“Cait Fairbanks’ SHOCKING Transformation – The REAL Reason She’s Never Going Back!”

When Cait Fairbanks debuted her new blonde hair color on Young and Restless, it was such a drastic change that some viewers thought Tessa was a whole new character at first!

“I know, it’s pretty blonde,” the actress chuckles. “It’s crazy. When I showed up to set, people didn’t recognize me, and I was like, ‘I take it as a compliment. Thank you. That’s what I was trying for.’ ”

A Whole New You

The Y&R star explains that the change in color was something she’d had in mind for quite some time. “I’ve kind of always wanted to do it,” she reveals, nothing that.

“A few of my favorite actresses from the seventies were blonde, and I [wanted] to try this look, this kind of golden honey blonde.” Finally, the time felt right.

“My hair was feeling really healthy, and I was like, ‘You know what? Let’s f—ing go,’ ” she recalls.

“I had been waiting for such a long time, and I had a decent amount of time off, and I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to take the next few months to kind of slowly go blonde.’ “

In order to protect her hair, the actress had to lighten her hair one shade at a time. “Your hair, at the bottom, starts to kind of shed,” Fairbanks reports, “so you kind of have to do it slowly and then kind of trim and slowly and trim and slowly and trim.

It’s a whole thing.” To achieve the color she was going for, “It took almost like, four or five months, honestly.”

During the Covid lockdown back in 2020, the actress experimented with her hair color, using the show’s temporary hiatus to play around with her look.

“I dyed the fronts of my hair, like, bleach blonde, and then I dyed it red and then I dyed it purple and turquoise,” Fairbanks says.

“I did some fun stuff. I’m a big drastic person. I love making drastic changes and not telling anyone. That’s kind of my personality.”

Of course, the actress did let the powers-that-be at the soap know that she would be changing up her look. And she was pleased when the transformation was well-received, as she was more than a little nervous about making such a drastic change. “Oh, absolutely,” she nods.

“I was like, ‘People are going to think I look crazy or ugly.’ But it ended up being nice. I like it. I don’t think I’ll go back anytime soon.”

Fairbanks is now in the position to answer the age-old question, do blondes have more fun? “It’s funny, because I thought that I came across pretty friendly with brown hair,” Fairbanks muses, “but I’ve noticed people assume I’m a lot friendlier now, and so now I think I am having more fun because people are being more friendly with me.

There’s something about the blonde. It’s giving ‘Hiiii!’ ” She shrugs. “Maybe I just had a more intimidating vibe with the dark hair.”

And just like everyone else, Fairbanks herself is adjusting to her new look. “It’s funny,” she says. “I kind of forget, and then when I wash my hair, it turns dark, obviously, because my hair’s wet, so then I’m like, ‘Oh my God, that’s right. My hair is blonde now.’ I

kind of forget until I look in the mirror, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ Because I’ve lived my life one way for most of my life, between having either black hair or brown hair. So this is definitely a change.”

Are there any other colors Fairbanks would consider in the future? “I’ve never had my hair like a true red,” she says. “That’s the only one I haven’t tried quite yet.”