Rupaul Wig Recreation | Iconic Blondes

Hi everyone, james mantel here bringing you yet another video and in today's video we're doing another installment of iconic blinds. But before i begin we do have a word from our sponsor. Today'S video is brought to you by manscaped. Yes, manscape is one of the leading brands in men's grooming and i james manscaped, not my real name ought to know. Yes. Manscape is proud to introduce some brand new products live, manscape, shampoo and conditioner and manscaped body wash. These are part of a brand new combo package from manscape, but wait there's more apart from showering in style. You also can smell in style too. I think that makes sense you're going to smell good, that's what it means: okay, you're, going to smell good in that package. It also includes manscaped body spray and manscape deodorant. That'S right, body spray and deodorant man's case has got you covered head to toe and even your lips. That'S right! Manscaped now has chapstick available in this package as well literally anything having to do with hygiene. Manskip has got you covered, but wait there's more with my code. James m, you can save 20 off plus free shipping at manscape.com use my code today, yes and save 20. What are you waiting for? The deals? Are there get manscaped today? All right we are back. I have the wig up and down to the head. We are doing a very special episode today. Yes, we're jumping forward into the mid 1990s, like i said, i'm not going in any kind of chronological order. I'M just gon na do iconic blondes as they come to me as i feel like it, and i saw a couple. You suggested this iconic blonde and i'm excited to do her. Today we are doing rupaul. Yes, the most iconic blondest drag queen in the world, rupaul charles we are doing her today and the idea for the hair i had in mind today was actually her hair from the viva glam campaign. Yes, i am so excited to do rupaul today, but before i get started, i think it's time we give this room a little makeover yeah. Let'S do a little magic right now. Look at that we're now in my wig shop, yes, huge shout out to a couple people. My logo was actually designed by jonathan warabic in chicago. He just freshly moved there. So if you need logo, girls hit him up and also the background was designed by canada's drag race's own eve, 6000. Yes, and she did an amazing job on it. Oh my gosh we're in my wig shop right now. I'M so glad this backdrop finally arrived. I'M able to put it up and have some more character added to my wig room. Yes, i am obsessed alrighty now, let's get started on this wig okay, so i have my femme fatale in 613, all pinned down to the head from jane's man to beauty and we're gon na get started on making this hairstyle. Now it's sort of like a it looks like it's a ponytail, but it looks like it's pinned, but it's big in the back and there's fringe hanging down. So what we're going to do first is separate the fringe, because it's very 90s she's got the little 90s. You know down the middle fringe hanging. You know, like a tekken character, i'm obsessed with very, very big in the 90s i used to draw those all the time whenever i was like drawing girls. They'D always have like those two little school girl flicks in the back and like in the front like that, all right, so we got them separated. Those are gon na, be our flicks. Now, let's pin those up just so they stay out of the way. She also has little flicks on the sides here where her sideburns would be now. This campaign was historic for its time, because it was the first time drag. Queens had really been featured prominently like that in a major campaign like solo, you know, rupaul was featured in the viva glam campaign, which is their campaign. They do for hiv awareness and it was a huge deal because she was going to be in all sorts of department stores, with her face plastered all over mac cosmetics. So it was a very, very big deal and so much the fact that, like me as an impressionable kid seeing rupaul in macy's and places like that, really meant something to me, and i love that when i was working at macy's still in the 2000s, you still Saw those posters because they would resurrect it every now and again all right, i'm just going to start doing a permatease to the front that we're going to pull back to the pony and the back pony is going to get real real big. I also bought a ponytail piece. Let me show you this. I thought it was like really crazy. I went to jazzy chick here in vegas and found this. It is a pony, wrap, invisible ponytail where you can do like you know the sable bomb ponytail i may or may not use, because the wig might not call for it, but i thought it was so cute. Look how long it is. I'M obsessed. I don't know if i'll use it today, but i'll probably end up using it in iconic blondes eventually. So here we go. This wig actually was featured on a doll as well one of rupaul's dolls from integrity. It was, i believe, red hot was the doll cause like people got wise to like the fact that they're collectors items now i remember back in the day, you could get that doll relatively inexpensively like nobody wanted it, and now everyone wants it like. I remember back when it was at spencer's. Gifts on clearance, like collectors items, definitely have their value. It'S right up there with um the gay billy dolls. If you all remember those the anatomically correct dolls and like their little novelty, doll that came out in the 90s and 2000s - and everyone was like this - is so stupid. But if you look at it now on ebay, it's expensive, like some of them, sell for thousands of dollars, because they're rare now rupaul. I feel like we all kind of know the backstory of but i'll go into it anyway. Just because, for the sake of the episode in case, there's new people here that came here wanting to learn something about rue i'll fill you in so rupaul is from san diego and moved to atlanta. To pursue a career in show business ended up living with lady bunny for a short bit worked as a go-go boy then moved to new york with bunny, and that's when really things really start to take off for rips turn the lights on all right. So rupaul moved to new york city with lady bunny. They were roommates for a short period of time, but things really started to happen for rupaul like before that he was in punk bands. He was dabbling around with music. Like did a couple of short films. One of my favorite ones, which is on youtube, is her parody of trilogy of terror, so good, where she's getting chased by the blue boy. Well, you know she was just dabbling around trying pretty much trying to figure out where she would land career-wise like what's gon na work like just throwing everything against the wall and seeing what's stuck well, it wasn't until new york. She started working at the pyramid club now the pyramid club, legendary queens went through there we're talking like international crisis. Lady bunny lip sync uh, misunderstood varla, like all these great legendary drag names, either have passed through or performed at the pyramid club exclusively. A weird group of girls of queens that were very creative, very colorful and very much like had aesthetics that you could register right away when you saw them and rue was no different from that, like she had established a look that really worked like it all started Off like she was kind of punky a little bit, she kind of looked like a drag queen version of nina hagen or on grace jones had a baby at first and then, when she came to new york and started hanging around the pyramid club, the glamorous rupaul Had started to come out and she was dabbling in music again. She eventually ended up at tommyboy records which, at that time was releasing like rap music, so rupaul being featured on that as a dance artist was really groundbreaking and like she was a serious dance artist. Like she actually was pursuing this to become a serious artist in the vein of like sylvester or divine when they tried to crack the music industry, as i did research for like drake, herstory and stuff, like you read a lot of the reviews on her tommy boy Records and like they're so dismissive of rupaul's music, even though like the early stuff is really really good. Like supermodel, is a great album like she had covers of house of love on there. She had some really great, like draggy songs, but like they weren't completely novelty, which is what they tried. The writer off to be. They like wrote off in reviews like rupaul, is a novelty artist. That'S where they categorized her like, if you're old enough to remember sam goody. That would be where you found rupaul like along the lines of like julie, brown or weird al yankovic, like they thought it was a joke. No one thought it was actually music and, like queer artists usually have to do. They have to stick around and force people to take them seriously, which is something i really love about. Rupaul'S career she stuck around and eventually got the respect of hollywood very similar to cher all right now, i'm gon na tease the rest of this i'll, be all right. We are back now. I have the hair all teased out. That'S how she looks the section's all divided she's sort of already coming together now with this hairstyle, it's just pinned and it's like tied off in certain like sections from what i could gather from like researching it right so the front one. Is this little poof pony? So i'm gon na smooth out that as best i can - and i teased out a lot right here in this section here - yeah a matter of fact, the pick just to make sure we get that lift that we want make sure it's pushed down. It actually got fairly big without having to do a double stack, which i'm very, very proud of. I'M happy that worked out usually with like ponytail hairstyles like this. It can get kind of dodgy all right. I have blonde hair ties. Let'S just tie off our little pony, it's supposed to be a little poofy phony pony right here, leave her over there now for these sections here on the sides. It'S a little weird i'll show you from what i can look at. It'S pulled back to look like it's in a pony, but they're pinned under, so it has like this effect and hair sort of cascades over it. I know america's youth probably knows rupaul nowadays because of rupaul's drag race she's. The host of that now, the story of how rupaul's drag race came to be is actually pretty interesting. Rupaul at that point in her career before drag race season, one even happened. She was looking for something new to do and she was approached by world of wonder to do a reality. Show there are two ideas: they had a competition reality show which she shot down immediately. She had no interest in doing that, and then there was also a day in the life of kind of reality, show like my life on the d list, but with rupaul, and they were going to follow rupaul all around and that's the one she actually went for At first, they recorded one pilot episode that never saw the light of day and as soon as she wrapped that first episode, she came back to producers as the story goes and said: let's just do the competition show. She didn't want to open her life up like that, like it was not something she liked. Alas, rupaul's drag race was born and us drag queens. Are eternally grateful for it because if you look at how influential the show has been in kickstarting, so many queen's careers because of rupaul's drag race drag, has gotten pushed to the mainstream and now there's other mainstream shows that feature drag it's sort of starting to come Together, she needs a little more height in the back. We can fix that. Okay, sap, just throw this ponytail up front. You could always do a double stack too fairly. Certain, like the wig she's wearing in the campaign, is a double stack like just from looking at it. But it's also because, like back in those days like rupaul used to have customized hair lines like they were gorgeous like if you look at the cover, like the record for supermodel, there's a big close-up of her face with her lace front on which they photoshopped away. The lace, but it looks like the hair, is like implanted into her scalp. I remember when i was growing up like people would make up rumors like yeah. She had implants put into her like she thought she had hair plugs because they couldn't tell where the hairline started. That'S how good the wigs were they're like how does she have that big giant updo on like people were very ignorant to the idea of what a lace front. Wig was back in those days now. Everyone knows what they are. Well, mostly everyone, oh yeah. She is getting big. I like this because sort of like stripper ella rupaul, it's such a girly, fun. 90S hairstyle, like it's very like you know, romy michelle's, high school reunion, like rupaul, meets barbie. Now we have it. We got ta secure these pins because they're starting to fly all over the place and the friend on the side here kind of like hangs over like that, because i'm looking at the hairstyle from the campaign like the one she's wearing when she's announcing it. You can see like the dark pins in the wig, which i'm gon na do my best to hide them here. Let'S start smoothing smooth the layers on top now, it's like rue has reached like pop culture status. Now, like she is fully a pop culture, icon, like homegirl's, got a star on the walk of fame, like that's famous and like it's so interesting because like when i was growing up like she was had the moment in the 90s, where, like she was really really Popular and she was in a lot of movies and then like it, sort of like vanished for a little bit like she went back to doing more like mainstream gay content, but she wasn't featured so much in television shows as much anymore and like it also was Like weird, the way tones have shifted like i remember those talking head shows, they'd have on like mtv and vh1, where they talk about celebrity feuds and stuff like they're, always very, very dismissive of rupaul in her career, like mainstream media, has changed a whole lot like They weren't always as open-minded when it came to drag or anything like that and like they would literally drag her like they used to be so rude and act like you know they weren't the serious artist or i think like when rupaul's doing acting roles. They also would like always circle back to the same thing. It'S like well rupaul did very good for a drag queen, just like what the hell does that mean and like it's so great how everything has sort of changed now like there's so many different things that drag queens do now. I love that, like you, know, they've stuck around, that's what you got to do we endure and then we conquer, i won't rest until everything on tv has drag queens in it. Yes, 24-hour news cycle with drag queens all right. Looking at this, i might bust out the ponytail. Let'S just see what it looks like just because it's like i'm eyeing it from the corner of my eye, and it's like i want to see what it looks like it may or may not need it. I think it's gon na be too much. It'S not very good. Math actually look on the monitor. It'S fine. I can see it doesn't match, though, so we probably won't use it we'll come back to it, anyways, let's continue styling all right. So first things. First, i got to smooth it, so i'm going to smooth her and i'll be right back all right. We are back now, i'm just doing some smoothing. It looks like a big doll's hair, which i love and the second i put on my head. This whole back part is going to be poke up like that, like hers, did it's just there's no back of the head here, so it looks a little flatter than it should also bear that in mind when it comes to wig styling like sometimes the hair will Look a lot smaller on the head when you're styling it and when you actually put it on and it meets your head everything's different because no one's head is shaped like that, it's just a styling, wig head, you got ta, you know, look beyond it all right. Let'S take the fringe down: okay, now, hers here were long, so we're just going to leave those, as is little side tabs now for the front ones, they're cut very, very cute. So let's do that and we're going to follow the face frame like that. I'Ve never cut fringe like this before so it's gon na be interesting. I feel like it's gon na, be all up in my face that came out pretty good. Okay, all right. The second one try and get it to match up. Okay, that matches up fairly nicely. All right a little bit of spray just to get the hair to clean together, yeah they're playing nicely with each other, all right now, she's fairly done. I just got ta smooth her out a little bit, but i feel like we are there for the viva glam hair, so i'm gon na smooth her a little bit and i'll be right back with the final welcome back. This is the final result. Oh my god. I am obsessed with this super 90s hair. It'S almost like spice girls-ish and also it falls more into modern times and y'all are always asking me to like create something that's more wearable for every day. Well, you could wear this every day. Just bobby pin the like. You know the front a little bit and there you go. You got a bionic pony. Okay, you look so sickening working the makeup counter. It'S very that, like she works the makeup counter like a one-off character, i'm a sitcom like the rude makeup girl. I love it or like romy michelle's high school reunion also gives me vibes of that or like baby spice anyways. I had to take a moment event moment where i think everyone who's tipped me on then mel. I would like to thank sergio sean norman ian and sergio again thanks han, as well as our paper money from tyler and kate and cash apps from ben paul and regina. Thank you all so much for the tips on vemmo cash up and the paper monies now. This is so much fun to do. Oh, my gosh. I'M really been enjoying this iconic blonde series. You guys don't even know like it's been such a refreshing change of pace for me to like just talk about history and style, hair. Two things i love. If there's any iconic blondes, you want to see me tackle next again, i'm not sticking to any sort of era or anything or any place in time, i'm jumping around. So if there's an iconic blonde, you have in mind write it down below and i'll consider it now don't forget to like comment and subscribe and until next time bye now hit the outro click here and see trixie mattel. Do my makeup or see my last episode of iconic blondes, it was mamie van doren. Come on click it you know you want to. If you don't click it i'll, send you a possessed doll and watching the child's play series is actually pretty good. You should check it out. No so click it