Idol Highs!

I’ll openly admit it: My husband and I are American Idol nerds. We DVR it so we can rewind if need be; we debate the merits of all the contestants (I’m an Adam Lambert fan; he digs Kris Allen).

So, when this last Tuesday fiery red-head Allison Iraheta announced to Ryan Seacrest that she paid a visit to fellow crooner Adam Lambert’s stylist “Abreea” for a bit of mane revamping, I had to rewind and replay, and rewind and replay. She gave props to her stylist on one of the most-watched televisions shows! What a coup for a hairstylist!

With a bit of online sleuthing (gotta love Facebook and MySpace!), I tracked down Abreea L’oren Saunders, a stylist at Fusion Hair Salon, a Los Angeles tress shop known for their rock-star styling, and got her take on being name-dropped in front of 40 million viewers…and Simon Cowell.

LP: Did you know Allison was going to give you a shout-out on Idol?

Saunders: No, I had no idea! I was actually out and wasn’t watching the show that night, and all of the sudden my phone was blowing up! So I had to go home and watch it. And then Fox 11 News talked about it the next day…

LP: I read you’ve been coloring and styling Adam Lambert for two years.

Saunders: Adam and I have been friends for about five years. I’ve taken him from brown to lighter brown to blonde to black. [[Side note: Adam’s natural color is light blonde with reddish undertones. Who knew?]] When he got on the show, he said, “Let’s do blue.”

LP: The color looks great on-stage, with all the blue American Idol lighting.

Saunders: Yes. I put Special Effects Hair Dye blue and turquoise in it, and Adam told me he wanted to figure out a cool placement for the color. So, the blue goes from the left-hand side in the front to the crown to the right-hand side in the back.

LP: It sounds like Adam has a lot of input.

Saunders: Definitely. We’ve spent hours on his hair. We always collaborate. He comes in once a week to have his color touched up and refreshed. Actually—I also do Courtney Love’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain’s, hair, and she loves Adam. They always seem to come in on the same day!

LP: You know little kids are dying their hair like Adam’s…

Saunders: I think that’s awesome. Adam told me about a nine-year-old boy who posted a video on YouTube where his mom takes him to the salon to get his hair cut and colored like Adam’s. It’s so cool.

LP: The shout-out on TV was from Allison. What did she ask for when she visited you?

Saunders: It was a total last-minute thing, actually. Adam brought Allison in, and she asked for extensions, but it was Sunday and all of the hair shops were closed! We went over everything: clip-ins, gluing in tracks—everything. I finally went to Sally’s Beauty, bought some blonde hair, and got it done. The whole process took about six hours.

LP: I noticed some purple streaks in the extensions.

Saunders: I used Schwarzkopf for the darker colors and again, Special Effects (Burgandy Wine and Deep Purple) for the magenta and purple. She’s so cute—she also brought in the color she normally uses. She cuts and colors her own hair!

LP: Uh-oh. Well, not anymore, right?

Saunders: She’s been texting… [[laughs]]

—Karie L. Frost