All photos courtesy of Tokyo Stylez.
From ten-minute wig swaps on set to the perils of BBL recovery in custom lawn chairs, Tokyo Stylez has lived every beauty extreme. The 35-year-old Miami-based hairstylist—best known as the in-demand wigmaker behind Cardi B’s Am I the Drama? rollout—has built a modern Madam C.J. Walker-style empire centered on precision, spectacle, and a near-militant dedication to maintenance. When I called her last week, she was off-duty and embracing her “classy era”: soft glam, clean-scented deep conditioner (“every two weeks,” she said), and medium-short French-tip Gel X nails. “Simple—straight to the point,” she said of her routine nowadays before explaining why frontals will always beat closures, bonnets that migrate in the night, and how Korean skincare might just be the secret to glass skin.
———
OLAMIDE OYENUSI: Hi. Where are you right now?
TOKYO STYLEZ: Hi! I’m in Miami.
OYENUSI: What’s your hairstyle at the moment?
STYLEZ: Oh girl, I got an afro. [Laughs] I just washed my hair last night, and I’ve been kind of just giving it a break since I’m on break right now from Cardi [B]. I’m just relaxing.
OYENUSI: How often do you wash your hair?
STYLEZ: I try to wash it at least every two weeks.
OYENUSI: Do you deep condition every wash?
STYLEZ: I try and do treatments every wash.
OYENUSI: Which ones?
STYLEZ: Deep condition, hot oil, and then I cut my ends and braid it back down.
OYENUSI: Is there a scent that you don’t like in your hair products?
STYLEZ: I don’t like citrus smells. I prefer something a little more just like, clean-smelling and soft, versus oranges and lemons.
OYENUSI: Are there any fall beauty trends that you’ve seen lately that you’ve been into?
STYLEZ: I see the girls stepping back into the coppers, orange tones, browns, and burgundies. Cardi’s obsessed with ginger right now, so I see that being a trend for the fall.
OYENUSI: As soon as it gets like 60 degrees, I want to go ginger. It’s something about the fall— I don’t know.
STYLEZ: [Laughs] Yes, it’s so pretty.
OYENUSI: Do you do your edges every day?
STYLEZ: My natural edges?
OYENUSI: Yeah.
STYLEZ: No, because I’m a wig girl. I wear protective hairstyles most of the time. I try not to touch my hair as much as possible—especially because I’m on the road traveling and working so much. I rarely ever have time to do my own hair.
OYENUSI: Closure or frontal—what’s your preference?
STYLEZ: Frontal, girl. The closures—they’re cool, they work. I like closures if you’re just doing a bang or something or something, you know? But I need to be able to pull my hair back and flip it and toss it side to side, so frontal all the way.
OYENUSI: When you detangle your hair, do you use a brush or a comb?
STYLEZ: I use a brush.
OYENUSI: And then when you’re blow drying it, do you use a blow-dry comb or blow-dry brush?
STYLEZ: Normally I use the comb on my blow dryer.
OYENUSI: What’s your favorite product for hair growth and retention? I know you said you do deep conditioning and hot oil treatments—is that it?
STYLEZ: I would say so, ’cause I don’t use a lot of different products. My hair care system is very simple—straight to the point. As long as my hair is completely moisturized and put away, that does it for me.
OYENUSI: How do you protect your hair while you’re sleeping?
STYLEZ: I’m a bonnet girl, and all of my pillowcases are silk because they’re also really good for your skin.
OYENUSI: I feel like my bonnet always flies off in the middle of the night.
STYLEZ: [Laughs] I’m not going to lie—the bonnet do be moving around itself sometimes. It’s been a few times I woke up, my bonnet’s on the floor, wig coming off. I’m like, “Oh!”
OYENUSI: [Laughs] And for your favorite protective style—you said that you like wigs. Is that it?
STYLEZ: Correct. I’m a wig girl all the way—100 percent, all day, every day.
OYENUSI: What color do you want to try next?
STYLEZ: This is the thing: I’m not really a color girl. I’ve done a lot of colors on myself, but I love jet black. But I do think the next color I’m going to do will be like a cinnamon brown.
OYENUSI: I’m a 1B warrior myself. It’s just so simple.
STYLEZ: [Laughs] Same. I don’t like to do too much crazy stuff unless I feel like giving a complete, full look. If it’s just for a day, cool—but for everyday wear, I like to keep it pretty natural and more realistic.
OYENUSI: What’s your favorite accessory to spice up a hair look?
STYLEZ: I would say headbands, because I wear headbands all the time—especially on those days when I really just don’t feel like doing anything to my hair. The headband is the perfect accessory to make it look elevated and put together, like you actually put effort into putting yourself together without really having to. I don’t like the ones with the combs that kind of raise, because I’m an active girl, so I like those active, flat headbands.
OYENUSI: How do you keep your hair from sweating out at the gym?
STYLEZ: It’s kind of hard, because me being a hairstylist, I can always fix my hair—but normally, I sweat a lot. So I just try to keep it tied down with an elastic band while I’m doing anything that’s going to make me sweat.
OYENUSI: How do you keep your makeup on all night?
STYLEZ: I don’t use primers, so that’s surprising.
OYENUSI: Oh, interesting.
STYLEZ: But I have really, really, really clear skin, and I drink lots and lots and lots of water. So I don’t know if that has something to do with it. And then I think the best way to keep your makeup on all night is how you set it.
OYENUSI: How many setting sprays do you use?
STYLEZ: See, Erika [La’Pearl], Cardi’s makeup artist, uses like three different ones, and I watch her, but I use one. I’m a one-girly, because I don’t like my base to be too heavy.
OYENUSI: Do you wear sunscreen all year round?
STYLEZ: I try to. I do forget sometimes, but most moisturizers that I use on my face have at least a 15 or 20 SPF in them already. I try, but sometimes I just forget.
OYENUSI: Do you do anything to treat hyperpigmentation?
STYLEZ: I do. I get dark spots sometimes under my neck. But I do this thing every four to five months called a PICO Peel, and it helps with hyperpigmentation a lot. I’ve seen my skin literally look so flawless without makeup because of these peels. It’s a laser peel—it’s not like your normal peel. They do it with a laser, and then the skin peels.
OYENUSI: Does it hurt?
STYLEZ: No, I wouldn’t say it hurts, ’cause I have a really high pain tolerance, first of all. So for me, no. But I could see how it could be annoying to someone who doesn’t take pain well.
OYENUSI: Do you have any tattoos?
STYLEZ: I have 11 tattoos. My first tattoo—I think I was 16, actually—I did without my mother’s permission. I got my name on my neck. My second tattoo was my friendship tattoo with my best friend Simone [Tisci]. We both got “Tokyo” and “Japan” on our hands, and that’s kind of been a staple in a lot of the photos I take when I do hair, ’cause you see the “Tokyo” print right there on the top of my hand. It’s kind of cool. I can’t remember the other ones, but I have my ex’s name all across my ribs on the side.
OYENUSI: [Laughs] You need to get that removed.
STYLEZ: I think about it, but it was so painful. I just don’t even want to deal with it. It was the most painful tattoo I’ve ever had. It felt like someone was digging in my skin with a butcher knife and just carving.
OYENUSI: What’s your favorite drugstore beauty product?
STYLEZ: Hair-wise, I’m going to say Got2b Blasting Freeze Spray. Skin-wise, those Neutrogena makeup wipes. I can’t live without them. I literally take them everywhere—I buy them almost every day. I love those wipes. Those are amazing.
OYENUSI: So do you prefer makeup wipes over micellar water?
STYLEZ: I use both, actually. But yeah, I like the wipes.
OYENUSI: What’s your go-to lip combo?
STYLEZ: I am a Cork or Chestnut liner from MAC and a clear gloss girl.
OYENUSI: Simple.
STYLEZ: Simple.
OYENUSI: Are there any other products that you always carry with you?
STYLEZ: Not really. I like to be as easy as possible. I don’t even carry purses, honestly. I just want to be able to have my credit cards, lip gloss, and a little small perfume or something.
OYENUSI: Full beat or soft glam?
STYLEZ: Lately, I’ve been into soft glam. I just think that’s the new makeup trend, period. I feel like everybody’s moving toward that softer, more natural, easy, effortless type of look.
OYENUSI: It lasts longer too.
STYLEZ: That, and then I noticed—looking back at photos—when you have a lot of makeup on, it kind of ages you. You look older and more mature, and you can’t really see your true beauty under all that extra powder and glaze.
OYENUSI: And if you have good skin, it makes your skin look worse somehow.
STYLEZ: Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. It takes away from your actual beauty, I feel. So I’ve definitely been more into the lighter, softer glam— little to nothing.
OYENUSI: Have you gotten any work done?
STYLEZ: I’m very open about plastic surgery. I love plastic surgery.
OYENUSI: Love that.
STYLEZ: I’ve only done—well, I’ve done my body: BBL, what, three times? Four times? The first time it was just lipo. The second time was lipo, small BBL—like I just spilled my hip pockets out. The third time was lipo and full BBL. The last time was full BBL and boobs. But I’ve done my boobs twice.
OYENUSI: And what’s that recovery process like?
STYLEZ: The first time I did it, it was easy-breezy. This time it was a little more difficult because I did boobs and BBL at the same time. Normally, when you do a BBL, you have to lay on your chest or your stomach, because you can’t sit on your butt. And I was not able to do that because I had boobs and butt. So they made a sort of lawn chair for me and cut the butt out—that’s what I had to sleep in, sit in all day every day, and take everywhere with me.
OYENUSI: Oh my.
STYLEZ: It was the most terrible experience ever. I will never do that ever again.
OYENUSI: How many weeks was the recovery process?
STYLEZ: Six to eight weeks that I had to sit in that chair before I could actually sit on my buttocks. Literally, the chair became my best friend because that was the only thing I could sit in.
OYENUSI: Where’s the chair now?
STYLEZ: In the trash. Well, it actually kind of fell apart over time. Oh, I forgot. I did my toes too.
OYENUSI: Your toes?
STYLEZ: Yeah. So I had really, really bad feet because I was a dancer-slash-athlete-slash-everything growing up, and I used to wear too-little shoes sometimes.
OYENUSI: [Laughs] Me.
STYLEZ: So yeah, it took a little toll over time. And I got my feet “removed.” They did a bunion correction, took away all my corns, and shortened my toes because my middle two toes were longer than the rest. They shortened them, and I actually went down a half-size in shoes after.
OYENUSI: I grew up dancing too, so now I just keep my feet away.
STYLEZ: Well, now I be having them out all the time because I got pretty feet now. [Laughs]
OYENUSI: What’s your go-to manicure and pedicure?
STYLEZ: I’m a French tip girl. White toes, or French on the toes too. I don’t like to do too much at all.
OYENUSI: Do you like natural nails, acrylic, Gel-X?
STYLEZ: I do Gel-X because I don’t like sitting too long. I like to get my nails done every week or every other week, so I don’t like anything too permanent either.
OYENUSI: What length?
STYLEZ: I like medium-short because I do hair. I have done the super ghetto, extra-long Cardi B nails, and it just gets in the way of everything. I prefer to just have them short and classy. I’m in a soft-girl, classy era now. Everything is just more simple and chill.
OYENUSI: I know that’s right. Do you have a favorite hair look from Cardi’s new album rollout?
STYLEZ: The cover was one of my favorite looks. And I don’t know if you’ve seen the intro video she did when she teased the beginning of the album, when she was screaming and the crows were chasing her. She had red hair, that old 60s, kind of pinup style. She just looks so pretty and elegant there. I love the way she looked in that. The Safe video with the orange hair was also one of my favorites. I absolutely love the layers, the cut—everything was just perfect. And we actually almost lost that scene. I had 10 minutes to do it.
OYENUSI: 10 minutes to do all of that?
STYLEZ: Correct. To take the wig off, clean the hairline, put that one on, adjust everything. I had prepped it the night before, of course, but I had literally 10 minutes to take a wig off, clean it, put the other one on, make sure it was right, and re-curl a few pieces. She had to get on because they were like, “We have 20 minutes or they’re going to shut the set down.”
OYENUSI: And were you able to do it in time?
STYLEZ: It happened. It made the cut. It’s in the video.
OYENUSI: What’s the last social-media beauty trend that you’ve tried?
STYLEZ: Medicube.
OYENUSI: What’s Medicube?
STYLEZ: So Medicube is this Korean skincare line. I actually just ordered it and it came in a few days ago. It’s these pads, but they have three different systems: one is to get rid of your pores, it’s called Zero Pore Pads; one is for tightening the skin and improving elasticity; and one helps with hyperpigmentation. You’re supposed to use all three together. You wipe your face, and that’s it.
OYENUSI: I’m going to write that down.
STYLEZ: And everybody that I’ve seen use it—their skin is like glass. I don’t know what they’re doing, but they’re so advanced.
OYENUSI: I know. And my last question—do you have a late fee?
STYLEZ: My system is a little different because I do day rates with most of my clients since I’m with them for long periods of time most of the time. And if you go over that day rate limit, then yes, I guess you can consider it a late fee because it’s like an overtime charge.
OYENUSI: I think that’s all that I have. Thank you so much for chatting with me.
STYLEZ: You too. Talk soon.
AloJapan.com