Even if you don’t know Rita Hazan by name, you know her work. The New York City native has been behind the hair color transformations of some of the biggest pop stars since the late ‘90s, from Mariah Carey’s first foray into lighter locks (and eventual blonde makeover) for her 1997 album, Butterfly, to Jennifer Lopez’s post-Selena honey highlights and Katy Perry’s full range of rainbow colors. And then there’s Beyoncé, who first came to Hazan in 2013 and has been working with her ever since.
But Hazan’s impact in the beauty industry extends far beyond her impressive list of celebrity clients. In the male-dominated field of hair coloring, Hazan carved out her own path: First by developing a coloring technique that defied (and eventually set) trends, then with the opening of her namesake salon and product line. “I didn’t even think about it as a woman; I just really loved doing color,” Hazan tells Observer of what drove her to take risks. After attending beauty school at 17, Hazan immediately went to work at Oribe Canales’ legendary Fifth Avenue salon, where she assisted color director Brad Johns (whose clients famously included Christy Turlington and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy) through much of the ‘90s. “I got promoted, and that’s where I was doing a little bit different hair color. Brad was all about chunky, very golden highlights, and I went the opposite way of that,” Hazan says. “My family background is Egyptian and Jewish, and we like to be blonde, but we don’t like to be goldy,” she adds of what inspired her more seamless approach to blonde color.
By the early 2000s, Hazan’s work with Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez and Jessica Simpson had established her as the go-to colorist for pop It girls and up-and-comers alike. “If you wanted to create an image or change your look, you would come to me,” confirms Hazan. All the while, she was still busy at Oribe with her usual clients, one of whom first planted the idea of opening her own salon. “I was like, ‘Who the hell wants that headache?’” Hazan laughs. “But I told my client I’d think about it, and when I went home and said something to my mom, she said, ‘If you want to, just open your own place.’ So I did, and that was it.”
After establishing her Fifth Avenue salon as the place for A-listers and those in the know, Hazan developed her own product line, which most famously introduced the world to the first root cover-up spray (inspired by and developed for her clients as an at-home solution for grays in between color appointments). But after 20 years in the industry, Hazan was introduced to her most famous client to date: Beyoncé. “About 12 years ago, [hair stylist] Kim Kimble called me and was like, ‘Beyoncé wants to be blonde but her hair keeps turning orange, and I told her, Rita is the only person that’s going to get you the color that you want. Can you do her hair?’” Hazan recalls of the singer’s first visit to her salon. Hazan delivered, and the two have been working together ever since. The colorist is behind every Beyoncé hair look of the past decade, from her bright blonde at the 2015 Met Gala to her more dimensional, “sunwashed” color during the 2023 Renaissance tour.
“We’ll go back and forth on color ideas, but I’m always making sure it looks good for video and with movement—Beyoncé is flipping her hair and she’s up and down when she’s onstage, so every aspect of her hair has to look beautiful,” Hazan says of their collaboration process. “She also grew up in a hair salon, so she understands what’s possible and what’s not.”
This fall, Hazan is sharing her coloring expertise through open classes at her salon, now located on the Upper East Side. “I really like educating, and everybody is always asking me about going blonde without it getting damaged or brassy, so I’d like to do classes in the salon that are affordable and open to anybody who wants to come in,” she says. In between creating buttery blonde color for her clients (Hazan’s top trending color for fall), Rita Hazan spoke with Observer about her current essentials—from the red lip that’s become part of her everyday uniform to the at-home hair gloss with results so good, she uses it in the salon.
Marissa DeSantis
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