K18 Gives Alfredo Lewis and Phillip Wolf’s Viral TikTok Hair Transformations the Reality TV Treatment in New Web Series “Extreme Hair Rescue”

02/04/2025

If you love watching hair transformations as much as we do, we have a feeling you’ll love K18’s latest launch. The biology-first haircare brand just debuted a brand new episodic webisode series called “Extreme Hair Rescue, in which captivating hair makeovers take center stage.” 

Shot in the dynamic style of reality TV, the series follows renowned professional stylists Alfredo Lewis and Phillip Wolf, as they take on a series of challenging hairstyling cases for various clients that other stylists might call an impossible feat—including everything from loss of curl pattern to extreme breakage. Through it all, the dynamic duo rely on  K18’s salon-exclusive K18REPAIR™ service, which is powered by the brand’s patented K18PEPTIDE™, as well their years of industry knowledge and expertise to save their client’s hair and bring their dream looks to life.   

At the heart of the series, which launches with two episodes that are available on K18’s Youtube channel, are the real and relatable stories behind each client’s transformation as well as the stylists Lewis and Wolf’s skills.

A Closer Look at the Dynamic Duo 

Image courtesy of K18

Both Lewis and Wolf have been hairstylists and educators for more than a decade, and not too long ago, the team added content creator and educator to their portfolios—two titles that they both hold very dear. The two stylists have taken different paths throughout their careers but, once their roads crossed, they became inseparable friends and coworkers.

As it turns out, Wolf and Lewis didn’t meet until later on in both of their careers. 

Lewis went to beauty school and assisted for three years in Beverly Hills and worked his way onto the floor. He says this was all pre-social media, so he definitely had to hustle and pass around his business cards in person as well as ask random people to do their hair to gain experience. 

After years of gaining experience, he got a job as a hair color specialist at Cristophe Salon, where he worked for 11 years until he was asked to teach a class for Brazilian Blowout which, he said, totally changed his life. 

“That led me to doing platform work. I started doing little classes with only two people and then, next thing you know, I’m working on big shows and flying to Hong Kong, and Thailand, and South Africa. It completely changed my life,” Lewis said. “Then, segway to me becoming head of education for the brand for 8 years, I created a team with almost a 100 influencers and that’s how Phillip and I met.” 

As for Wolf, he started his career a bit differently than most hairstylists. “It came down to me needing a job, so I decided to do an apprenticeship program. After that I worked a lot, and eventually got my license,” he said. “This was in the East Coast area, Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, in all three, because I worked in multiple shops.” 

After moving to the West Coast, Wolf said he worked really hard, seven days a week, for years, and then got his foot in the door and started doing celebrity work. “I was working in the neighborhood that Alfredo was working in, and we didn’t know each other, but we might have even shared clients at some point,” he said. 

Wolf shared  that his passion had always been the blades, so he decided to specialize in them. Years later, when the social media wave came around, he was intrigued and inspired to  start different accounts. However, he didn’t take it seriously until he met Lewis. 

“He was the one who told me ‘man, you gotta get on this!’ and so, with enough peer pressure I said ‘all right,’ and then I saw how much fun it is!,” Wolf said. 

The Magic of Hair Transformations

According to Lewis, he and Wolf have loved working together since the very beginning. Their joint collaboration has led to the pair becoming  ambassadors for major brands like L’Oréal and now K18. Not to mention, they’ve also been able to attract a combined audience of nearly 2 million followers on TikTok for their viral hair transformations on the platform. 

If you frequent the hair side of  TikTok, you’ve likely come across one of their videos in which the duo fix hair disasters for people who are victims of severe hair damage or have experienced a botched job. The transformations are always outstanding—shocking even. 

Lewis said it all started with their first transformation, which was definitely a challenge but really rewarding for the stylists. “We saw a video on TikTok of this girl named Steph who had DIY’d her hair in the shower, and it all came out in the shower,” Lewis said. “And I reached out to Phillip and told him ‘I feel like we should help this girl.” 

Steph was their first “Extreme Hair Rescue” client before the show. So, they reached out to Steph and flew her from Louisville, Kentucky to Los Angeles to work on her hair. 

“It was the most extreme damage we had ever seen,” Lewis said. “But you know we already believed in K18, but when we saw the hair we didn’t know if it was going to work, but it definitely ended up working! It completely transformed the hair.” 

The original video has hundreds of millions of views collectively between the both of them. This led to people suddenly tagging them in other hair disaster videos so they could work their magic. 

K18 ended up approaching the pair two years after their first video to create a show that would dive deeper into the stories of the people they’re helping and show the styling process. 

The proposal for the show stemmed from the work they were already doing on the platform with their hair transformations. It’s no surprise that the show’s dynamic is both educational and vibrant, since their chemistry and closeness definitely shows in the web series, a result of their many years of collaboration. 

“I think we just wanted to see more kindness on social media and I’m so excited for people to see the show and I think it shows a little bit more of who Phil and I are, what we’re like, and how we talk to each other and interact in the salon,” Lewis explained. “That’s something you can’t see in a three or two minute video.” 

Wolf said that their motivation comes from loving their creative work but also from how their clients feel about themselves once they’ve worked on their hair. 

“That part just never gets old. I think for me that’s what it is about, and no two people we work on are going to be exactly the same,” Wolf explained. “Some stories stick out because of how extreme they are but every single story is unique, and the show dives deeper into that.” 

K18 just released the first Extreme Hair Rescue episode, you can learn more about the show in the brand’s Youtube channel. The second episode will air on Feb. 10.

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Eileen Rodriguez

Eileen Rodriguez is an Editorial Intern for The Tease. She covers all things beauty, culture, and hair. Contact her at erodriguez@thetease.com

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