June 06, 2023

HALLE BAILEY'S HAIR TRANSFORMATION FOR THE LITTLE MERMAID REMAKE

The construction of the red locs of Halle Bailey in the Little Mermaid remake is one of the hottest topics.

On May 25, the musical Little Mermaid premiered, a remake of the famous Disney animation.

And who remembers the story?

The Little Mermaid follows a mermaid princess Ariel who is fascinated with the human world and makes a deal with a treacherous sea witch Ursula to trade her voice for human legs in order to impress Prince Eric, who she saved from a shipwreck, before time runs out.

One of the protagonists to compose the character Ariel was her hair and who prepared this art was the famous Camille Friend hairstylist, the Oscar-nominated who is best known for her work on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Us, The Help, and more!

And how was this transformation?

The complete transformation took 12 to 14 hours and cost at least $150,000.

Camille saw the Halle Bailey' locs take on Princess Ariel's signature red color. She said it was important to Halle, the first Black actress to portray a live-action Disney princess, to stay true to herself and her Black identity.

“I knew a wig just wasn’t going to work. Halle’s locs are down to her waist, over 24 inches. And putting her in a wig was going to look crazy,” she explained to Variety.

"If we take hair and wrap it around her locs, we don't have to cut them and we don't have to color them," Camille explained. "We can change her color without changing her internal hair structure. Her structure and her hair are her."

The final look was a combination of three varying shades of red, fused together with keratin spikes so that the hair looked like it was “dancing” on water.

Another interesting thing is that the hair was transformed along with the character, slightly changing to show Ariel's vulnerability when she lost her voice and became human.

Hair, in addition to influencing people's self-esteem, is very important in the composition of the character.