kristen Bell, and Stella Maxwell among his well-tressed clients. While in Dubai, Collins sat down with Vogue Arabia’s Beauty Editor, Michaela Somerville, to share his professional tips on how to style frizz-free curly hair , and why less heat is more when it comes to hair health.

What does your role as Dyson’s global ambassador involve? Primarily, I’m a celebrity hairstylist, where I prep my clients for their press events, red carpets, the Oscars, the Emmys, brand campaigns. I work with women including Mandy Moore, Kristen Bell, Kristen Stewart, Gigi Hadid, Camilla Mendez, Judy Greer. Then I also get to work with the Dyson engineers, where I go once or twice a year to see their projects.

What I love about Dyson is that the engineers aren’t there to brag about their product, they’re there for you to like almost rip it to shreds. Like, tell me everything that doesn’t work about this or why it wouldn’t work and how we can make it better. I think a lot of brands say that artists work with the brand, but usually the artists are there to market the brand, not to work with it.

Matthew Collins in Dubai. Photo: courtesy Dyson Is there one golden rule you follow which can apply to all hair types? There’s such a variation in hair textures in this region, there’s women who might have naturally straight smooth hair, there’s coarse hair, there’s a full spectrum of curls and coils. Within every hair texture, there’s so many textures and densities and differences, so all straight hair is not the same, all medium texture hair and all type four hair is not the same because you might have a certain curl pattern, but the density of the hair is different.

But the one thing that works for all hair types, is that your best hair happens when we focus first and foremost on hair health. I think once you focus on hair health, everything else starts to fall into place. We know that heat styling can damage the hair, how is Dyson and products like the Supersonic different? I think the tricky thing with some hairstylists, they really love to use the hottest blow dryer, you can possibly find on the market.

Really, until Dyson came out with the Supersonic, the only change in innovation with blow dryers was getting hotter and hotter and hotter. High heat works and it gets you where you need to be, but the longevity of it for hair health isn’t good. You’re damaging the hair irreversibly like the second your hair grows out of your scalp, it is dead.

It is not going to get healthier, so the more damage you do to that over time, it’s not going to be able to be repaired. You might be able to get it a little bit better, but extremely damaged hair is never going to become healthy hair, it doesn’t matter how many treatments you do. A good blowout is a staple here, are our hairdressers using too much heat on hair? Five years ago, when I started to come here to the Middle East, the hairdressers that use the extreme blowdryers had a hard time switching over to the Supersonic because it’s focused.

It is warm, but it doesn’t exceed the burning temperature of hair. We have little thermometers in it that are reading 40 times a second and changing the temperature, so it makes sure that you’re always maintaining hair health. But once they kept with it, there was like a month or two month point that the Supersonic then started to work better because the hair health started to level out a little bit and not become as damaged.

Then the drying time picks up because if your hair is damaged and your cuticle open, you’re going to have a horrible frizzy day. Some people absolutely might want a super sleek and straight hair one day, but the next day they might want to embrace their natural texture. And if you’ve been using extreme heat, it’s not going to be good, your natural curly day is going to be a frizzy mess.

It’s not going to be controlled, nothing is going to hold, it’s not going to be shiny. It’s the reverse when your hair is healthy! View this post on Instagram A post shared by MATTHEW COLLINS (@matthewstylist) The Dyson Airstrait doesn’t use hot plates or a brush at all, it just uses air to straighten and smooth? So Airstrait isn’t referring to straight as in straightener, it’s strait as in two bodies of water joining into one That’s how the airflow comes out to hit the cuticle. What happens with the Airstrait is there’s two vents underneath that go at a 45 degree angle downwards.

That means it’s always going to dry your hair in the same direction to smooth your cuticle. In the past, someone would have to take a blow dryer and fuss with this perfect angle on their brush, which is a lot of work to do. You still use it like you would a traditional straightener, and do three to four passes on each section.

You can also use it on wet hair, you just patient with it and go nice and slow. It basically gets about 30 percent more dry on each pass – the last pass is usually almost all dry. It’s amazing on fine hair, textured hair, wavy hair, and you also get amazing result on curly hair.

I’ve had a model with type four textured hair have of side of her hair straightened by me, then she’s done the other half herself in 15 minutes. Something that previously took her an hour and a half to go from curly to straight, was reduced to a total of 30 minutes. What’s your number one hair tip, that makes a difference in how we style our hair? Use a diffuser, especially if you have curls or even a bit of wave to your hair, it will enhance your natural texture beautifully and you have less frizz when you diffuse.

We just launched the diffuser for the Airstrait, the Airwrap, it just snaps onto the top and it’s on an angle. It’s now really easy for you to hold the diffuser and we even adjusted the airflow knobs on the inside to kind of harness the air. What’s the one quick change we can make in our hair styling routines to elevate out overall look? Most people forget the cool shot! The cool shot is vital, it’s what sets the look and curl into place.

Five seconds is the minimum amount you want to have the cool shot on because you need that cool air to get all the way through that section of hair to the outside. Then you have shinier hair, which stays in place just where you want it to. It makes you look that much more polished.

by Michaela Somerville.