Ariana Grande's Biggest Hair Mistakes

If there's one celebrity who gives us serious hair envy, it's Ariana Grande. From her signature ponytail to her "Wicked" era of soft, caramel-blond ringlets, the Florida-born star counts her mane as part of her persona. "[Hair] definitely is [personal], especially when your hair kind of is something that you use to differentiate, you know what I mean?" Grande shared on the "Zach Sang Show" in 2020. "The hair for me is such a guard, character-façade type thing, and it's had its own evolution, but it has always been this kind of costume piece." When asked why she doesn't wear her natural curls much in public, the star explained that they don't fit in as well with her celebrity image as her more curated looks do: "My real hair — which is the humongous, curly, curly poof ... So few people get to see it, and it's cute, and ... it's who I am privately."

But the "Break Free" hitmaker having a superhuman voice with the hair to match doesn't mean that she's immune to making the same blunders with her tresses that we all do. Her locks look flawless 99.9% of the time, but those few instances where she's made a hair-related faux pas have generally been in the realm of haircare and hair damage. For instance, Grande herself admitted that her strands all but broke off after she turned them red for "Victorious" filming. And sometimes, not even A-listers like Grande can avoid a mishap with hairspray — or lack thereof — every now and then. There's no denying that Ariana Grande has had a stunning style transformation, but by studying her biggest hair errors, we can hopefully avoid making the same mistakes. 

When Ariana Grande first rose to fame, it was on the Nickelodeon show "Victorious" as the lovable Cat Valentine. Of course, this required Grande to dye her hair cherry red. Along with being harsh on the strands, such a pigmented shade had another consequence: staining. Skin stains can happen with any color, but with a tone like Grande's deep red, stains can be particularly obvious, as they were when she attended a soundtrack signing at a Walmart in 2011. Whether it was because she'd just had her hair colored — show-business schedules can be hectic, after all — or because her team just couldn't get the stains out, the red dye left a blatant orange residue around her hairline. 

Anyone who dyes their hair has been there, but the combo of vibrant red and Walmart lighting did Grande no favors. Luckily, there are lots of foolproof ways to remove hair dye from your skin if you find yourself in this position. A good cleanser or makeup remover will usually work, but for tough stains, you might have to apply an exfoliator or even apply rubbing alcohol. The skin on your scalp can be sensitive, so avoid aggressive scrubbing. Hair dye will eventually fade from your skin, so sometimes it's just a waiting game. If you do end up with stubborn stains, try to avoid dyeing your locks immediately before an event to prevent any mishaps. 

Other than one or two instances of stained skin, Grande looked great as a redhead. Unfortunately, it wasn't so great for the health of her hair. In a 2011 interview with ClevverTV, the pop star revealed that her team originally bleached her hair but moved to a "low-peroxide dye" since the bleach was so detrimental. While you can recover your hair from bleach damage, sometimes the damage is too far gone.

When she later started wearing her signature updos while transitioning from Nickelodeon actor to pop star, Ariana Grande admitted that it was actually the damage incurred during her crimson days that led to the birth of the ponytail. "Since people give me such a hard time about my hair I thought I'd take the time to explain the whole situation to everybody," the "7 Rings" singer wrote in a 2014 Facebook post. "I had to bleach my hair and dye it red every other week for the first 4 years of playing Cat ... that completely destroyed my hair." 

She confessed that the damage was so bad that she had to wear a wig on the "Victorious" spinoff "Sam & Cat" rather than continue to color it, and she also had to keep it up in a pony because it looked "absurd" when she took it down. Weaves and wigs in real life didn't work, so the star turned to extensions to fill out her enviable ponytail. "So as annoying as it is for y'all to have to look at the same hair style all the time, it's all that works for now," she continued in her post. "And trust me, it's even more difficult for me to have to wait forever for my natural hair to grow back and to have to wear more fake hair than every drag queen on earth combined." 

In an interview with Mix 104.1 just before the Grammys that year, Grande admitted that without her extensions, her hair resembled "little pieces of hay" following the damage. The lesson in this mistake? Just because a hair move looks good doesn't mean it's the right one for your mane in the long run. Granted, Grande didn't have a choice since she was dyeing her hair for a role, so this blunder can really be pinned on "Victorious." 

The half-up, half-down ponytail with pinned side bangs was Ariana Grande's go-to look during the early days of her rise to pop stardom, and now we understand why she rarely deviated from the 'do then. Over time, Grande changed up the ponytail, eventually moving to an ultra-snatched high-goddess pony. Sometimes, she opted for braids on her scalp, and other times, her tresses were simply sleeked back, but the look was always tight. And unfortunately, this was probably doing more damage to her hair in the long run. Tight ponytails are one of the hairstyles that can damage the follicles since all that pulling can lead to traction alopecia. So, if Grande's goal was hair health, these ponies were not the right move.

The "Wicked" star confirmed that wearing those tight ponytails didn't feel the best in the moment, writing in a since-deleted 2018 tweet that she was "in constant pain always and [didn't] care at all" (via Self). The admission came about after fellow pop star Camila Cabello asked Grande for ponytail advice. "I just did a high ponytail for the first time and it is literally pulling on my BRAIN ITS SO PAINFUL HOW DO YOU DO IT @ArianaGrande," she wrote on X, before admitting in another post that she "had to take it off."

Still, Ariana Grande's pony helped her develop a signature style that stood out from the rest of Hollywood in the late 2010s, with many responding favorably to the fierce look. Aesthetically, the slick pony was perfection, but hair-health-wise? Likely disastrous.

Whether it was the sleek, Rapunzel-like ponytails that Ariana Grande wore in 2016, the more retro iterations that she embraced in the 2020s, or even her early exploration into her famous updo with the side bangs, the style always looked phenomenal — even if it didn't feel so great for the singer behind the scenes. There was just one occasion where the snatched look was, well, less than snatched, and that was at the 2014 Teen Choice Awards. At the time, the R.E.M. Beauty founder was sporting honey-colored locks with slightly darker roots, and she had so much volume and density in her extensions that it looked like her hair was down even though it was up in a pony. The one problem with this look was the tiny tendril of hair, nearly in the middle of Grande's hairline, that stuck up. 

Given how Grande described the state of her hair after "Victorious," it's not surprising that she had short uncooperative pieces near her hairline. We can't quite tell whether this was new hair growth or breakage, but bits like this sometimes need gel in addition to plenty of strong hairspray to hold them down. Applying mousse when your hair is still wet can also make all the difference between hair that stays in place and hair that takes on a life of its own. Whether it was due to a lack of mousse, hairspray, or gel, this look was the odd one out of Grande's ponytail portfolio since she literally doesn't have a hair out of place in most cases. If nothing else, this look serves as a comforting reminder that absolutely anyone can have a bad hair day. 

In show business, sometimes the role or project just requires sacrifice, and as Cat Valentine demanded red locks, Ariana Grande's later portrayal of Glinda in "Wicked" required her to go blond. From what we can tell, this move led to further consequences on the pop star's hair health, and while she's usually good at hiding it, certain styles highlight the damage more than others. 

In August 2024, Grande sat down with "Wicked" director Jon M. Chu and co-author Jeremy McCarter to chat about Chu's memoir, "Viewfinder," and fans noticed that her bangs looked a little dehydrated. "Ariana, girl, we need to talk about this," said one cosmetologist on TikTok. "It looks like a chemical cut. That can definitely happen considering how blond she's gotten over the past year or so. Because her bangs are so short and so damaged you can't really hide them that well." For much of the "Wicked" press run in the second half of 2024, Grande wore her hair in slick buns, appearing to gel those shorter pieces back successfully. This resulted in a much neater look, though it's possible the pieces were just too short during the book talk for Grande to do anything else with them. Fast-forward to February 2025, and Grande's short bangs appeared again in a Vogue feature, though this time they were thicker, healthier, and combed to the side rather than sparsely spreading over her forehead. 

Other than this slip-up, her fair tresses on the press tour were mostly divine, widely well-received, and perfectly complementary for the outfits that made Ariana Grande look just like Glinda from "Wicked." While hair moves like this over the years have led to a little bit of damage, no one can say that Grande isn't dedicated to her art.