Kelly Ripa's Journey To Find 'The Haircut' Has Left Her Leaving The Salon Unhappy

Kelly Ripa has made blond shoulder-length hair her staple over the more than three decades she's appeared onscreen. While she's sported a fashionable bob a number of times over the years, there's a reason she refuses to go the pixie route or shorter. While taping "Live with Kelly and Mark" in January 2024, Ripa admitted her reservations about cutting her hair, noting the increased maintenance it takes to maintain a shorter cut. "Yes, I want to get a haircut until I get the haircut," she told husband and co-host Mark Consuelos, per People. "Because once I get the haircut, then I have to maintain the haircut."

The "All My Children" star has a few years before opting for the pixie haircut that's seen as a game-changer for women over 60. But Ripa partially blamed her husband for her haircut fears, reflecting on a time when he encouraged her to get a bob similar to Michelle Pfeiffer's. However, the chop resulted in Ripa looking more like Carol Brady than Pfeiffer. "I was like, 'Wait, what happened, I saw Michelle Pfeiffer five minutes ago! Now it's Carol Brady!'" Consuelos jokingly said. "So now when you ask me, I say, 'Babe, do what you want to do. Just do what you want to do.'" After the Carol Brady debacle, Ripa said Consuelos learned the hard way how much she hates cutting her hair while accusing him of discouraging her from even trying. "What he says is, 'Do what you want to do, but just know that you're going to be miserable as soon as you cut your hair off.' That's what you say. So that discourages me," she said. The exchange was lighthearted and nothing like the red flags seen in Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos' relationship over the years.

Prior to the Carol Brady haircut, Kelly Ripa debuted a blonder shoulder-length style ahead of a summer getaway with her family. "A bit more blonde for @kellyripa before vacation!" her long-time hairstylist Ryan Trygstad captioned an Instagram post of the look. The soap opera star-turned-daytime talk show host had previously explained why she opts for blond hair when combating her grays. "My gray hair became more prominent than my dark hair," Ripa said on "Live with Kelly and Mark" back in 2021, per People. "So we kept it blonder because it was more practical."

Given how front-facing Ripa's television career is, keeping the grays at bay has become a priority. But she's open about how challenging the process is, as she claims her hair is somewhat resistant to hair dye. "I spent, I don't mind telling you, about 11-teen hours in the hair color chair yesterday ... and it's still gray," Ripa said during a 2024 taping, per New Beauty. Her comments echoed earlier statements where she complained about the time it takes to color her hair, only to still see grays afterward. "It takes hours and hours. And, I swear, this morning, I still see gray hair," Ripa quipped. "My hair wants to be gray. It just wants to be gray." While fellow soap opera star Jane Elliot proves that transitioning to gray doesn't have to be boring, Ripa is doing her due diligence to fight off the look while asking herself the hard questions. "Do I just become full Mrs. Claus or what am I doing?" she joked.