The Hair that Became a Vogue Office Obsession: Our Front Row Crush on Rhea Carter

Spotted first at the front row of Hood by Air, 22-year-old blogger Rhea Carter’s bouncing cloud of black and white ombré curls sparked an interoffice email chain. Then, just yesterday, we caught sight of it again, as Carter crossed Manhattan’s West Fifteenth Street between shows—this time her silver ends hovering over a powder blue crop top, customized vintage Levi’s, and a slash of matching eyeliner. We proceeded to invite the recent New York transplant back to the Vogue offices to get the full hair story. Thankfully, she obliged.

Your hair color is amazing. Is there a story behind it?

I was looking at images of Storm from X-Men, but [reinterpreted it] by doing it with an ombre effect.

Where did you get it done?

I did it myself—it’s my first time going gray. I really experiment a lot with my hair, which means sometimes I make mistakes—the dye doesn’t always come out the way I want it to come out. But I’ll just put a hat on. [Laughs] The worst one I’ve ever done was when it didn’t go as blonde as I wanted it to, and it matched my skin tone. I looked a little bald when that happened.

When did you start dyeing your own hair?

In eighth grade, I dyed a little streak in the front of my hair brown. Then I started to dye it red, then two colors—red and blue—and my mom [gave me a look]. She knew what was coming next. The first time I did my whole head, I went bright pop red for prom. Now I’ve done it a lot of different colors. I had it kind of blue-turquoise when I moved to New York last year.

What do you use?

I just buy Manic Panic—I start with 40 Volume Flashlightning because I try to get it as bright as I can, and then follow it with a lot of toner to get rid of any yellow.

How often do you change your color?

Lately I haven’t been dyeing it much at all, keeping colors for months just to let it grow out a bit more. I deep condition it a lot using Carol’s Daughter Marula Curl Therapy to keep the curls intact.

Are you equally good at your makeup?

With the gray and black, I’ve toned down my look a lot. I’m really going for the Storm look. I started putting blue under my eyes—this is actually a lip liner. [Laughs] I wasn’t bold enough to put it on my lips! I like to color coordinate. I have a pretty extensive collection of makeup. I love mascara, doing a good cat eye, or sometimes drawing on bottom lashes the way that Twiggy used to. I saw pictures of her from back in the day on the Internet. I get a lot of inspiration from social media—you can always revamp something and bring it back to life.​

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