Behind-the-Scenes Beauty Secrets From Always and Forever, Including a Tiny Lipstick Mishap

In the first film, Lara Jean wears her hair in a ponytail most of the time because it's the style she feels most comfortable in. By the third movie, she wears her hair down as she becomes more comfortable with herself. What you might not know is that this sleek look took eight hairpieces to achieve.

"I put them in every day in the morning and I'd take them out every night," Russell Brady, the hair department head, told POPSUGAR. "These long hairpieces, they were 22 inches long."

As much as it looks like Lara Jean wakes up with perfectly straight hair, it took a lot of prep that required an occasional 2:30 a.m. call-time. For her everyday hairstyle, Brady explained there was a big secret to getting the look just right. "Every single night when I took [the hairpieces] out, I used to take them back to my hotel and iron them smooth with a flat iron, every day," he said. Then in the morning, after securing them to Condor's head, he'd flat iron them again.

"Each section of hair, plus the hairpieces, were flat ironed and sprayed first with Paul Mitchell Hot Off The Press-Express Style ($19)," said Brady. "Then, [I] lightly sprayed all over with It's a 10 Miracle Shine Spray ($21) and [used] Kenra Professional Curl Defining Creme 5 ($17) at the end for flyaways."

Lara Jean was always fresh-faced with minimal makeup in the other films, but in To All the Boys: Always and Forever, her look evolves ever so slightly as she matures — especially after the school's senior trip to New York City. "People get all glammed up when they're in New York, so she does too," Marianne Olsen, makeup department head, said. "Then when she came back, she brought a little bit of that back with her — she's becoming a young woman."

The key to her more grown-up was false eyelashes, not extensions. Olsen explained that extensions can start to get "a little wonky" as the natural lashes grow and fall out "whereas, with the strip lashes, it's consistent." She used House of Lashes Au Naturale ($9) every day to get the job done.

For her pink, natural-looking lip colour Olsen used a combination of Jordana Draw the Line Lipliner ($4) in "Baby Berry" and Fresh Sugar Lip Balm Sunscreen SPF 15 ($24) in Rose on top of that. For the wedding scene where Lara Jean was a bit more dressed up with a red lip, Olsen used the Kaja Heart Melter Lip Gloss Stick ($17) in "Too Hot."

Centineo's beauty prep to get into character for Peter is understandably a lot simpler than Condor's, but that's not to say he doesn't have his own pared-down routine. In real life, Centineo has curly hair but Brady enhanced it with one special product. "I texturized it like crazy to get that curly look [using] small amounts of Sebastian Microweb Fibre ($22) all over," said Brady. "They really wanted it looking sort of very, very casual looking, and natural-looking."

Trying to make a 24-year-old look 17 has its own challenges in the makeup department but Olsen said it only took some minor colour correcting to hid Centineo's stubble. "[He] has a scar on his chin, you know," said Olsen. "Obviously, it was left and it just adds to his character."

When it came to prom — and a boatload of other scenes, for that matter — Olsen had to make sure that Lara Jean's lipstick didn't transfer onto Peter every time they shared an on-screen kiss, which proved to be a little difficult. To minimize smudging, she explained she blotted down the makeup as much as possible prior to filming a kissing scene.

"You don't want them over glossy, too saturated, and full of lipstick because it's just a heck of a mess to remove on the other person," said Olsen. "I had to go in there several times to tone down his face and his lips." But sometimes some transferring is inevitable: "There's one scene when they're in the tent and they're kissing and I can see a little bit of lip stain on Noah." Oops.

Prom is always a glamorous occasion and Lara Jean's beauty look was no exception. Brady spent hours on the internet researching the perfect hairstyle for a prom set in 2021. Using four additional hairpieces he created the half-up half-down curled style that we see in To All the Boys: Always and Forever. "The height on the top was so important to me — I really wanted to get that prom look," said Brady. 'There's a small wig wrapped up underneath a big wig on the top to give it the lift. You can't see her hair in that scene, that's all false hair."

It sounds like a lot, but Brady has experience with keeping heavy objects in place with hair. He began his training in England working with royalty and securing tiaras so, needless to say, he was more than prepared for the challenge. "There's a special way of putting in heavy pieces — you take a little square in the hair, pull it out, backcomb it, hairspray it, and then you anchor the clip at the root," said Brady. "That's the secret to the hairpieces not moving all day."