Dolly Parton’s Make-Up Artist ‘Almost Fainted’ When She Saw the Major Change Parton Made to Her Hair 

While the public rarely sees Dolly Parton without a wig on, the people close to her have seen her natural hair. The hairstyles she likes to achieve are easier to achieve with wigs, and she damaged her hair by continually dying it. Earlier in her career, though, she wore her natural hair long. When she made a major change to it, she nearly caused her make-up artist to faint.

Dolly Parton made a surprising change to her hair

Parton has been wearing wigs for years. She said that she began to rely on hair pieces as soon as she could.

“I always wore my hair all teased up,” she wrote in the book, Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. “Whenever that style started, I was the first to get my hair all poofy. Then as soon as I could buy those hairpieces and wigs, I wanted them. For one thing, they were so handy. Plus, my hair would never do exactly what I wanted it to do. So the wigs became kind of my trademark.”

When she first began working with Porter Wagoner, though, she wore her hair long. Her makeup artist, Jo Coulter, told Parton it may be easier to manage her hair if she cut it short.

“She went away on a thirty-day trip and when she came back, I almost fainted,” Coulter said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “She’d cut it all off! She said she just didn’t have time to take care of it on the road, and sat down on the bus, took the scissors and whacked it off. Then she wore it short for awhile before going back to the long look.”

Coulter said that though Parton’s hair isn’t often seen, it was beautiful.

“But her own hair is long, you know,” she said. “It’s down below her shoulders, or was the last time I saw it. And it’s beautiful.”

She shared what her natural hair looks like

Parton said that though she typically wears wigs, her natural hair doesn’t look all that different from the synthetic hair. She doesn’t wear wigs at home, so she likes to keep her hair long enough to be able to put it up. She also keeps her hair blonde.

“I keep my own hair the same color and a little longer than shoulder length, just to the top of my boob,” she told The Wall Street Journal. “That way I can just pull it up with a little scrunchie. I was born blond and couldn’t wait to get it blonder. I started buying peroxide as soon as I could afford it! I just am a blonde. That’s just my nature. It’s me.”

Dolly Parton said many people see her with her real hair

Parton prefers to wear wigs while out in public, but she admitted that many people have seen her natural hair.

“Lots of people see me without my wigs,” she said. “But I fix my own hair about the same way, and if I tease it and puff it all up, it looks the same. I have a lot of hair. Not quite this much, but almost.”

She said she favors the wigs because they help her get into character.