Jamie stevens' x factor diary: movie week

With the X Factor back on our screens for another season, we caught up with the show's official hairdresser - and British Hairdresser of the Year nominee - Jamie Stevens. Read on to find out more about what it's like to be backstage, which look is his favourite and how it feels to have your hard hair work discussed by the nation... "I’m back for a third year as the lead hair stylist backstage on the X Factor and, with the live shows underway, I’m delighted to be sharing what it’s like to work behind the scenes, some of my favourite looks and the busy schedule that me and my team lead throughout the series, whilst trying to juggle this with our everyday salon work - which is no easy feat! "On the X Factor, I create all the hair looks and have my trusted team of ten stylists that work with me to pamper, prime and preen not only all the contestants, but also all the dancers for the Saturday and Sunday night live shows. "There’s a lot of planning, time and people involved in the final looks that you seen up on screen. We plan the looks days in advance at creative meetings with the makeup artist and clothes stylist that make up the X Factor Style Team, to ensure a seamless, relevant look for the contestant and the week’s theme. The production team, judges and contestants are all part of that creative process too, which often means a lot of compromise and last minute changes, but for the better. "In the week, we often style the contestant’s hair for events, such as the Thor premiere last week. They’ll have treatments to revive hair that is stressed from all the styling it goes through and they’ll also see us for the much anticipated makeovers! "This year, we’ve been taking it slowly with making big transformations on the contestant’s hair. It’s a huge enough change for them to get used to being on stage in front of millions on a Saturday night TV show, so we want them to feel comfortable before making any radical changes and we’ll be introducing transformations as the weeks go on. "This week was the turn of Tamera, who we took back to blonde on Friday in the salon ahead of her ‘movie week’ performance where she took on Beyonce’s Dreamgirls song, Listen. When I first meet the contestants, I ask them to bring me images of two of their hair idols and for Tamera it was always Beyonce’s long, blonde locks. "With her mentor Nicole and the production team in support, my amazing head colourist Tasha Stevens, who is a finalist in the colour category at this year’s British Hairdressing Awards and my hair extension specialist Harry Casey were my dream team, working a full head weave on Tamera. Her old weave was taken off, then Tamera’s natural hair was treated, coloured, washed and blow-dried and then the new, coloured full hair weave was applied, taking about seven hours to transform her into a golden girl. "Because Tamera is only 16 we wanted to make sure it wasn’t a harsh or brassy blonde, so we went for more of a soft honey, caramel blonde. For me root stretch is still a big trend so we have her a few inches of dark root, which graduated into the blonde, whilst adding some subtle darker tones through the extensions to keep it looking soft. "Not only have we have so many incredible comments from everyone on The X Factor and via Twitter but it was amazing to have Louis Walsh congratulate me on Tamera’s transformation on Saturday night’s show. It was also fantastic to see the show give the ‘hairdressing’ aspect of the show some significant airtime this weekend, as it allows us to show how important hair is, as the main accessory to any of the contestant’s looks and how much of a change a cut or colour can make to a person.