This Instagram Star’s Rapunzel Hair Will Make You Put Down the Scissors

Orange County–based Sara Beygi, aka “Madame Kush,” has long hair—as in very, very long hair that hits well below her hips. On the West Coast, lengthy manes are often associated with Source Family values, but the 19-year-old Instagram star’s hair doesn’t come in peace. Instead, her raven black locks are boldly seductive.

The extreme beauty accessory accents her skin-baring, Los Angeles–influenced style: Flyaways get tangled up in fist-size hoops, while braided pigtails with slept-in frizz bounce off the back of her high-waisted flares. Clearly, Kush, who is a communications student and aspiring rapper, gets plenty of double takes—and comparisons from Rapunzel to Morticia abound. Onlookers get that much more personal. “I love it when people touch my hair,” says Kush. “They tell me how cool it is and how beautiful it is, but actually, my mom has been trying to get me to cut it for the longest time.”

Thanks to years of ignoring her mother’s pleas, that calling card hair now has big-time stats. Kush is 5-foot-6, while her mane clocks in at 3-foot-7—more than half of her height. The last time she had a haircut was five years ago. “I got in a fight [with my hairstylist] and I was like, ‘I’m done with you,’ ” recalls Kush. “I never got around to getting another hairstylist, so I just did my own thing and boom, this happened.”

It takes about 30 minutes for Kush to wash her hair, but air-drying is an issue. “It takes a solid five hours if I am out and about, but if I sleep when it is wet, it takes eight hours,” she says. Still, blow-drying is out of the question. “It would be such a thing,” she says. For products, Kush prefers three from Costco: Kirkland shampoo and conditioner (“I’ve got to have cheap shampoo since I go through it real quick!”) and Biosilk to take out the frizz. On special occasions, she does get her hair blown out and straightened at a salon. “I go to the same girl and she washes and straightens it in 40 minutes,” she says.

Styling her hair calls for its own careful strategy. Braiding is a two-person-minimum project. “I have my mom do French braids and I love that,” she says. “It’s so long that you need another person working in the back because my hand won’t reach that low. When I take them out, I have crazy curls for two days.” Ponytails, on the other hand, “are like a facelift—but I can’t do a high one for a lot of hours because it will give me the most massive headache.” In spite of said headaches, both literal and proverbial, Kush doesn’t have plans to chop her hair anytime soon: “I just want to see if at any point it will stop growing.”

 

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