“You have an appointment ?” Nicolas Waldorf was just waiting for you! Renowned hairdresser and make-up artist on M6 thanks to the program Incroyables transformations, the young thirty-year-old trims the ends and uses his scissors to bring customers’ hair back to life. From his living room opened in 2014 in Paris to film sets, it is today in booksellers that he dispenses his precious advice in his first book published on May 13th by Solar editions.
Through the pages of this bible of hairdressing, Nicolas Waldorf addresses both women and men by delivering the secrets for a successful haircut. Maintenance, coloring and style, this hair virtuoso leaves nothing to chance. “Hair is really someone’s potential. It’s what surrounds the face, so it’s the first thing you look at,” he said for Medisite (owned by EROLD Group). ).
However, the hairdresser with Italian-Vietnamese origins planned to make a career in law by donning the robe of a lawyer. To find out more, we made an appointment (by phone) so that Nicolas Waldorf confided in us the secrets of his life. Revealing to us having chosen the path of hairdressing after a heartbreak. “I had just been dumped by my fiancée at the end of high school. I was inconsolable and my parents told me to go to the hairdresser, my head was no longer possible”, he recalls to Planet.
It was then that a new hair salon opened in the neighborhood. Nicolas Waldorf walks through the door and there it clicks… Or rather, love at first sight. “It’s simple, I fell in love with my hairdresser. A guy with tattoos all over the place, who was driving mechanics. Everyone looks at him super sexy”, laughs our interlocutor. Wanting to learn alongside her, he wants to do an internship in this salon and continue their story. When Nicolas Waldorf announces to his relatives his reconversion and his relationship, everything does not go as planned. “I went home and told my parents that I wanted to be a hairdresser and live with him. I got screwed, I’m not telling you!”, He admits later with a smile.
“Hyper intelligent and talkative” during his childhood, Nicolas Waldorf nevertheless had a destiny all mapped out. But, the passion and the taste for challenge are stronger, despite the reluctance of his parents. “I knew I had to show my mother and my father that I could have a good job,” he admits before quipping. “And then I didn’t really have a choice given the face they made afterwards”. Supported by his grandmother, the apprentice hairdresser obtained his CAP and sailed towards new challenges.
In his early days, Nicolas Waldorf officiated in several hairdressing salons before opening his own studio in 2014 in the 11th arrondissement of Paris. To get out of the game, he prefers to stand out from his competitors. “I was made to be an entrepreneur, I love commerce and creating concepts”, admits the famous hairdresser for Planet. This is why the young hair prodigy also offers photography exhibitions, yoga classes and a participatory bookstore (whose profits are donated to charity). Before opening a second salon, his restaurant Kokotte Paris and his decoration shop Vadrouille Shop.
His atypical personality and his outspokenness then opened the doors of the PAF to him. Before becoming an expert in hair makeovers, Nicolas Waldorf took part in the program Cinq salons qui décoiffent on M6 in 2015. A competition between hairdressers which he wins brilliantly. Then he returns three years later on the show You’ve Got a Package on 6ter.
But it was in 2019 that Nicolas Waldorf rose to fame in Incredible Transformations alongside stylist Charla Carter and makeup artist Léa Djadja. Two friends for whom the host has a special affection. “Relations are very good. Charla is a great lady for me. I hate her a lot on the air, but really, she’s a woman I respect enormously who taught me a lot about clothes”, before evoke Léa Djadja as “his sister”. “She comes to confide in me as soon as she has a problem or is struggling to manage something. And then I’m always winnowing her nicely”, admits the friend of the wife of rapper Black M.
On the strength of his popularity and his activities, Nicolas Waldorf had the opportunity to revamp many clients by transforming them from head to toe. For better as well as for worse, according to the unusual requests of certain individuals. “The hardest part was at the time of the tecktonik, a long time ago (in the 2000s, editor’s note). I saw women arriving with magnificent hair and who asked me to give them a little short crest at the above their heads,” recalls the celebrity hairstylist. “For me it was the worst fashion, it was horrible”.
Even today, her clients want to look like their favorite star. While some of her clients desire American singer Billie Eilish’s signature haircut, which is “inverted colors with green roots”, others prefer a glamorous red carpet hairstyle. Among the best known according to our hairdresser, that of Jennifer Aniston, Amber Heard “but that was before the trial”, he whispers to us, Caroline Receveur for “all her cuts and colors”, Nabilla Vergara for “the long and dark hair trend” or even Jennifer Lopez.
In the makeover program on M6, the participants discover the result of their transformation with their loved ones. While some are spontaneous, others are more restrained. “You have people who will be shocked at first for ten minutes in front of the mirror, they won’t speak”, Nicolas Waldorf tells us and admits, on the set. “We can’t replay the reaction, it’s in the moment and then we move on. It’s complicated when the person remains stoic. Everyone has their own way of reacting”.
When Nicolas Waldorf is not giving his expert advice in a book or on a TV set, he puts his hairdressing talents to good use with several stars. From memorable encounters to the funniest, the 30-year-old does not hesitate to slip us a few anecdotes. And, in particular on two former Miss France that he had the opportunity to sublimate in his career.
“I did Iris Mittenaere’s hair and it was funny because she arrived wrapped up in a jacket without heels or artifice”, recalls Nicolas for Planet, admitting not having recognized her when she came to the salon. “In fact, I didn’t see her come back, I hadn’t thought it was her”. Faced with Miss Universe 2016, the hairstylist (and artist in his spare time) remained captivated by her beauty. “As we were preparing it, it revealed itself as a flower”.
Before her, another Miss from the south of France had left a memorable memory to Nicolas Waldorf. “I also had Alexandra Rosenfeld (Miss France 2006, editor’s note), she was magnificent”, he recalled with nostalgia. “You had to take her in 20 minutes to do everything to her and she was on her cell phone. It was really the time when she was very famous and she had time for nothing. When I looked at her, she was a beauty , but it was mind-blowing,” claiming she has “the most beautiful skin I’ve seen in my life.”
Nicolas Waldorf, however, has experienced a few cold sweats, recently with Loana came to get a makeover on his show. If the incredible transformation turned into a disaster according to the ex-star of Loft Story, the famous hairdresser had defended himself. “Suddenly, she liked the hair, then she didn’t like it. I never took it for myself, I assume that people don’t have my tastes, nor my truth about it”.
Finally, the M6 expert provided hair care to English stylist John Galiano. One of the most beautiful encounters of his life, while he was still working in a salon located on Place des Vosges. “With him, I really felt like I was entering Ali Baba’s cave when I came to his mansion,” enthuses the hairdresser. “He was locked up in the middle of his priceless works and his memories, then he drew, he only lived for the aesthetics. I was amazed at the same time, but he was really a beautiful person. I had the impression to see an Edward Scissorhands, locked up in a palace. This encounter was so poetic that I was amazed and flabbergasted”.
