The 15 Best & 10 Worst America's Next Top Model Makeovers

Hey, y'all! I'm a long-time America's Next Top Model fan, but in the past couple years, I've fallen off the bandwagon-- not finishing off the few seasons I haven't seen, and not really re-watching episodes either. But, over the past week or so, I've been re-watching some older episodes of ANTM, including several makeover episodes, as those are my favorites. And given my love of lists and rankings, I decided that I wanted to do a blog post listing my favorite and least favorite makeovers in the 22 cycle history of the show.

Before I jump into the lists, I wanted to explain my criteria for choosing which makeovers made each list. As should be obvious, these are very subjective lists. While I typically try to be as objective as possible, I have my likes and dislikes-- and some of those will become evident pretty quickly. It should also be noted that these aren't rankings. The makeovers are listed in cycle order with only a couple exceptions.

When it comes to the "best" makeovers, the end result is not the only important factor-- how big of a change it is also plays a role. What I mean by this is that someone who walks into makeovers looking amazing and walks out of makeovers looking almost exactly the same isn't going to end up on my list. (Prime example being Kim cycle 5-- loved her look but it barely changed)

An important thing to note when dealing with the worst makeovers, however, is that I'm not taking into account "botched" makeovers. Throughout the years, there have been several cases where a girl has gotten a makeover and Tyra had to fix it because it was a disaster. You won't find those on this list, because the look itself wasn't the problem, but rather the execution. There are a couple looks on this list that technically fall under that category, but they were still awful even when they got fixed.

OK, I've rambled long enough-- let's just jump into the lists.

Top 15 Best ANTM Makeovers

Cycle 18 Makeovers

OK, it might be a bit of a cop-out to rank a whole season on the list, but the makeovers this season were seriously on-point and would've taken up a huge chunk of this list. Tyra went out on a limb and went for funky colors and interesting cuts, and it was a bold choice that really paid off for a lot of the models. Below are some of my favorites among the bunch. 

Azmarie

This one technically breaks my rule of the makeovers needing to be a significant change but I really loved her look.

Catherine

Catherine has a very classic, very British look, and the bold hot pink/red hair made her look super edgy.

Laura

As you'll discover rather soon, I'm a sucker for ice blonde makeovers. The red and blue clip-ins were a little overboard with the "America" theme, but I love the overall look.

 Louise

Despite her freakout over cutting and coloring her hair, the shorter hair looked amazing with her bone structure.

Sophie

By taking her slightly more blonde and adding a subtle pink, Sophie got a really cute but high fashion look.

Alisha

Alisha's short hair looked fine, but adding the hair on one side and shaving the other gave her a really cool, edgy look.

The Ice Blondes

Tyra really likes to give girls hair so blonde that it's almost white, and it almost always looks fantastic. Once again, these would've just dominated the list, so I lumped them all together. Laura from cycle 18 was a great example, but there are several more below. 

 Anya- Cycle 10

Taking Anya from brunette to ice blonde with matching brows gave her a really interesting look that worked really well for her.

 Erin- Cycle 13

Erin might be my favorite of the ice blondes. Her pale skin combined with the nearly-white hair gave her a super edgy look.

 Rae- Cycle 13

Rae was the least drastic change but bleaching her eyebrows and going even more blonde made a huge difference.

Amanda- Cycle 3

Amanda's ice blonde looked especially great because it was combined with her light blue eyes.

Laura- Cycle 19

Laura's makeover is different from the others because she's actually fairly tan, which gives the ice blonde a very different look altogether. 

Shandi- Cycle 2

Now, we're moving into the single makeovers. Shandi was really the first stand-out makeover. She was really nerdy and a bit mousy, but dying her hair blonde really made her stand out from the pack and gave her a totally different look.

Naima- Cycle 4

Naima had an interesting look beginning the competition, but her honey-blonde mohawk really complemented her skintone. I went back and forth between this one and Keenyah from the same season, but the more I looked at her hair, the more I realized how much I love this look on her.

Jenah- Cycle 9

TBH, this picture doesn't do the makeover justice. This makeover really took Jenah over the top. She looked a bit pedestrian before, but the long blonde hair really made her look high fashion.

Fatima- Cycle 10

This is the single makeover in the history of ANTM that really stands out to me as the best makeover in the history of the show. Her hair was a total disaster at the beginning of the show, and her makeover looked amazing. It was such a drastic change and it completely changed her look.

Allison- Cycle 12

This is another real standout, memorable makeover. Allison is one of the favorite models through the show's history, and her makeover was the better version of Shandi's. Her hair at the beginning of the show was very basic, and the big blonde curls added to her quirky ethereal look.

Fo- Cycle 12

Fo had a lot of trouble adjusting to her short hair, but I think it's probably the best "chop all the hair off" makeover in the history of the show. It kept her cuteness but gave her a little edge and it worked really well for her face.

Lulu- Cycle 13

Lulu's look was such a drastic change and it made her look super high-fashion. I'm not usually a huge fan of bangs, but they really framed her face well.

Raina- Cycle 14

Raina's lighter hair looked fine, but the dark hair gave her a much edgier look. Combined with her thick eyebrows and her blue eyes, her dark hair helped to create what I believe to be the best picture in Top Model history:

Phil- Cycle 20

We all thought Tyra was crazy for giving Phil a weave, but the long hair really worked on him. That plus the beard really gave him a distinct look that was really current and interesting. 

Nina- Cycle 20

I'm always a fan of Tyra giving a girl red hair, and I think this was the best. The blue eyes, pale skin, bangs, and vivid hair combined to give Nina a really interesting look.

Shei- Cycle 21

This was another makeover where we all questioned Tyra a little bit, but I really like how it ended up turning out. It gave her a really edgy, interesting look.

Hadassah- Cycle 22

Maybe I'm just a sucker for edgy haircuts, but shaving one side of her head took Hadassah from being almost too pretty to being pretty but with an edge.

Lacey- Cycle 22

Like I said earlier, bangs aren't always my favorite, especially heavy bangs. But they framed Lacey's face really well and really highlighted her eyes. Before, she looked pretty pedestrian, but this hair made her really high-fashion.

Top 10 Worst ANTM Makeovers

Ann- Cycle 3

I just don't understand the point of this, let alone when or why this was considered high fashion. Because those two front blonde chunks just look messy. The length is good, but that blonde can't be overlooked.

Michelle- Cycle 4

This is actually this hair at its best. Most of the cycle, her roots were growing in really dark and it honestly just looked really odd on her. This is one of the rare cases where ice blonde definitely did NOT work as it was supposed to.

Saleisha- Cycle 9/ Brittani- Cycle 16

I lumped the two of them together because they were given very similar makeovers. I'll give Tyra credit-- it definitely made them more edgy and both of them won their cycle. But, that doesn't mean the makeover was good. The general consensus is that these makeovers didn't really suit their faces, and I definitely agree. The bangs are overpowering on both of them, and the cut is much too blunt. I definitely agree that they needed to be edged out, but these styles were definitely not the right ones.

Dominique- Cycle 10

This is one where even Tyra realized it was botched. However, even after fixing it, this didn't look good. The short hair really aged Dominique. She was 23, and it made her look (as noted by a photographer) like the mom of one of the girls. The color wasn't great, the way it was styled was aging, and the cut itself was aging. Not. Good.

Stacy Ann- Cycle 10

Like with Saleisha and Brittani, I agree that Stacy Ann needed to be edged out. But this haircut was not the way to do that. Given her strong bone structure, a short cut was probably the way to go, but not this short cut. Maybe a nearly buzzed cut or a buzzed cut combined with long pieces in the front (a la Simone Cycle 14). It just seems like it's either slightly too long or slightly too short, which makes it look odd. 

Brenda- Cycle 14

This makeover is one of the standout worsts for me. As with the past few, I definitely think she needed to be edged out. But this short hair aged her quite a bit. With the long hair, she was deemed "too sexy," but the short hair made her look so much older than she was. On top of that, the cut itself wasn't that great. Like with Stacy Ann, shorter was probably the way to go, but not this cut.

Destiny- Cycle 19

I feel like a broken record. Yes, an edgy cut would work well on her. But not the way they did it. But why is the hair on the left side of her head so long? Just shave the side and leave the bangs. The way they did it in makeovers just didn't look good. It didn't work with her hair texture, and it just didn't work. 

Brittany- Cycle 19

TBH, I kinda liked her original look. Maybe it's the styling but I just really hated this makeover. Like with the others, I think some tweaking would really help it out. The color was off, the cut was off, and the styling was horrid. 

Kari- Cycle 21

And this, my friends, is the worst ice blonde makeover the show has ever done. There were just too many aspects that were slightly off. The shade of blonde wasn't right for her skintone. It was too yellowy and not enough ice. And then combine the bleached brows with her hairline being so far back, it just didn't look good. A few tweaks could've fixed it, but it was a mess as-is.

Denzel- Cycle 21

This is probably the worst idea Tyra has ever come up with for makeovers. She decided that Denzel needed a beard, but he couldn't grow it himself so she gave him a lace-front beard. It looked about as fake as you would expect it to. And the worst part was that no one seemed to realize it looked awful. Denzel thought it looked good, Tyra thought it looked good, but it looked horrible and fake- like someone had glued fur to his face or something. It was really bad.

Ava- Cycle 22

If Denzel's fake beard wasn't the worst makeover idea ever on the show, Ava's is. Tyra literally called this the "fashion mullet" (or something very similar-- mullet was definitely in the name). The sad thing is that if they'd just gotten rid of the "mullet" part of this, it could've been good. But it looked like a mess. No one can ever make mullets look good. It's not possible. Tyra tried really hard with this, but it was horrible. No, no, no. 

How NOT to Color Your Hair: My Journey to Becoming a Redhead

Hey, y'all! This post is going to be just a bit more... random... than usual. It's not really a review or a challenge or even a get to know me. I'm going to be telling you about the absolute WORST hair dye experience I've ever had. Seriously, never EVER do this to your hair.

Before college, I'd never colored my hair. It was just this color:

Me, in either my junior or senior year of HS

Then, in October of my freshman year, I really wanted to put some red in my hair. I wasn't totally sure what I wanted to do for sure, but I ended up coloring the tips of my bangs red.

Thanksgiving break freshman year...

Then, after my Christmas break, I cut my bangs shorter and realized that if I just did the tips again, I would only have the tiniest red left. So, I decided to do all of my bangs red...

Febuary-ish, freshman year.

...which I kept throughout the rest of my freshman year and the summer. Then, not too far into my sophomore year, I got bored. I decided to amp it up a bit. I decided to color my tips as well, but rather than just put the red dye on my natural color, I decided to bleach it first to get a more vibrant color.

SUCH a good look for me...

So then came the red hair color, and it actually turned out really nicely!

Seriously, I LOVED this color- even when it started to fade to orangey red. 

ALL THE SELFIES!

My parents, unfortunately, did not love this color, and told me that it had to be gone when I came home for thanksgiving. I could keep the bangs as long as I got rid of the tips. I wasn't too terribly upset to lose the tips, since by that point they were almost completely orange. It was, however, a bit of a struggle to get rid of them. I tried Color Oops, but that didn't work. Eventually, I ended up coloring my entire head (sans bangs) a dark brown, and then, for myself, I had a couple inches cut off.

Honestly, I actually ended up really liking this color. I was really glad to get a hair cut, and the single pop of red was great. Now, we approach the point of this post... my journey to becoming a redhead.

I've always kinda wanted to be a redhead. I'm super pale with pinky undertones, and my mom says I totally missed my calling to be a redhead. I've wanted to go auburn for a really long time- even back in high school. Early January, I decided to go for it. My bangs were growing out and fading to orange again, and my dark brown was fading a bit to reveal the remnants of my red tips, so I figured it would be the best time. My roommate was wanting to color her hair as well, so we went together and got color. We each got Garnier's Olia, because a friend of ours really likes that brand. She went for a dark brown, however.

I got the color shown above, and around 2 in the afternoon, my roommate and I began coloring our hair. We both left it on for the right amount of time and then applied the conditioner, rinsed it out, and dried our hair. I was SO confused. My hair appeared to be literally the EXACT same color it had been before on my entire head except for right at the roots at my part. That hair was somewhere between my dark brown and the color on the box. Clearly, something went wrong. What, I'm not sure. But there was a definite problem. Anyway, I thought about it a bit and decided that the best way to get everything to the same color was to bleach it and then apply the color I wanted. So, I went back and got these:

I was extremely wary of repurchasing the Olia 6.60 because of the poor results the first time, so I went with the Garnier Nutrisse foam. I used Splat's hair dye for both my bright red and for bleaching my tips, so I knew it would get good results. So, first I bleached my hair...

Overall it turned out pretty well but I was really concerned about the bangs because they never totally stopped being red. So then, I continued on with the light intense auburn color, but it didn't exactly turn out as expected...

Oops...

Bright, bright red? That's definitely not what the box said it would look like when used on blonde hair! Anyway, I looked at it for a while, and had done SO much coloring on my hair that I thought about just leaving it. I like bright red, and even though it totally wasn't what I was going for, I actually thought I could rock the red. And then, my roommate got back from dinner and we noticed some problems...

AHHH! Everything seemed like it was the same color, but all of this was lying underneath! And obviously some of it didn't even get the blonde! It's so terrible! Good thing I didn't decide to rock the red! Anyway, we headed back to the drugstore to buy MORE hair color, and this time I got:

I was still a bit worried about using Olia, but since my roommate's worked fine, I decided to go for it. I also decided it was best to go for a reddish brown rather than a brownish red. I figured there was enough red already in my hair. I have to admit, it was super awkward walking into the drugstore with bright red hair. So, one more color later, it was finally over. My hair ended up a single color, and everyone's happy. 

Seriously, that's the biggest struggle I've ever had while coloring my hair, and I'm legitimately surprised that my hair didn't fall out. I colored it FOUR times in a single day, all permanent. As the title suggests, this is how NOT to color your hair. Never, ever, ever do this.

Anyway, I hope you liked this totally random story about my usually boring life. I've told it so many times to amused friends that I figured the internet would appreciate it as well. Needless to say, I'm staying away from hair color for a little while! Let me know your crazy hair color stories in the comments! If you enjoy my posts, I'd love it if you would subscribe/ follow, so that I know you like what I'm doing. Thanks, y'all!