The Practical Magic 2 hair and makeup decisions were never going to be simple copy-paste jobs from 1998. Nearly three decades separate the two films, cameras see far more than they once did, and the Owens sisters have lived hard in the intervening years. The stylists who built those looks (some of them the same people who built the originals) had to reconcile nostalgia with the realities of modern filmmaking, and the results are woven into every scene.
The film is based on author Alice Hoffman’s The Book of Magic, according to Common Sense Media, bringing the Owens sisters back to the screen with a fresh chapter that demanded fresh thinking about how they look.
Why the Practical Magic 2 Hair and Makeup Team Rebuilt Kidman’s Wig from Scratch
Nicole Kidman’s auburn-and-copper wig for the original film fooled most audiences into thinking it was her own hair. For the sequel, her on-set hairstylist Kim Santantonio worked with wigmaker Rob Pickens to build something new. Despite having the original wig in their possession, the team chose not to replicate it.
“The first wig was very straight, like we flatironed it,” Santantonio explains. “It felt heavy [and looked] all one length. This time around, [Kidman] was moving her head a lot, wanting a lot of movement, flickering and flying, so when I put [the new wig] on her the first time, we razor-cut into it around her face, creating a lot of layers.” Kidman had two wigs made, one for backup, and Santantonio styled each by going in first with a curling iron for volume, then using a flatiron to straighten sections, producing what she calls a “rock and roll” effect.
Colour was the other major departure. The original wig had, in Santantonio’s words, “no colour variation.” For the sequel, Pickens built in highlights throughout, because natural hair carries tonal variation that a flat shade cannot replicate. Angela Levin, Kidman’s makeup artist, explains why that matters now more than it did in 1998: “When they shot the first one, the camera and the stock were so different than they are today. Throughout the years, everything changed: the way it’s been lit, the colours, like Kim said, the highlights and the lowlights in the hair became crucial because the camera will pick it up.” Levin is direct about the consequence: the original wig looked right on the film stock of 1998; place it in front of a modern camera and it would not hold.
Sally’s Hair Carries the Weight of the Owens Curse
Sandra Bullock’s hairstylist Janine Thompson worked with Bullock on the original film 28 years ago and returned for the sequel. Walking back onto the rebuilt set last year moved her more than she expected. “I couldn’t help it. I just started to cry,” she says. “I found out I was pregnant with my first baby when I worked on [the original film], and when I walked back into that dining room, it all came back.”
Some of that personal connection translated directly into the work. Thompson brought a box of hair accessories from the original production and passed them to the hair department head for the sequel, who incorporated them into background details. Bullock wears one in the cemetery scene.
Sally’s hair in the sequel is deliberately tighter and more controlled than in the original. “Sally’s had a really rough go of it, and she’s very conservative and very tight because of all the horrible things she’s been through,” Thompson explains. “Her hair is pulled back because she wants to control everything, but Sally isn’t really in control. So pieces are falling out. We very specifically pulled those pieces out to make it look like she can’t fight who she is.” By the film’s end, once the curse breaks, those curls soften. “The curls have relaxed because she finally gets to a peaceful place,” says Thompson.
To build Sally’s curls, Thompson used products from LolaVie, the brand launched by one of Bullock’s close friends, Jennifer Aniston. The process involved applying the Leave-In Spray and Detangler to wet hair, leaving it to dry overnight, then working the LolaVie oil through the curls the following day to break them up before finishing with a half-inch and one-inch curling iron.
De-Ageing, VFX and the Flashback Scene
At the film’s opening, a flashback takes Bullock and Kidman back to roughly the era of the first film. The Practical Magic 2 hair and makeup team could not rely on digital tools alone: Whitney James, Bullock’s makeup artist, kept the look clean and minimal for the scene, referencing photographs from the original production to replicate thinner brows, a fresher cheek flush, and eyeliner on the lower lash line. “It was a balancing act in all ways,” James says.
The digital side of that balancing act was handled by the visual effects company One of Us, with Roma O’Connor serving as Production VFX Producer, according to Art of VFX. The practical makeup work and the VFX had to meet in the middle: too much product on set and the de-ageing would fight it; too little and the camera would expose every modern contour.
For Kidman’s scenes elsewhere in the film, Levin took a deliberately non-realistic approach to the Practical Magic 2 hair and makeup. She focused on beige and gold tones with a subtle shimmer, added cool lilacs, lavenders and grays to complement Kidman’s colouring, and reached for the Lisa Eldridge Betty Eyeshadow palette on set. The blush she used, Dior Beauty’s Rosy Glow Radiance pH-Activated Blush Stick in Pink Lilac, drew compliments throughout the shoot. “It didn’t look like something that was applied; it looked like something that came from within,” Levin says. Her guiding logic: the film’s witchcraft setting gave the team licence to break conventional camera rules. “Every [traditional film makeup] rule was something I ignored because I just wanted to evoke that mystical feeling.”
