Madonna My Inspiration Photo
The Mad Rush by: Julius Michael
I’m just back home from my experience working with Jenny McCarthy at the American Music Awards. I’m calling this post “The Mad Rush” because you can be sure, that’s exactly what it was.
I had a vision for Jenny’s hair from the instant I found out that I was styling her for the event. I immediately thought of Madonna and was flooded with visions of pictures of her from her sex book. One in particular stood out in my memory – Madonna with super long hair with the front pulled back on top of her head.
So I did a Google search and found the exact picture I remember from when the book first came out. I texted the image to Jenny and she responded with “Love, let’s see what outfit I get, but yes I love it!”
I knew this is the look.
The week before the AMAs, Jenny asked me to come to her house – it’s the day we’re going to discuss her hair. Keep in mind this is four days before we’re supposed to be in LA. When I get to Jenny’s she’s trying on a bunch of different dresses and gowns. We go out on her balcony and she asks me what my vision is for her look,and I say I see you in something edgy, fun, and sexy.
So she tells me to go ahead and start planning her hair. We decide to do custom clip-ins that I have just a few days to make.
On my only day off, when I would have been working on Jenny’s extensions, I got booked to do Vicki Gunvalson’s hair for a one-on-one interview on “Watch What Happens Live” so I really had to crunch.
I needed to find the perfect hair to make a fall/wiglet and extra clip-ins to blend in Jenny’s short hair that the fall wouldn’t cover. I buy the hair on Wednesday night after I leave Vicki and on Thursday Arturo and I begin to make her fall.
But I run out of hair and early Friday morning, before going to work at JMS, I have to go to buy more hair and hope they have the right colors. Of course they don’t and I find myself fully booked with clients in the salon and the hair I bought for Jenny needs to be toned and colored. I have Jennessy tone all the hair with shimmer lights and lo and behold they turn purple! So now we have to lift out the toning shampoo and dry so much hair. (Extensions take twice as long to dry.)
I leave the salon after 6, go home, and start making the clip-ins with Arturo for the bottom half of Jenny’s hair. I also have to pack my tools and pack my clothes, because I’m flying out in the morning. The mad rush…
I wake up at 4am Saturday morning for my flight, get ready, and off to JFK I go.
I land in LA and see a tweet from Jenny – they are stuck in Chicago with no flights because it’s snowing! I really thought she was joking and didn’t believe it until JiIl, her assistant, texted me to give me the news.
I figured it would only be a few hour delay – I didn’t think she’d be grounded for the night. But she was and they wouldn’t be able to leave Chicago until Sunday morning. At 5:30 am I got a text from Jill saying that they were on a flight which would be landing after 10am.
We were supposed to start doing her hair at 11am because a car would be picking her up to take her to the AMAs at 2pm. Barely enough time!
But Jenny and Donnie didn’t get to their room until after 11, and I didn’t start doing her hair until noon.
I had less than two hours to get her look done.
I set up all my tools, my products and I go to put the nozzle on my blow dryer and see that I took the wrong one. It doesn’t fit this dryer. I always travel with two nozzles but this time of course I said no just take one and I took the wrong freaking one. Could anything else go wrong?
Now I start to really panic and my heart is pounding harder and faster. I can’t blow dry her without a nozzle. What the hell am I going to do? Jenny has no dryer, and the hotel dryers suck. In desperation I come up with an idea – I ask Donnie to call down to the front desk to rush us any kind of heavy duty tape. They came through almost instantly with heavy duty packaging tape. I tape my nozzle to my blow dryer and start to dry Jenny’s hair.
I’m hoping that the tape holds and that no glue starts to melt onto her head.
I make it through the blow dry.
Now JoJo arrives and starts to do Jenny’s makeup. The pressure is really on at this point.
I start by putting the custom fall in place,and I’m relieved to see that it fits her head perfectly. Next I clip out her sides and the front top of her hair. Now I have to build up the back of her hair and blend in her short hair to the new long hair extensions.
I look at my inspiration picture of Madonna and start making the front match my vision. I pin the top back and pull the sides up and bobby pin it all but I’m not really feeling it. It has to be right. The clock is ticking so I take it all down and tease the shit out of her hair. I pull the sides up so high and tight that all of her flyways and breakage are sticking out and not going in the direction I need them too. I grab my hairspray and spray away.
I pull the top and I see that it needs something. It’s just short and isn’t blending right. So I take the extra hair I brought and start sewing on clips.
I put two clips right on top behind the hairline and bam! It’s perfect. Can’t even see them or tell that the top was clip-ins.
I spray the top in place and now I see that it’s just long and is missing something. So I start
cutting into the hair and adding layers while JoJo is doing Jenny’s eyes.
A few pauses later the layers are in and the hair is looking good. I take my trusty curling iron and start putting in soft waves to add body and life.
Jojo finishes her eyes. Without seeing the picture of Madonna, JoJo read my mind and did her makeup exactly as I envisioned it.
I step around to look straight on and Jenny looks exactly as I pictured it several weeks ago in my mind. She was my real life Barbie doll. Team JM times three pulled it off in record time.
I take the final pictures of Jenny and a few with Jenny and Donnie – and they leave.
For a second I just stand there looking at my tools, the hair on the floor, my products and I take a deep breath and realize it’s over. I just brought my vision to life.
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