The Expert Edit features interviews with specialists about the products they swear by in their chosen field. For the latest installment, we spoke to celebrity hairstylist Chuck Amos about his favorite hair products.
Chuck Amos had a way with hair long before he became a pro. At first, his clients were Barbie dolls, then mannequin heads, and eventually, the kids in his neighborhood growing up in the Berkshires. When he discovered – and learned – the magic of hair extensions, he “became a sensation” around town. After moving to New York City for college, he charged $10 a hairstyle for students around campus, who happened to intern at magazines and frequent fashion parties. Those connections landed him his first gig on a magazine cover for none other than Brandy. Then, the calls kept coming. From fashion shows in Milan and Paris to covers for Beyoncé and Oprah Winfrey, Amos’s work became recognized worldwide. And over the years, he’s become the go-to for the likes of Vanessa Williams and Tracee Ellis Ross.
“I didn’t know that I was becoming an inspiration just by the love of what I do,” he says. “I’ve come to find out that love is really the path to everything. If you have love and passion for something, the universe makes it happen for you.”
Your hair is an extension of who you are and your personality.
While Amos is known as a “curl whisperer” and has achieved many firsts as a Black hairstylist, it’s his understanding of hair – and its significance to a person – that has made him a legend in the industry. In fact, it’s a lesson he learned early on in his career from Brandy. “I used to just ‘do hair,’ and only want the styles that were trendy and fashionable,” he shares. “I tried so hard to put that on a lot of girls. I’d say, ‘You have to do this because everyone’s doing it in Paris and you’ll make a big splash.’ But after a while, Brandy said to me, ‘Sometimes I don’t like the hairstyles you’re doing; sometimes I just want to be me.'”
That’s when he realized: “Hair is emotional for people. God made us to have X amount of a thousand different facial expressions and you relate to other humans with your facial expressions. Hair is an extension of that. Your hair is an extension of who you are and your personality.”
With that lesson, hair gigs became a true collaboration for Amos. “You can go as far as you can push the trend, and then you let them do what makes them comfortable within the hairstyle,” he says. “It’s not just you and it’s not just about the business of show. That was my biggest learning, to really listen and to let the person shine.”
One collab he’s long been known for is his almost 30-year friendship with Tracee Ellis Ross, which he says “was fate in the cards and in the heavens that came.” (Not only is his mother’s name also Diana, but she was also born exactly two days after Diana Ross, Tracee’s mom. Not to mention, Amos’s mom even looks like Tracee, he says.) After he first met the mother-daughter duo to shoot the cover of Essence in 1996, he says Tracee called him right after and continued to book him over and over again. “We just grew up together, and I love all of her success and everything that’s happening for her,” he says.
Amos remembers Tracee always having “little concoctions” she made just for her hair, which eventually became the blueprint for
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