Hailee Steinfeld’s career has been full of surprises from the beginning. She was just a young teenager when her performance in True Grit first earned her critical praise and an Academy Award nomination. She went on to establish the type of onscreen career one would expect after glimpsing her precocious talent, then stunning the industry with a successful foray into music.
By her late twenties, Steinfeld has the trappings of a mogul-in-the-making. Beyond her celebrated onscreen roles, studio albums and appearances on tour —opening for none other than the poster Katy Perry—Steinfeld is also proving herself to be quite influential in the worlds of fashion and beauty. Although, this part should really come as no surprise; she was, after all, the face of Miu Miu as a young teen.
Yet when Steinfeld surprised the public with her fresh bob haircut in 2024, it resulted in nothing short of a beauty ruckus. After having long hair her whole life, she calls the experience “liberating,” on a video call with Forbes.com. This is truly a sentiment to which anyone with long locks can relate. From the stray strands that always manage clog the shower drain, to the time-consuming drying and styling process of long hairstyles, a haircut literally removes weight off your neck and shoulders.
“I was so ready for [the bob haircut]. It was both work-related, which I feel like was a little push from the universe to do something that I had been thinking about for a long time, and also just a point in my life where I was ready for change,” Steinfeld explains. Any pre-chop nerves, she explains, were eased by her rapport with celebrity hairstylist Mara Roszak, whom she “absolutely loves and adores and trusts.”
“I could have closed my eyes and been nowhere near a mirror and known that she was going to do an absolutely beautiful job, which she did,” Steinfeld recalls.
The public agreed, as hair trends like the sleek Euro bob took off, fueled by the shorter hairstyles of Hailey Bieber, Gigi Hadid and Kaia Gerber. Steinfeld’s hair transformation—and her newfound ability to play with her naturally wavy hair texture—caught the attention of the haircare giant Nexxus. The brand tapped her to be the celebrity partner for the launch of their “Get Hy With Nexxus” campaign launching three new volumizing products in March 2025: the Hy Volume Shampoo, Conditioner and Cloud Foam.
“I guess [my hair] wanted to be wavy, but it was just too heavy to ever give me that [texture]. So cutting it short has definitely given me a little bit more of a texture,” Steinfeld explains. The cut and product line now make it easier for her to “achieve a level of volume and [style] that looks like I’ve had it professionally done,” she says. “I get that round brush and blow dryer, go to town and magic happens.”
Everybody longs for the look of a salon-fresh blow-out from home—and even celebrities crave the simplicity that comes with the right cut and product for low-maintenance and high payoff. Steinfeld says that her go-to, effortlessly-chic hairstyle is a “slick pony or bun.” She says that it really depends on her mood whether she opts for a more product heavy, slicked look, or simply lets her hair feel “natural and clean.”
But this is not to take away from the moments she spends in the glam chair, which she cherishes as any beauty-lover would. She sounds like quite the girly-girl as she describes how it feels to be pampered, a process which has been a part of her career since an age few of us can fathom.
“I love sitting in a glam chair and getting my hair and makeup done. I feel so lucky that I get to work with the best [team],” Steinfeld explains. “It’s the part of my job that doesn’t feel like a job—ever. It’s just purely fun, experimental and creative.”
She goes on to explain that she loves the process of orchestrating a look around a theme, with a mood board as inspiration, as well as those events that call for “a certain type of glam.” She also describes becoming more confident with taking beauty and fashion risks as she has gotten older, calling it “fun and exciting” to go outside of her comfort zone with her trusted team of stylists and artists.
Although her hair is currently in its natural brunette shade and she reports no plans to undergo color processing anytime soon, this has included playing with highlights in the past. Steinfeld recalls the experience of first getting highlights with celebrity hairstylist Cassandra Kaeding, co-founder of Crâne Salon in Los Angeles.
Steinfeld’s gratitude and humility are endearing, especially when she defers to the expertise of the glam team that surrounds her. She recalls how, in order to respect the integrity of her hair, Kaeding took a gradual approach to lightening up her strands; the process was so subtle as to feel almost imperceptible at first.
“I was like, it’s summer—I kind of want to lighten it up a little bit. But I’d never colored my hair before [and] I was ready to go from zero to a hundred,” Steinfeld explains. “We started with these super natural highlights. I remember I went home and texted her, ‘Cass, did you do anything?’ But [now] I am so grateful that it was such a slow process and she [maintained] the integrity of my hair.”
This slow-and-steady approach is almost always the way to go when it comes to the beauty world. The same can be said for skincare, when the desire for instant gratification can sabotage skin health in the interest of an Instagram-worthy before-and-after. The temptation can be especially high when you are a celebrity with access to countless products and samples, but Steinfeld sagely learned the importance of moderation early on.
“As much as I have been suggested lots and lots of products from a very young age, I always come back to the ‘less is more’ approach,” Steinfeld says. Her regimen does change and evolve depending on what she is working on, however. For instance, humidity or a long day on set might call for a high-powered setting spray.
But for the most part, she sticks to the basics that she knows will be “calming, moisturizing and hydrating” for her skin, recommended to her by the celebrity skin expert Kristi Kidd, PA-C, her skin guru since she was a teenager.
“My skin is very sensitive and loves to react to everything,” Steinfeld laments. “[Kidd] has always helped to point me in the direction [of what my skin needs] depending on what my skin is choosing to do that day. She is so amazing when it comes to personalizing my regimen, which is so great. It’s not one size fits all.”
Steinfeld’s skincare regimen is aligned with the skinimalism trend, streamlined to the tried-and-true staples that she knows work for her. The same can be said for her haircare regimen and the three, volumizing newcomers from the Nexxus Get Hy collection, now available nationwide.