Kelsea Ballerini On the Oil That Saved Her Hair During Tour

As someone who has been on a hair journey herself, Kelsea Ballerini wants you to “get your fixins for your country fried hair.” The singer’s recent campaign with Pantene, where she plays a southern diner waitress serving up hair health fixins, is the cutest thing since sliced bread. She was so perfect in the video, I’m petitioning for a film role next (remake of Waitress, anyone?). I caught up with the star on the day the video dropped to catch up on all the best things in life—hair, girlhood, glitter and diner dishes.

What’s the worst hair disaster you’ve experienced?

“I’ve done some damage over the years. I started dying my hair in middle school just for funsies. I started with like the tiger stripes. I went back to my natural color, which is like a light medium brown, a couple of years ago, and getting it back to blonde was tough, but it’s also the fun of it. I never want to have to sacrifice playing with my look for the health of my hair, so I’m always trying to find that perfect balance.”

How do you keep your hair healthy while letting yourself feel free to play with colors and styles?

“Three years ago, I did a chop. I was like, ‘we’re going to start over here.’ I worked so hard to do it all right, and then I toured this spring, and I was like, ‘man, I don’t want to damage it,’ so we ended up doing a wig for tour, which was so fun. I felt like Hannah Montana. But also, it was nice because every night we would use this amazing Pantene hair oil ($13). We’d douse my hair in it, put the wig on, take it off, and I’d sleep in the oil and then wash my hair the next day, so every day I was doing a treatment on my hair. So I ended up touring, and my hair was better afterwards, which has never happened for me before.”

This campaign pays homage to your country roots. How do you stay true to yourself and your origins while experiencing fame?

“I think changing is the point. I think whether I was in this job or a different job, I would be different, like we should be different from 20 to 30 and 10 to 20, so I think changing and evolving is healthy, but I think for me, staying grounded is about making sure that I have balance and real-life lifers around me. My real-life circle is very small, and it looks very similar to how it always has. There’s a lot of accountability. They’re not scared to celebrate with me, and they’re not scared to have the hard talks with me too, and I appreciate that.”

Yeah, you’re such a girl’s girl, I feel like you’re really good at balancing your friends and your relationship, which not everyone is.

“It’s very important to me—girlhood and sisterhood. I’m an only child, so I’ve always just really protected that side of my life. But honestly, it’s beautiful because I’ve had these relationships for such a long time, and they will always be a priority for me, but I’m able to do that just with the girls, but also with my partner. There’s a lot of cross-pollination that we have in our worlds now, which I think is really healthy and newer for me.”

You’re on a little break from tour, but what are some essentials?

“Glitter. So much glitter. Some good magnesium because sleeping on a tour bus is different in your 30s. And more glitter. All the glitter.”

As a creative, how do you balance your mental health while pushing yourself to create?

“I have a lot of grace for myself to have a bad day, and I think for a long time I was like ‘wait a second why do I feel sad today? I’m so lucky, I’m so blessed, I’m getting to do what I’ve always wanted to do.’ I had to unwire that part of my brain and be like ‘we’re all human no matter what job we have and everyone has life happen to them,’ so I think once I gave myself that grace of just ‘wait a second I’m a human that does this for a living,’ then I just started having a better relationship with my own mental health. Talking about it is really important to destigmatize it and knowing that every day is probably going to be a little different and that’s pretty normal actually.”