5 genius hair tips we learned from Jonathan Van Ness

Jonathan Van Ness’s earliest hair memory involves breaking into his mother’s closet as a child and stealing her 1960s Barbie dolls. He felt inspired to give them makeovers, a chop here, an updo there. “I’ve been obsessed with hair for as long as I can remember,” he says over Zoom.

But the passion was one he kept hidden. “Being assigned male at birth and growing up in a rural Midwestern cornfield town, I always felt like being interested in beauty was something I should be ashamed of,” says Van Ness, who identifies as non-binary.

Little did he know, his love of hair — along with his sunshiny yas queen! personality (to watch him on “Queer Eye” is to feel his arms reach through the screen to offer a hug) — would wind up making him a star. In 2016, Van Ness was working as a hairdresser in Los Angeles when he heard that Netflix was holding auditions for a “Queer Eye” reboot. He went on to become the series’s grooming expert and began an ascent to pop culture phenom status.

He’s now the author of a bestselling memoir, the host of an upcoming Netflix series based on his hit podcast Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness and the creator of an eponymous hair brand now available at a Sephora near you. “I really wanted to make sure that everyone would feel welcome to play in the sandbox of beauty, no matter their age, heritage or gender expression,” he says of the line’s philosophy. (We have a feeling that young Midwestern boy with a propensity for brushing Barbies’ hair would be very proud.)

Below, Van Ness shares some of the best hair tricks he’s learned in his more than 15 years in the business, including how to make sure your hair gets its beauty sleep.

Hair care begins before you step in the shower

“I’d been into exfoliating shampoos for years and understood the importance of making sure our follicles don’t have buildup in them, but then I’d have, like, f — ing shell bits in my ends and I couldn’t get them out because my hair is so thick. It just wasn’t a great experience,” Van Ness says of his scalp care journey. He then switched to coating his roots with neem oil, purported to support hair growth, but that too presented drawbacks: “It smells like s — t!” he exclaims. So he came up with his own solution, a pre-wash scalp oil that clarifies, soothes and nourishes the delicate skin on your head. Clinical trials found it reduced hair breakage by 93 per cent. “I’ve never seen someone treat their scalp better and not have their hair be better,” Van Ness says matter of factly. “If you’re like, ‘Oh, my haircuts never hold their shape or my hair will not hold a curl or I always have some hair issues, try a pre-poo [i.e., a pre-shampoo treatment] because it really will help your overall hair integrity.”

JVN Complete Pre-Wash Scalp Oil, $36, sephora.ca SHOP HERE

Hair needs its beauty sleep, too

Much like many derms and facialists staunchly advise against sleeping on your face to help prevent premature aging, Van Ness doesn’t believe you should sleep on your hair, either. “You’re tossing and turning on your pillow for eight hours every night and your hair is getting stuck in all these positions and getting tangled. Plus, your body temperature is 37°C, so if your hair is down, it’s like it’s resting on a 37°C flat iron.” This combination of friction and heat can lead to lots of damage and frizz, says the expert. His solution? Gather your hair into a very loose topknot before bed. (You shouldn’t feel any tension at the roots, here.) He likes to secure his hair in a silk scrunchy while he sleeps and recommends opting for a pillowcase of the same material, as it’s softer on strands compared to cotton. “You spend about a third of your life sleeping — that’s a lot of time on that pillow.”

Porosity is the hair term that could solve all your woes

One of the star products in the JVN line is the Complete Instant Recovery Leave-In Serum, which Van Ness describes as a “porosity equalizer.” Qu’est-ce que c’est, you ask? “Our hair grows about a quarter of an inch a month, so the hair near your roots is like a newborn baby, the hair under that is a toddler, then you move into the teenage and adult stages, and finally the hair at your ends is basically geriatric — it’s been around a long time,” explains Van Ness. This means that the hair has different porosity levels from roots to tips, which affects how it looks as well as how it responds to products and styling tools. For strands that are silky and shiny all over, you need to balance out that porosity before you style. “It’s the first step,” he says of this serum in a jar (most of his products are housed in infinitely recyclable glass or aluminum). It banks on niacinamide and hemi-squalane — the line’s hero ingredient, which is superior to silicone and responsibly sourced from sugarcane rather than sharks — to smooth and soften. Van Ness likes to use it in myriad ways: as a blow-dry primer (it also protects against heat), as a smoothing cream when slicking back hair or as a touch-up product to nix frizz.

JVN Complete Instant Recovery Serum, $36, sephora.ca SHOP HERE

Adapt your heating tool technique to your hair type

Hair tools shouldn’t be used the same way on all hair, says Van Ness. Tailoring your technique to your specific hair type is not only going to prevent unnecessary damage, it’s also going to ensure the longevity of your hairstyle. For example, when creating waves or curls on himself, Van Ness likes to first run his curling iron along the entire section he’s working on to heat it up from root to tip before wrapping it around the barrel. That’s because his hair is thick and naturally curly and can hold a style well. By heating up the whole piece of hair, he finds he gets a more defined and uniform curl pattern. But he wouldn’t employ this trick on someone with, say, super fine straight hair that doesn’t hold a curl well. “With hair like that, you kind of only get one shot to set the hair, so you don’t want to first tell it to be flat.” And very important: No matter your hair type, always apply a thermal protectant product before using any kind of heating tool.

Greasy roots can be a good thing

“Your hair likes it; your hair likes the oil that your scalp produces,” says the pro. So sometimes, a day or two after washing his hair, when the roots start getting a bit greasy, he’ll grab a hair dryer and blow-dry that sebum into his lengths, rather than cancelling the oil with a dry shampoo. “It makes the texture so much nicer and also makes the hair shinier, especially if you have hair that’s dryer,” he explains. That said, if your scalp is starting to get itchy or your hair’s gotten to the point where blow-drying the oil in just won’t cut it, it’s probably time to wash it. For that, Van Ness is particularly fond of his Embody shampoo, a formula that increases body and volume, while weightlessly hydrating with aloe leaf juice and hemi-squalane. It’s also got caffeine to “perk up your hair follicles” and bamboo, which is rich in silica, to absorb excess oil on your scalp. “So it makes your blow-dry or air-dried style last longer.” Another thing to consider is that if your hair has grown past a certain point, those wonderful oils your scalp produces likely won’t make it all the way down to your lengths and ends. That’s where something like the JVN Complete Nourishing Shine Drops come in. The featherlight oil leaves a silky, glossy finish without weighing hair down. “It just instantly enhances shine and helps to smooth down any dead ends in your life.”

JVN Embody Daily Volumizing Shampoo, $24, sephora.ca SHOP HERE

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Katherine Lalancette is the beauty director of The Kit, based in Toronto. She writes about beauty and trends. Reach her on email at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter: @kik_tweets