Hailee Steinfeld Shares Her Favorite Products for Styling Her New Bob and Embracing Fresh Energy

Hailee Steinfeld and I are both brunettes in our late 20s whose fiancés work in Buffalo, New York—mine an engineer behind the new stadium hers will play in. We also both love writing and Emily Dickinson, but of course, that’s pretty much where the similarities stop. The star has had an illustrious acting and music career with flocks of fans interested in her every move. When I mentioned I interviewed Steinfeld, my brother asked if she was as beautiful in person, noting he assumed so because she’s always seemed so natural, and the answer is a resounding yes. One thing that specifically struck me was her bouncy, touchable hair in its newly cropped bob cut.

Steinfeld says her silky, voluminous strands are thanks to the Nexxus Hy Volume collection ($48 for all three products). It’s “truly made a difference in the feel of my hair and just feeling weightless and somehow still giving it a bounce that feels like I’ve styled it without having to do too much or add too much heat or other products,” she tells us. “I love when my hair feels light and looks light, and I feel like this collection absolutely gives me that feeling.” She notes that the shampoo ($16), conditioner ($16) and Weightless Lift Cloud Foam Treatment ($18) have become a staple in her routine. “I feel like I look like I just walked out of the salon.”

The two of us sat there with matching high-volume blowouts and discussed how hair plays a role in our identity, getting rid of old energy, the magic of writing and more.

“I feel like in a way to say long hair feels most like me makes sense because I’ve spent the majority of my life with long hair. However, I feel like the length that my hair is now is very representative of where I’m at and that cut was a big step in my life. I’ve never had hair this short, and it just felt like a moment of inviting change, excitement and a new energy and lightness. I don’t know—I may have gotten a little woo-woo with it like ‘I’m getting rid of old energy.’ It felt really good and I do feel like this is really me at this moment.”

“Beau Society has been such a passion project of mine and such a fun outlet to stay connected with people and feel like I’m having a conversation with friends every week yet sort of maintain a level of, it’s not even privacy, but there’s something about going on social media and attempting to talk about something more in-depth that just is very difficult to do, so the newsletter was a way of just chatting a little more in-depth about literally everything and anything—food that excites me, a recipe that I found, a new product line that I’m loving and or mental health.

I’ll never run out of things to talk about. I remember when I was like, ‘I think I want this to be weekly,’ and one of my friends was like, ‘What about bi-weekly?’ and I was like, ‘No, I think weekly.’ Once we got into it, I was like, oh, I’m constantly having to come up with something, but as difficult as it might be, it’s not because we call our friends all the time and we never run out of things to talk about so that’s all it is. It’s a safe space to chat and to have people talk about their expertise and have myself learn, so that’s been really fun.”

“I really enjoy it, but no, I mean, I guess in a way, not to get all like ‘this person,’ but I worked on this show called Dickinson for three years, and I just fell in love with this idea, and this human, Emily Dickinson, who just wrote everything, for the majority of her life with every intention of people reading it but knowing there was no hope for that being a possibility in her lifetime. I think it sort of allowed her to write in a way and create a space for herself in which she thought, ‘If no one ever sees this, then in what world should I hold back?’ So, I’ve always loved writing with that in mind.

Also, I love to physically write on paper—nothing compares to that. I think that that inspired me even more so to just write. If I wake up and I’m feeling some kind of way, it doesn’t have to be written perfectly, it doesn’t have to sound wonderful and beautiful, but it’s just getting something off of my heart, out of my head and onto paper. I guess I never intended for it to turn into what this is, but I love this for what it is because it’s not perfect. This whole time I’ve thought about it as—I love to send a voice note, so it’s basically like if I just sent a long voice note out every Friday.”

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