With a celebrity client roster that includes Ariana Grande, Kim Kardashian West, Katy Perry, and Jennifer Lopez—Chris Appleton's hair stash is as wild as you'd imagine. We took The Beauty Show on the road to Los Angeles to check out Appleton's massive hair closet and learn a little bit more about the in-demand celebrity hairstylist.
Shop Chris Appleton's Beauty Stash
Color Wow Dream Coat
Glam Seamless Honey Blonde Balayage Clip In
SugarBearHair Hair Vitamins
Harry Josh Pro Tools Pro Dryer 2000
Color Wow Color Security Shampoo
Glam Seamless Dark Brown Hair Extensions
Lime Crime Unicorn Hair Tint Semi-Permanent Hair Color
Major Moonshine Glitter Gel
Color Wow Pop & Lock
Appleton, who works with Glam Seamless and Color Wow, has about every style, length, cut, and color of faux hair that you can imagine. Walking through his hair closet is not unlike walking through a museum of celebrity hair, with each piece telling its own story. "There's so much love and prep that goes into the girls—we call them the girls," Appleton says of his stash. Each custom-made wig can cost thousands of dollars, so Appleton and his team spend hours carefully grooming, coloring, and dyeing them. More times than not, you can find him cutting and coloring a weft of hair in a hotel room overnight.
Pick an extension at random in his walk-in beauty closet, and it might just belong to Kardashian West, who decided she wanted pink hair while on a trip to Tokyo. In the corner of the closet is a 50-inch honey-blonde masterpiece—hand-created by Appleton and his team—that Lopez has worn on the red carpet. And in the opposite corner, three candy-colored wigs that Appleton whipped up at the last minute for the KKW Beauty Kimoji Hearts campaign.
As a master of hair transformations, Appleton collects wigs not just for fun—but because of the confidence and power it gives his clients. "I fell in love with hair, I remember when I was a kid I enjoyed the idea of making someone look good. It was amazing the transformation you could give someone and the power it kind of gives them of making them look and feel good," Appleton says. "They stand a little bit taller. You create kind of like a character."
Watch the entire episode of Chris Appleton's Beauty Stash above, and don't forget to subscribe to BAZAAR's Youtube channel so you never miss a single episode of The Beauty Show.
Jenna Rosenstein is the Beauty Director at Harper's BAZAAR across both print and digital. While attending NYU, she held internships at Women’s Wear Daily, Bloomingdale’s, Harper’s BAZAAR, and Allure, the latter of which she parlayed into her first job as the Beauty Assistant. She left Allure three years later as the Senior Beauty Editor. She spent a few months at Refinery29 overseeing branded content in the same title, before finally landing back at BAZAAR to manage all beauty content. When she's not testing every lipstick known to mankind, getting zapped by new lasers, or interviewing experts and celebrities, you can find Rosenstein at home in New Jersey with her son, husband, and black cat named Maddie.
