“Loneliness is, like, when you wish someone else was there, and solitude is when you enjoy being alone. I don’t always wanna be alone, but I definitely like pockets of solitude to recharge and come back to myself. I think that’s so important for everyone.”
“Be able to see people’s humanity. I think the way that you do that and see people for more than their surface value is, say, you’re reading something in the news: the gender pay gap, or gay adoption, anything that involves a group of people being marginalized.”
“I had to fight, a lot of years, to be really proud of the person I see in the mirror and really love this person.”
“I want people to fall in love with themselves and to be really proud and full of joy for the space they take up. If someone else appreciates the space you take up, then that’s icing on the cake.”
“When you’re willing to be vulnerable, you can surprise yourself at how strong you can be.”
“Gorgeous exfoliants are expensive.”
“Self-care is the non-negotiable. That’s the thing that you have to do. And beauty is the thing that can be the benefit of the self-care. Beauty is not the point. Beauty is just a cute side-effect from self-care.”
“I love changing hair color. I love doing hair shape. I love the social aspect of salons. I love clients, and because of doing hair, I’ve heard so many life stories.”
“If I could only have one grooming tool, it would be floss. I don’t want to have broken Cheetos in my teeth. To protect myself from the sun, I can find shade under a tree. To moisturize my skin, I could get really sweaty and then just rub it on myself. But how are you going to clean between your teeth without floss?”
“To me, self-care isn’t really shallow. Showing up for yourself, putting on a little moisturizer, can inspire so many different parts of your life.”
“How you take care of yourself is how the world sees you.”
“I wanted long hair my whole life. When I was a little kid, my mom would be like, ‘We get our hair cut once a month.’ So I just always got my hair cut.”
“I’m really about body positivity and self-love, and I will definitely push the boundary with a pink midriff-baring top.”
“Probably the advice I could follow more is the self-love sort of advice. I think, four out of every five days, I’m good at that, but certain situations can trigger self-doubt or cloudiness around how I feel about myself.”
“People think because they sweat, their hair is dirty. False. It’s just salt and your natural oil.”
“I’m obsessed with gymnastics. It’s like my football. And I like to watch women’s gymnastics a little bit more than men’s because I live for balance beam.”
“It’s nice to have a safe place to have a conversation going; whether it’s a friend or family member, you can use ‘Queer Eye’ as an entry point to have a conversation that’s meaningful.”
“For keeping hair long and healthy, I like to use silk pillowcases; they conduct less heat and keep your ends less frayed. Also, I sleep with my hair in a very loose top bun to keep my ends away from my body heat. This also keeps your hair from getting tangled at the nape of your neck.”
“In service industries, we can be so people-pleaser-y that you don’t know how to set your own boundaries.”
“Confidence is sexy.”
“You have to create little pockets of joy in your life to take care of yourself.”
“If my energy was fake, then I would feel pressured, because I gotta, like, keep this up. I thank God it’s just how I am. But I find myself wanting to work on being more comfortable in the silence with people.”
“I wish I had more of a game plan of how I’m going to, like, take down toxic masculinity. But I think that game plan is just going to reveal itself if we keep going. I think I need to keep plugging along, and it’ll happen.”
“I think that I’m, like, an introverted extrovert. At the end of the day, when I get done doing hair at the salon or shooting a day of ‘Queer Eye’ or whatever, I definitely want to come home and, like, order pasta and sit with my cat or just one person or no people.”
“We’re all just trying to do the best we can with what we know!”
“We focus so much on our relationships with other people, and beauty, for me, is about facilitating your relationship with yourself.”
“I’ve worn a 100% polyester cheerleading outfit in stadiums full of people – it is pretty hard to embarrass me.”
“I used to be pretty hard on myself, like, if I didn’t like a haircut I did on someone, I would think about it a lot and second-guess myself. But after therapy and a lot of work, I know how to dust myself off a lot faster, and those things don’t knock me down as much as they used to.”
“I want to show straight men and gay men alike that self-care and grooming isn’t mutually exclusive with, like, femininity or masculinity.”
“I think that the ideal of men’s physiques in general, gay or straight, is one of the most under-talked-about things ever. Ninety-five percent of these bodies that we’re seeing, that we’re striving so hard to look like, are genetically engineered – like, let’s be very clear.”
“I’m a big proponent of all love winning and love just being fab.”
“So often, grooming is meant to make you feel better about yourself, and a lot of times, we use it to make ourselves feel worse.”
“Please don’t compare the nature and authenticity of ‘Queer Eye’ to ‘The Bachelor.’”
“There are times when you should listen to what people say about you, but also a lot of times you just don’t need to listen so much. Don’t worry so much and just go. Unless you’re, like, in danger, and then don’t. And then run, girl.”
“I think that because I struggled and did get very bullied, that definitely made me learn how to be funny and let things roll off and be able to laugh, and I think that has definitely helped me when it comes to being in the public eye with ‘Gay of Thrones’ and ‘Queer Eye.’”
“I went from being pretty fit to 230 lbs., which isn’t, like, the biggest for being 6-feet-tall, but I had been 165 lbs. just three months prior. That taught me a lot about how people treat you differently when you’re fit and when you’re bigger.”
“In yoga, we say that everyone has a magnet on them, and you’re either positively or negatively charged. So if you’re liking how you’re looking, you’re gonna be more positively charged.”
“When I moved to L.A. in my early twenties, I was growing my hair. Then, when I was 25, I cut it off and was like, ‘Oh no, I think I’m a long hair person until I go bald!’”
“I’m always learning new things about myself.”
“I was really, really, really feminine and really into cheerleading and really into figure skating and really into gymnastics. Really into everything that other boys weren’t.”
“I’m good at following my own grooming advice.”
“Whenever anyone says I’ve taught them things by me being myself, I’m always like, ‘Really? I just thought that was like, Wednesday for me. I was just wearing a kilt and a sleeveless top in a Rotary Club, it wasn’t that big of a deal.’”
“Leaving your hair down to sleep causes friction on your ends between your body heat and the pillow case. Securing the ends away from your body helps preserve your ends.”
“From the extreme political polarization that is everywhere – there’s so much suffering going on – so many people are really thirsty to feel good about something.”
“I think, for a lot of people, men or women, it’s easy to have things not affect you because, it doesn’t affect you. So to be a better ally, you have to look at it as if it’s someone you know instead of this abstract person you’ve never met.”
“When I’m having a song-in-the-shower moment, I go to ‘The Blessed Unrest’ by Sara Bareilles.”
“Men and women can be friends, and it can just be friendly.”
“If you have body hair, I’m like, ‘Have your body hair. Have it sticking up the top of your shirt.’ I’m really about body positivity and self-love.”
“I’ve had the honor of working with so many trans people as a hairdresser over my career in some way.”
“I just – I come from a very little town where the militarization of the police force is a very real issue.”
“Getting married is a good time to revaluate all of your relationships. Have you had the same haircut since seventh grade? Have you found products that work for your skin? You need time to experiment.”
“When you’ve been on Instagram and Twitter long enough, you know how mean people can be.”
“I always wanted to play with people’s hair. I was really into ‘The Golden Girls’ and how big their hair was. I always had Barbies and Ken dolls, whose hair I wanted to play with and was always styling. I was very lucky – I never had to wonder what I was passionate about. I’ve always known that I’m really, really passionate about grooming.”
“God, I miss TLC.”
“To my younger self, I would say unless you’re literally in danger, ask forgiveness instead of asking permission.”
“Think about how your jeans would look if you washed and dried them every single day. That’s like our hair, and you can’t change your hair as often as your pants, so cutting down on washing cuts down on long-term damage.”
“Going to school was an absolute terror for me for, like, a decade.”
“People who fundamentally disagree with you politically or socially are not bad people. I can’t expect that other side to have compassion for me if I can’t put myself in their shoes, too.”
“I think my ability to joke and laugh about things is because I’m forced to. I’ve been through a lot of things in my life that, if I didn’t make light of it, I would literally keel over.”
“I wish I was a gorgeous mixologist, but that was not my god-given strength.”
“One of my closest friends is a trans man who is incredible. And a lot of my clients are trans women.”
“I think I’ve been in a lot of really uncomfortable situations, and I think when you’re in uncomfortable situations, it kind of polishes you up a little. It shines you up.”
“Even though I’m a hairdresser and I love doing hair, I feel like I don’t look like a groomer. When I think of how a groomer would look in relation to the first version of ‘Queer Eye,’ I feel like I don’t fit in that box.”
“I’m just waiting for the first #MeToo moment to happen from a salon because the culture of how assistants are treated, especially in salons in L.A. and New York, is, like, truly unbelievable. You’re expected to clock out for lunch and never get paid. You’re expected to be there an hour early, stay two hours late.”
“I don’t want to do transformations on people for the sake of a visual. I want to do it because it makes sense.”
“My podcast ‘Getting Curious’ keeps me really busy, which I love.”
“You gotta floss!”
“In states where there’s one really big city, a lot of outlying counties and smaller towns really don’t have very many resources.”
“Coming from a town of 30,000 people on the Mississippi River, having ‘Queer Eye’ in 2003 through 2007 when I was in high school was really important.”
“I vividly remember D’Angelo’s ‘How Does it Feel?’ as a song I listened to around the time I came out.”
“Blotting pads are great in case you get sweaty or oily. But don’t rub. It’s a slow, methodical blot: set the pad on your skin and let it absorb, then move it to the next location.”
“I grew up in a town of 30,000 people, and ‘Queer Eye’ was a beacon of light.”
“You want to be more hairy, that’s beautiful. You want to be more clean-shaven, that’s great.”
“I remember saying I wanted to be a cosmetologist when I was really young.”
“My biggest secret is that I don’t over-wash my hair. I wash it twice a week at the most, unless I’m on set every day.”
“I was a chubby kid who got made fun of a lot, and I got fit in high school, and I stayed fit in my 20s, until my dad died.”
“I was someone who wore bright purple sweatsuits with tall Doc Martens boots. I would iron Hanson decals on my sweatshirt. I was extremely flamboyant as a child.”
“I’m the youngest of three boys. Both of the older two are very heterosexual, football-watching, married, child-rearing, cornfed Midwestern guys.”
“As a kid growing up, I really hated being alone. I was always that kid that was like, ‘Do you want to hang out? Let’s go to the mall. Let’s go to the movies. Let’s go to the park.’ I would call people and call people and call people. If I was alone when I wasn’t at school, then there was something wrong.”
“I’ve been an Amy Winehouse fan since her first album, ‘Frank.’ I always listen to her music when there’s a lot going on and I want to be a bit grounded. It’s like my musical warm fuzzy blanket.”
“A song like ‘Tears Dry on Their Own’ is really sad, but it’s hopeful, too – that was my theme song for the first boy who broke my heart.”
“If you’re feeling a little down, you’re never fully dressed without a strong heel. But only if you’re depressed – if you need a pick-me-up.”
“I love a company that puts their money where their mouth is when it comes to LGBTQIA visibility.”
“Kristi Yamaguchi stole my heart in 1992, and I’ve never been the same since.”
“I grew up in a little town where my family owned a newspaper and the TV station, so a lot of people knew who we were, and I never fit in.”
“I was the first male cheerleader of my high school; it’s very hard to embarrass me – you have to do a lot.”
“The second you’re bleaching hair more than three or four levels on a consistent basis and want it long, and then you’re heat styling it and living in the world – it’s just impossible. You can get it there for a moment, and then you might get a couple re-touches out of it.”
“I love having the Olympic Channel app on my phone because I can watch old gymnastics videos any time.”
“Since I have psoriasis, I buy anything that feels good against my skin. I tend to wear really, really soft hoodies by the brand Velvet. Even if I don’t have a flare-up, I’m still like: Oh. My. God. This nice thing feels so good.”
“I’m really big on the gym and yoga. I’m at the gym at least six days. That is just getting there and creating those endorphins and sweating. And that routine also keeps me grounded in spite of whatever my life looks like.”
“If I read something on the news that really irritates me, I get my rageful venting out on Twitter. I’m more of my light side on Instagram.”
“I love ‘Downton Abbey.’”
“Podcasts are hard! I mean, you gotta get the microphones and all these things… there’s a lot going on there. I never really realized how much goes into producing things till I did ‘Gay of Thrones.’”
“My family was really big on college, and it was hard for them to stomach that I was going to be a hairdresser.”
“I am shocked almost on a daily basis that my being me everywhere I go affects people so deeply.”
“Aly Raisman doesn’t have a podcast – but she should!”
“I like people too much. I really do.”
“I started growing my hair out when I was, like, 22, 23. I just stopped cutting it.”
“I’m from a really little town called Quincy, five hours southwest of Chicago.”
“Typically, you’re not gonna find me out at night; I don’t go to industry parties. Like, I will go sometimes if I’m invited, but usually, I’m, like, home by 11.”
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