Sure, Blake Lively Showed Off Her Babies Today But Can We Talk About Her Hair Now?

Her hairstylist tells us how to get her flawless look

Updated on December 15, 2016 09:00 PM

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Oh, Blake Lively, how we’ve missed you. After giving birth to her second daughter with husband Ryan Reynolds, the star has finally returned to the spotlight — curing our separation anxiety from her flawless hair, perfect makeup and of course her amazing style inspiration. And now that she’s back, not only did she bring her two daughters with her, she brought her waves as well — a look that her longtime hairstylist, Rod Ortega, told us all about.

“Right now it’s just about simple,” Ortega tells PeopleStyle of her look, which she paired with a royal blue Atelier Versace fit-and-flare dress and Lorraine Schwartz emerald earrings. “Her hair is very healthy. She just had her baby, and it’s just about really simple, movable, shiny hair right now.”

And he adds that baby no. 2 has only added more excitement to their glam sessions. “It’s the same,” Ortega says. “Just with a little bit more fun. It’s just always nice. It’s nice to be around really good people and to be able to laugh. She’s so warm.”

Ortega explains that to create Lively’s “universal” look, he dried her wet hair using a T3 Featherweight Luxe 2i dryer, brushing it downwards to smooth everything out. Then, he parted her hair on the side set 1-1.5 in. sections of her hair in 12 of the the T3 Volumizing 1-in. Hot Rollers, leaving them in for about 15-20 minutes.

Yep, he secret to her dream-worthy waves is a simple set of rollers. And also a lot of God-given hair glory.

Ryan Reynolds — Rob Latour/Variety/REX/Shutterstock

Although Ortega typically turns to a curling iron for her waves, he wanted to try rollers for something a little softer. “Because it was daytime event, I gave her a nice, fresh, soft roller set. I just wanted something simple, but beautiful.”

And Lively was into the change. “She was like, ‘Let’s try it!’ She thought they were beautiful. What’s great about her is she’s open to options and being creative,” he says.

Of course, she was a fan of the look. “She loved it, she thought it was really pretty,” Ortega says. “Being creative and being on a red carpet, we’ve done a lot of different looks. Sometimes it’s nice just to have soft, beautiful, simple, healthy, shiny hair.”

The key scoring her effortless style? Leaving the hair clean and product-free before inserting the rollers, he says. “When I’m doing a roller set, I try to keep it clean and light. It’s more about the body and not weighing the hair down too much. I wanted to be able to brush through it and tease it and spray it a little bit, so in my professional opinion I didn’t.”

After removing rollers, Ortega says, “It’s all about letting the hair fall, and brushing it. What I did was, I took all the hair out of the rollers and I spritzed it with L’Oréal Paris Elnett Satin Hairspray which is very nice and brushable, which I love. It just adds volume without leaving the hair stiff and sticky. That’s all I used, Elnett and the L’Oréal Spray Shine. Those were the two main products I used.”

— Reporting by Jackie Fields