If you thought the unicorn food trend was spiralling out of control when Starbucks released its limited-time only Unicorn Frappuccino last week, you may be right.

A Winnipeg hairdresser took the whimsical multi-coloured craze one step further with a hairdo inspired by the giant coffee chain’s popular new beverage and she’s attracted international attention for it.

Kelly Woodford, co-owner of Sapphire Hair Lounge, dyed her client Kiana Zoltenko’s long hair with pastel shades of pink, purple, blue and silver in what was supposed to be a fun experiment.

On Sunday, the 35-year-old hairstylist told CTV Winnipeg that, as she began dyeing the woman’s hair, she noticed the colours bore a striking resemblance to Starbucks’ buzzworthy Unicorn Frappuccino, which just happened to go on sale that same day.

“The drink came out on Wednesday morning. She came in on Wednesday morning, so we did it right away,” she said. “I don't think I could have planned that better. It's just a weird fluke.”

Once she finished colouring her client’s hair, Woodford wrapped Zoltenko’s freshly-dyed mane around a green straw and snapped a photo of the new ‘do beside a Starbucks’ Unicorn Frappuccino, then posted it to Instagram.

The photo Woodford shared of her fun “experiment” quickly attracted attention from U.S. media including People.com, Cosmopolitan, US Weekly and blogger Perez Hilton. By Monday morning, the Instagram post has received more than 16,000 likes and hundreds of comments.

“[It] makes me feel good making people feel happy,” the hairstylist said. “It’s really cool being from Winnipeg and having all my clients and the people in my life so excited that it’s being shared everywhere.”

One of those long-time clients, Courtney Guerin, said Woodford was using pastel colours in her salon long before it became trendy.

“It's hard to find someone who has been doing this for a while now, which Kelly has,” Guerin said. “I find a lot of stylists are hopping on the bandwagon now, but Kelly has been doing it forever. It's super fun to have someone who enjoys it as much as the client does."

As for Woodford, she credits Winnipeg for her inspiration.

“We’re a really cool city,” she said. “I find that when people come here they say the women are beautiful, there's really good restaurants, there's really cool things and there's really cool hair."

With a report from CTV Winnipeg’s Sarolita Saskiw


 

UNICORN FRAPPUCCINO?! UNICORN HAIR!!! Stay tuned tonight for a hilarious video!!! Ps. My clients are amazing. @kianarae96

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