If this weekend is any indication, Pink is still the new black. The chart-topping queen of confessional inspo-pop dropped her seventh studio album, Beautiful Trauma, on Friday (her first since 2012’s The Truth About Love) and made a grand return to Saturday Night Live the next day, her first late-night outing at 30 Rockefeller Center since 2003. Joining her there, and on nearly every stop on her long publicity tour, was British hairstylist __Pamela Neal,__who started working with the singer five years ago and, to prep for this new tour, took Pink from being a new mom with long hair to the short-cropped pop singer who’s been dominating the charts for nearly two decades.

The director of West Hollywood’s Benjamin salon first worked with Pink (whom she calls by her given name, Alecia) for the Floria Sigismondi-directed music video for “Try” five years ago, and she’s been the singer’s “go-to” ever since. “There are a couple of back-up [hairstylists] that don’t have to step in very often. So there aren’t two of us. It’s just me,” she said this week.

We caught up with Neal to chat about styling for that “live from New York” stage and enhancing Pink’s unerring message—“She stands up for the underdog. She fights for justice.”—through shears and a pop of color.

VF.com: What styling challenges does Saturday Night Live pose?

Pamela Neal: What was different [was] S.N.L. basically tapes the show twice. So we had to do a run-through of the show in full hair, makeup, wardrobe; shoot it; and then start again. So in terms of hair, that’s tricky. I got it perfect for the first number, and then she did the second number where the hair changes, and I have to somehow get it back to how it was for the first number. It was annoying! [laughs] And not only was it the two songs: There was also a skit that she was a part of that we had to change everything for and do the skit. The skit ended up not running. A couple of things they cut completely, and a couple of things they changed, and they do it on the fly.

Do you remember what the skit was?

It was very funny, actually. I don’t know what to call it, but there was a band formed between three of the characters. It was a very sort of intergalactic, space suit kind of situation that Alecia ends up being a robot in. It was very funny! I don’t know why it didn’t run.

What was your process for styling this performance?

I like to put a head on a body. So the wardrobe really comes first because that’s the first impactful image that you see and it sets the tone of what the look is. It’s always super important for me to have the whole look be cohesive. In this case, with “What About Us,” Kim Bowen, her costume designer, had her in this almost Oliver Twist-ish, deconstructed Greg Lauren outfit, which for me said something looser and more undone and something a little bit more punky. So we decided on this loose, textural, more dissolved, slightly mohawk-ish feel.

I thought she looked great.

Yeah, thank you! The first time around she looked better—I’m just gonna say that. [laughs]

Beautiful Trauma is the first album that Pink has put out since you began working with her. What did you want to put out image-wise here? Was there anything different this time around?

In the interim, she had another child. She spent a good part of a year being pregnant, and then having the baby, and then being up in the countryside where she lives in California, not being in the public eye very much at all. When it was time to become visible and put herself back out in the world, there was quite a bit of thought put into it. Having a baby changes a person. And so—who is she now? Not that there’s much discussion ever about that because she’s such a solid human being. She very much knows who she is, but what’s the look that accompanies that? We talked about that quite a bit. She had grown her hair quite long in this interim time, and that was fun and different, but ultimately, she wanted it back short again. That’s how she feels comfortable . . .The tour hair has not been decided upon because obviously it’s something she has to deal with every night in the show. It has to be functional. She sings upside down. There really are some practical aspects to that. She’s upside down, inside out. It can’t be in her eyes; it can’t be in her mouth; it can’t be wrapped around any moving parts.

I imagine that’s kind of a unique-to-Pink situation.

Exactly.

From the very beginning, there was a fixation on Pink’s hair. Will you ever be bringing the pink back?

Nothing’s ever a “no.” While she was pregnant, actually, she wore it pink. Not the shocking mad pink that she had at the beginning, but softer versions of it. But at this point, aesthetically, I like to guide my clients a little bit. At least with my point of view about what I think is appropriate and flattering because at the end of the day, regardless of how mad you want to be or what statement you want to make with your hair or how different you want to look, it still needs to be beautiful. That’s the sort of magic spot that makes me happy to find: something that suits them, reflects them, is super cool and unusual and as unique as can be, and still be beautiful at the same time.

What is your favorite thing about working with Pink?

I guess believing in her and wanting to help her get [her message] out there. I guess that’s No. 1. No. 2: It’s fun to do her hair because she is open to different ideas, so I can be creative as a hairdresser, which of course is always what I prefer. And I like to enjoy the company of my clients. After many years of doing any one thing, you get to a point where you don’t have to do what you don’t want to do anymore. You don’t have to deal with people that you don’t have to deal with. And so I definitely would rather spend it being creative in the company of strong-minded people capable of original thought. They’re harder and harder to find, and artists that don’t cave under all of this pressure and don’t give in to the norm of how people should look and how people should present themselves, I want to be around that.