Celebrity Stylist Robert Vetica on Silicones, Curls & Celebrities

Let’s talk about how to use the product line. Do you use every single product, would you recommended women use every step? For someone with fine, wavy hair versus someone with coarse, coily hair, are there different ways they should use it?

Anytime you use a new product, you should use small amounts. There is just no question and we are no exception. You’ll notice, depending on how much you use, how the product establishes itself on your hair.

We have two versions of the treatment. One is for thicker, darker, wavier, coarser hair, and the lighter version is for finer textured hair and lighter colored hair.

As for the shampoos and conditioners, we have a volumizing shampoo and conditioner for finer hair, hair that has fine density.

You have three different types of density: fine density, medium and thick. And you have three different textures: fine, wavy and curly. So, you can mix all three of those up together, which is why we have two different shampoos and conditioners as well as restorative masks.

There is the light version, the normal version and the heavier version, which is actually a restorative, hydrating mask. It is for weekly use. The other restorative masks are for monthly use if your hair is really damaged.

Actually with the restorative mask, you have to condition your hair afterwards because it has a lot of protein in it. Activated protein can restore, like I said, nothing can replace the original health of your hair, but it can restore it back to a visible healthiness that will last a long time.

When you add protein to the hair, you are actually building it up on the follicle so the strand gets really strong. Adding protein to your hair in a mask like that is sort of, I repeat sort of, I’m not going to say that it is a chemical process, but all shampoos and conditioners are chemical processes. People don’t understand that. So, a lot of people over-wash or over-clean their hair. It just gets drier and drier and drier. We don’t recommend that. We recommend that you wash your hair once every second or third day, regardless. You can rinse your hair in between.

But, back to the restorative mask, it actually has the most potent ingredients in it. With all that protein, you want to leave it on for five minutes max and then you want to condition with our conditioner right afterwards.

So, while our community is extremely educated about silicones, parabens and sulfates, do you see that this education about hair care and ingredients is taking root in the celebrity world as well? Moroccan Oil, a brand many celebrities prefer, is obviously taking a step in the right direction being sulfate and paraben free. Is that something celebrities are picking up on?

I have a couple clients that go completely, 100 percent organic. I don’t know if that is really such a great thing on your hair myself because I don’t know, especially if your hair is damaged, how you expect to refurbish your hair to bring it back to some kind of life.

What would you say the perception of curly hair is in Hollywood or as far as using curly hair for magazine covers, for which you often style hair?

Shoot, I don’t know. I don’t know what they think. I’m just saying what I see, but you really don’t see much of it, do you? First of all, you have to think of a cover of a magazine and if someone’s hair were really big, it would cover the whole magazine.

I don’t think that Hollywood is a really good representation of it because they are really cookie cutter, especially in the cover world. If you look at covers, it is pretty generic. You could actually take a person on the cover, and she could be on any cover if you took away the title, like the InStyle or the Cosmopolitan.

They used to have their own women. There was a time when Cosmopolitan was all about sexiness and InStyle was more about going to the store and Glamour was more glamorous. Now, they are pretty much generic. I think the curly hair thing, even though it is amazing, it kind of scares people. I don’t know. I don’t know why they wouldn’t use it.

You know I’m doing a cover of InStyle next month and maybe we can do this with Salma [Hayek]. We did it curly, it was shorter and not so massive, on Latina, the last time she was on the cover of Latina.  But, she’s the only one and I think that there is the whole side of it where people don’t want people to be SO different. So they want them to look more approachable.

Do I mean that curly hair is not approachable? No, I don’t mean that at all. I think that more should own it [their curly hair] like Salma owns it.

Any tips for naturally curly women?

When you take the time to do your hair, do it: add the right product, don’t add too much heat.

Everything that you do [at NC.com] is about education and yes, you should be concerned about parabens and sulfates because it is bad for the environment and bad for your hair. Obviously that is a no brainer. But silicones aren’t going to hurt anybody. If it is going to help the health of your hair then by all means, use it! Be smart about how you use hair products.

We’ve tried to make the line as foolproof as possible. You know that when you use Moroccan Oil, it is all about moisture. Everybody is trying to follow the moisture guidelines now. It is interesting when you think about it because why weren’t we all thinking of that before?

When I go to work, the first thing I do is put my hands in my client’s hair to see how it feels. Is it dry, is it oily, what do the ends feel like? It is second nature to me now and I can just tell by touch how much product I can use. And still to this day I start with really small amounts. You can always add on to it.

It is important for people to understand that when you try new products you have to start small. With Moroccan Oil products, though, you really can’t go wrong. Not if you have curly hair.