"My job is a weird job. I live a strange life," Carrie Underwood admitted when I met up with her recently in New York. It's certainly not a typical one. And it would seem that at Underwood's caliber of celebrity, things would only get exponentially stranger (and entourages would become exponentially larger), but the "American Idol" alum is pretty set on keeping it as normal-ish as possible, given the circumstances of course. Like, releasing her latest (and fourth) album next month, serving as the face of Olay and being married to pro hockey player, Mike Fisher. Considering all that, she is refreshingly down-to-earth.
That doesn't mean she isn't aware of the image she presents. When I asked her if she'd ever consider straying from her signature long blonde waves, she'd said she "love to switch things up a little bit, but thinks everyone [else] is scared to do it"... "I wanted to dye my hair darker. I'm like, 'Let's change my hair color.' We'll do something for like two hours, then I'll walk away, and I'm like, 'This looks the same as before.' Maybe someday I'll do something a little more drastic. I don't think I'm meant for short hair though. I don't feel as pretty when I chop it off [laughs], which I have done before."
Maybe she's playing it safe, but the country singer seems to know what she likes and doesn't like when it comes to her hair. "When I was in college, I used a LOT of product. My hair has a natural wave to it, but if you don't really know what to do with it, it's kind of hard. I would just put stuff in my hair, and it was like, crunchy. So if I could not do something, I would go back and not do that." These days Underwood has a better handle on her hair, enough so that she does her own hair and makeup on tour. "Wait, you do it all yourself?" I asked, interrupting her recap of life on the road. (I found this to be particularly un-diva-y.) This is when Underwood gets visibly excited. "Yeah, that's two people I don't have [on tour]. When you're on stage, it's a little bit different than real life. You can kind of pile it on -- and you need to for things to show up. It's kind of whatever, you can play. You can do things you wouldn't really do. You can put glitter on your eyes. Big hair. The bigger, the better. It's fun. It's a nice relaxing time, a calm before the storm, if you will."
Among other ways that the Oklahoma native normalizes her bizarrely busy life: "Making the bus your home is important," she says. "Exercise is another really important one. Depends where we are, what we have to work with. If there's good hiking nearby, we'll go on a hike. Or a good trail, we'll go run. And sometimes we'll just say, 'Do you have a conference room?' and we'll just push tables back and do body weights stuff." As un-fussy as her approach is, she admits needing to escape it all once in a while and get back to her roots. "Home is the only place I can unplug. I sleep SO much when I go back. I'll just fall asleep on the floor. Mom gets worried, but Dad's like, 'Just let her sleep.'
In related news, Underwood recently rocked a new, bold hairstyle. Do you like the look?
