There's only one hairstyle that I recommend my black actresses to avoid when they're doing their acting headshots.

And it's the pineapple up do more specifically, it's when you do the pineapple up do and you gel your hair or you hairspray it back into the pineapple bun.

Why You Should Avoid This Hairstyle

I don't think it's a good idea for this reason because you cannot switch up your look for the entire session. You're going to be stuck with one hairstyle for your entire session.

So if you have 3 to 4 different looks and you have the same pineapple hairstyle because it's stuck into one position and you cannot move it or do anything different to it, then you kind of just wasted money.

If you're doing multiple looks for a headshot session, you want to be able to have different looks, different hairstyles, change up the clothes a little bit, change up your expressions. You want every headshot that's going to come out of this session to be different, unique and show a variation of you. And so if you have one hairstyle that you cannot move, what's the point of having four different headshots with you looking exactly the same?

What's going to end up happening is you're going to need to come back to get more headshots because now you just have four of the same headshots, but you're just wearing a different outfit. So be smart and plan ahead.

Other Hairstyles To Avoid In Your Headshots Session

Don't go with hairstyles that are gelled or that are hair sprayed into one position and you cannot change it up. You need variations! When you come in with gelled hair, you really do miss an opportunity to switch up your hair and become different characters.

So here's my encouragement for my black actresses: however, you decide to wear your hair for this session, whether it's natural curls, straightened, you're wearing a wig, you're doing braids, you're doing locks, twist outs, whatever, make sure you can change up your hair at least three different subtle ways throughout your session.

Different Hairstyles For Black Actress Headshots

In most cases, I'll do hair down, hair half up, half down, and then hair all the way up. Now, hair changes do not mean that you're going to come in with natural curls and then you're going to straighten it. That is not possible to do within one session.

You're going to have to schedule a completely different headshot session in order for you to be able to have straight hair for a set of headshots and the natural curls for another.

What you want to do is you want to choose one hairstyle that you're going to go with for that session that you're doing.

What Hairstyle Should I Pick For My Headshots Session?

And if you're wondering, well, Brandon, what hairstyle do I go with for this session? Well, you know your hairstyle more than I do. You know which one is going to make you look younger or older and you know what looks each of your hairstyles is going to give you. Straight, curly, braids, wigs, weaves? Just pick one! Especially if you're just starting out and these are your first set of headshots. It's really not going to make any difference.

So you can't pick a wrong hairstyle when you're first starting out because you need to get these headshots and send them out to get feedback, to hear and to see what shots and what looks are working for you before you can make a judgment on an actual specific direction for hair

Now, if you're a working actress and you've been doing this for a couple of years and this isn't your first headshot session and you know, “okay, I get a lot of younger roles. So I'm going to go for a hairstyle that's going to make me look younger.” So that could be braids, it could be a weave, it could be curled, you know what your hair is going to make you look like.

So pick the one that is most advantageous to what, you know, based off of the data from you already sending yourself out or if you have representation, they might make suggestions, they might encourage you, “Hey, go in this direction, you're going to do more older roles. So maybe go with this particular hairstyle.”

But if you're new, which most of you guys are, just pick one and don't make it complicated. I don't think you have to do box braids, straight hair, curl hair out in one sessions. Stick to one and then within that one, you want different variations.

So if it's curls, then you're going to do different variations of curls, which I do have a video on my tiktok, which you can see that we have an example. Her name is Jessica and she wore her natural curls out. She did different hairstyles that I would encourage you to look at. So you can see what you can do with curls and natural curls.