Thank you, Joe Keery, for always showing off your perfect hair! The actor has become known for his role as Steve Harrington on Stranger Things, but his luscious locks have taken on a life of their own.

“Use the shampoo and conditioner, and when your hair’s damp — it’s not wet, OK? — when it’s damp, you do four puffs of the Farrah Fawcett spray,” Joe’s character Steve says during the show’s second season before threatening Gaten Matarazzo‘s character, Dustin Henderson. “You tell anyone I told you that, and your ass is grass, you understand?” Steve said.

However, that rather intense haircare routine is not how he does his hair in real life.

“It’s not like I really do anything for my hair, I just wash it every three to four days. People seem to be mystified by it,” Joe told Esquire in October 2017. “It’s mostly just my parent’s hair.”

He went on to say that “if the haircut is good, that’s half the job,” before praising the show’s hairstylist, Sarah Hindsgaul. “She’s the best. She does the hair for the entire cast, and you can see her work, which is unbelievable how accurate and subtle her work is,” Joe told the magazine. “It’s not like in-your-face ‘80s — it’s really nice and tasteful. She’s the hair guru.”

Sarah, for her part, has explained the process behind turning Joe into Steve during various interviews.

“It’s just Joe’s hair, no extensions. It’s a huge undertaking. [Laughs] It’s hard hair to get it to stay back because his hair is so thick and does what it wants,” she quipped while chatting with Refinery29 in November 2017. “Joe loves talking about hair — we could talk about his hair for hours! We started ping-ponging crazy ideas back and forth early on. Joe said, ‘You need to top what we did last year!'”

Two years later, Sarah spoke to the site again about how Steve’s hair evolved from season to season.

“We tweaked it,” she told Refinery29 in July 2019 “We have a lot more length in the back this time and more layers.”

Who would have thought that so much goes into one person’s hair? Well, with hair like Joe’s — the perfect routine is worth it! From short cuts to letting it grow out, scroll through our gallery to see the actor’s hair evolution throughout his time in the spotlight.

Love J-14? Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for fun, exclusive videos with your favorite stars.