Salad praise: how ice hockey’s ‘lettuce’ hair is winning over Hollywood | Men’s hair
Haircut ideas are often brought up in salons, but a more unusual source of inspiration has emerged recently: the produce section.
“Lettuce hair” is trending. A gentler take on the traditional mullet, the new salad style consists of more subtle differences in length between the back, sides and top of the hair. Lettuce bristles have a loose and often wavy top, slightly tapered sides, and a hairy tail that wraps around the back of the neck, resembling leafy greens.
For the Wuthering Heights press tour, Jacob Elordi softened his on-screen surrogate cut, narrowing the sides but keeping the windswept top and tail, reminiscent of a head of lettuce. Heated Rivalry’s Connor Storrie’s wavy locks could be mistaken for a curled endive, while figure skater Ilia Malinin’s butter lettuce curls add extra drama to the Quad God’s stunning axles.
The salad style originates from the world of ice hockey, where players widely adopted mullets in the 70s and 80s. Despite the demise of the mullet in the ’90s, hockey players were slow to abandon the “back party” and instead toned down, resulting in the emergence of more modern lettuce locks.
“The classic sign of proper hockey hair is that you can clearly see it flowing out from the back when wearing the helmet,” says Markus Ekroth, right winger for Sweden’s Nackarockers. The team has amassed hundreds of thousands of views of their videos TikTok videos showing off the team’s best lettuce hair.
“I have naturally wavy hair, so I usually ask my hairstylist to keep it some length in the back, especially around the neck, and long enough on the top so I can tuck it behind my ears,” says Ekroth. “If you have good lettuce, people will definitely notice it. It’s seen as a bonus and part of the hockey identity.”
Hockey players refer to the long strands of hair that fly from under their helmets as they skate as “flow” or “flow state.”
Some of the finest examples of flow will be on display at the men’s gold medal ice hockey match at the Winter Olympics on Sunday. Ekroth says U.S. player William Nylander, Swede Mika Zibanejad and Germany’s Moritz Seider have “great lettuce” and represent the “classic modern hockey look.”
But the look isn’t limited to hockey. Pulltab Sports editor-in-chief John King compares Malinin’s swirling mane to US ice hockey star Jake Guentzel’s swirling tresses and points to US freestyle skier Mac Forehand’s “wonderful hair” as a strong example of the style. “Mullets are hockey hair, but not all hockey hairs are mullet,” King says.
King has been compiling an annual “All Hockey Hair Set” since 2011 YouTube video where he sorts the lettuces for his hometown Minnesota high school hockey team. It has subscribers from all over the world, many of whom have never watched a hockey game.
Now the trend is moving rapidly from the runway to the red carpet. Barry Keoghan new hairHe’s heavily coded lettuce as he prepares to play Ringo Starr. Just like Harry Styles’ tasseled curls in the promotional photos of his new album Aperture. Glen Powell, Brad Pitt, Paul Mescal and Austin Butler have also succumbed to the salad recently.
Ekroth says part of the appeal is that style promotes confidence. “It doesn’t add anything to your performance physically, but the saying ‘look good, play good’ definitely applies.”
King says some actors have recently started getting perms to maintain a consistent curly lettuce look, while others are bleaching it for extra effect. Only time will tell whether Hollywood will follow suit and go with the flow.
