Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu’s striped hair has been taking the internet by storm.
The Chinese-American Olympic gold medalist arrived at the figure skating competition with her hair in brown and bleach blonde horizontal stripes and a frenulum piercing. Her unabashed rebuke against the rigid appearance norms in figure skating made her — and her hair — a social media sensation practically overnight.
@primarywave Donna Summer's version of "MacArthur Park" written by Jimmy Webb was the perfect track for Alysa's incredible performance 🤩 #jimmywebb #macarthurpark #olympic #alysaliu #figureskater ♬ original sound – Primary Wave
Ari, a Toronto-based senior stylist and creative colour and cut specialist at Lower East Side Studio, says the striped hair isn’t a new hairstyle, but it is a fresher take on the “raccoon tail” hairstyle popularized in the mid-2000s.
“I’ve seen so much chatter online about how cool Alysa’s hair is. It’s pretty similar to stuff we’ve already been doing in the creative world with hair. The raccoon stripes have been super popular again, I myself have been doing it a lot on people. And this is similar to that, just in a chunkier way,” they say.
So, what goes into crafting the hairstyle? Ari says there are two ways to achieve the stripes.
They say Liu does the “grow out” method. She gets the top section of her hair bleached, then lets that grow out. After some months to a year, she gets the top of her head bleached again. “That’s how she gets her stripes.”
Liu herself has revealed she adds a new “ring” on her hair every year, like a tree.
@nbcbayarea What inspired Alysa Liu's now iconic hair style? Clue: it has to do with trees. #Olympics #figureskating #AlysaLiu #BayArea ♬ original sound – NBC Bay Area
For those wanting the look without the wait, Ari says Liu’s hairstyle can be executed all in one go.
“You can put all the stripes in the hair all at once, if you’re looking to go straight for that look. We would go through and bleach really big chunks of the hair and also bleach the root.”
Liu chose brown and blonde — two natural colours — but Ari says their salon has done the look with vivid colours like turquoise and orange, and pink and purple.
“It’s definitely something that has been asked for before Alysa was broadcast world wide like this. I haven’t done it just yet, but I can imagine it’s going to be a [hairstyle] that will be asked for.”
