The Best Beach Hair of All Time: From Brigitte Bardot to Blake Lively

It’s an indisputable fact that nothing looks better or feels more like summer than tousled, sea-swept beach hair. Over the past decade or so, dozens of salt sprays and surf-inspired styling mists devoted to re-creating those textured, easy waves have popped up at beauty boutiques around the country. Still, nothing quite compares to the real thing, with its carefree appeal and its connotations of sunny days, beach holidays, and late-night ocean swims.   

Who could forget the startling visual impact of Marisa Berenson’s famous head flip, shot by one-time-boyfriend Arnaud de Rosnay, in the September 1, 1970 issue of Vogue? Or Brigitte Bardot’s rumpled blonde mane, immortalized on-screen in Two Weeks in September and captured in Búzios with real-life Brazilian boyfriend Bob Zagury in the mid-sixties?

 Bo Derek’s braided cornrows in the 1979 beach flick 10 became infinitely more famous than the film itself, while Pamela Anderson’s platinum, busty beauty in Baywatch transformed her into an iconic symbol of ’90s sexuality.

 In more recent years, it’s the stars of the cult summer surf movie Blue Crush and scenes of Blake Lively hanging ten on the California coast that have captured our imagination. Here, a look at the best beach hair throughout history.