Jennifer Lopez and others react to the death of celebrity hairstylist Oribe Canales
Oribe Canales, a celebrity hairstylist who rose to fame before launching his eponymous line of styling products, has died, a company spokeswoman confirmed. He was 62.
Canales was known as one of the industry’s great hairdressers. He worked with celebrities including Jennifer Lopez and models including Naomi Campbell. He was a mainstay at fashion week, where he designed runway-ready locks for big names like Chanel, before going on to launch his product line.
Members of the beauty community took to Instagram Monday to share their sorrows.
Mally Roncal, the makeup artist behind Mally Beauty, wrote: “There are no words to express what you mean to me, all you did for me and the time we spent together. I love you so much.”
Makeup artist Mary Greenwell called Canales one of the “great original hairdressers.”
She posted an older photo of the two of them together, saying, “Here we are in the Nineties, holding each other close. He always had his arms around someone or dancing on set.…The world of fashion and beauty has lost a great soul, and we will mourn that you have left us all behind while you have gone straight to heaven.”
While the likes of Miley Cyrus, Cindy Crawford and Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele and more are pouring out the tributes on Instagram and other social platforms, it’s Jennifer Lopez who many were most waiting to hear from.
Canales and Jennifer Lopez have a long history together, working togeter on looks for the star from the Nineties, alongside makeup artist Scott Barnes and then-stylist Andrea Lieberman — the glam squad that introduced the world to J.Lo as we know her. Canales started styling Lopez’s hair in 1997, for her debut album, “On the 6.”
Oribe created many looks for the star, notably an extreme Sixties-inspired bouffant for the 2002 Oscars. The look, widely panned, but according to the late hairstylists site, “Lopez had the good taste to absolutely love it.”
See what Jennifer Lopez said on Instagram about the passing of her friend and collaborator.
“When I was 16 I was fascinated with Vogue magazine I would ride on the train and look at all the images of the supermodels and I was obsessed with the hair!! When I saw an image I loved I would check who did it and it was always someone named Oribe…Wow…he’s amazing I would think!! Cut to years later, I was making my first album. I started working with Benny Medina and he said to me we have to do an album cover shoot who do you want for hair and makeup…honestly I was so new to the industry I knew no one and remembered my time flipping thru those magazines on the 6 and said ummm Oribe and Kevin Aucoin… Benny laughed and said oh OK! The next 10 years I would spend with Oribe by my side in every waking and working moment. We fell in love with each other. We traveled the world together. And along with Scott Barnes they helped me blossom into JLO. It was a magical and exhausting time…And when I was tired he would say to me… “You are gonna get up and go out there and be beautiful and fabulous bc that your job!!” We’d laugh bc that sounded crazy and then we would get to the business of doing our “job” !! He made me love the glam part of things. Bc he loved it so much and saw it as a powerful tool to empower women. He loved beauty and wanted women to feel beautiful and sexy. He loved the messiness and the imperfection and saw how interesting that was. He was a true artist.He made me feel special and beautiful for so long. I could go on and on but I will just say with a heavy heart… Thank you sweet, beautiful man… I will miss you. I love you Oribe… so much… 💔#latinolegend#artistextraordinaire #hairgod #familia”
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