Get the Look: Nina Dobrev’s ‘Knot-Hawk’ at the People’s Choice Awards

Periodically, at award shows, a star brings a stunning makeup look or hair style to the red carpet that becomes the talk of the beauty world. At the People’s Choice Awards, the star that created the buzz was Nina Dobrev, and the look was her unique ‘knot-hawk’, which was created by hairstylist and Nine Zero One Salon Co-owner Riawna Capri.

I jumped on the phone with Riawna and got all the details about how she created Nina’s chic-but-fierce style, and the good news is it’s surprisingly easy to achieve!

Riawna is a personal friend of Nina’s, and the pair had just finished a 16-day vacation to Australia, during which Riawna said she was inspired by how Nina’s hair looked after getting out of the ocean. So to recreate that textured ocean hair, first Riawna sprayed KMS California Hair Play Sea Salt Spray all over Nina’s hair, and then let it air dry.

Once the hair was dry, Riawna made four mini ponytails starting at the nape of the neck and then moving up two inches for each one, with the fourth pony at the top of the crown. She left the hair on the very top of the head loose.

Next, Riawna took the lowest ponytail, split it in two pieces, and tied a knot–”Just like when you’re tying your shoes,” says Riawna. She tied knot after knot until she was at the end of the hair, and then wrapped the ends around the knot and pinned it.

She then repeated this process on the remaining three ponytails. “Since there is more hair as you move up the head, the knots were just naturally bigger as they got higher, so it naturally created more volume as I moved up the head,” says Riawna.

Then Riawna took the top, loose section of hair and curled random pieces before pulling it loosely back toward the knotted section and pinning pieces into place.

“The key is not to pull the knots too tight, so you get plenty of body,” shares Riawna.

Finally, she sprayed the finished look with KMS California Hair Stay Maximum Hold Spray to make sure the look stayed in place all night.

And when you recreate this look, don’t forget to give create where credit is due: ”Nina came up with the name knot-hawk,” says Riawna.