Shear Genius; Episode 2: “Nexxus Dream Celebrity Challenge”

Jaclyn Smith introduces the stylists to Roy Teeluck, the Nexxus head stylist under whom the winner will receive an apprenticeship, who will be the guest judge for the week. Together, they assign the Short Cut Challenge: change a mannequin’s hair color from black to at least a level 8 blonde in 2 hours. The winner will get their choice of client in the next Elimination Challenge.

Now I’m not entirely sure how dark a level 8 blonde is, but as the stylists get to work it seems to my untrained eyes that a lot of them are way too dark. Boogie’s seemed as though he was on his way to being the trainwreck of the week when he somehow turned the mannequin’s hair blue (!!!), but he somehow managed to fix it into a brownish blonde.

Apparently a level 8 blonde is fairly dark, verging on being brown. After inspecting each head, Roy selects the top 3: Ben, Tabatha, and Evangelin, with Tabatha as the overall winner of the challenge.

When the stylists arrive at their house, they fine René Fris waiting for them (much to Boogie’s excitement, I’m sure). He explains that on a wall in the room behind him, there are 11 pictures of clients next to a celebrity whose hairstyle they want to have. The top 3 Short Cut winners will get to see the celeb photos, but the rest of the stylists will have to make their choices based solely on the client photo.

Tabatha goes first and chooses the client who wants Victoria Beckham’s hair. Evangelin chooses Halle Berry, except she keeps saying “Holly,” which makes me want to smack her. Idiot. Ben selects Sienna Miller, even though he had no idea who she was and actually thought it was Melanie Griffith at first. This I can forgive since, as far as I’m concerned, Sienna Miller’s only real claim to fame is being cheated on by Jude Law.

The remaining stylists don’t find out which celebrity hairstyle they’ll be creating until they arrive at the salon. They’ll have 2 hours starting from the time they meet their clients, meaning they’ll also have to use some of that time to consult.

Lacey gets Jennifer Aniston; Anthony gets Carmen Electra; Boogie gets Nicole Ritchie; Tyson gets Gisele Bundchen; Danna gets Jessica Alba; Jim gets Gwen Stefani; Theodore gets Jessica Simpson; and Daisy gets Christina Aguilera. Daisy freaks out because her client has really dark hair and she won’t be able to turn her into a platinum blonde in 2 hours. She DEFINITELY won’t get it done because she spent up 40 minutes of her time just consulting with her client. However, instead of telling her client that her request simply can’t be done in the time allotted, she decides to go ahead and give it a go.

As the stylists get to work, it’s pretty clear that the biggest disasters are going to be Daisy and Jim. Daisy’s haircut looks absolutely nothing like Christina Aguilera; the hair’s too dark and the styling is all wrong. Her client does not look happy at all. And then there’s Jim. Gwen Stefani wouldn’t be caught dead sporting that horrific orange coif. As Boogie so eloquently put it, Jim’s poor client looked like Carrot Top in drag. And yet for some reason, he seems incredibly confident in what he’s created.

The judges select Tabatha, Anthony, and Evangelin as the top 3. Tabatha’s was fantastic! A spot-on representation of Lady Becks famed hairdo. Anthony’s also looks really hot and contemporary. Perhaps a little long for Carmen Electra, but the styling is definitely right. And I honestly don’t know why Evangelin made the top 3. Not only could she not say Halle Berry’s name correctly, I thought she failed to capture the hairstyle too. There was this odd tuft of hair slicked up in the middle that was very “There’s Something About Mary.”

Anthony ends up being the winner and will have his hairstyle featured in an ad in Allure magazine.

Sure enough, the bottom 2 ended up being Daisy and Jim. Frankly, I would’ve sent them both packing, but the judges felt Jim was the bigger disaster. I can’t really argue with that at all.