Leighton Meester

You could say a dye job changed the course of Leighton Meester's life. The natural blonde famously colored her hair brown during her Gossip Girl audition process to help the creators envision her as Blair Waldorf. Now, she's forever remembered as one of the most iconic brunettes of TV history. 10 years after the show first aired, it's still impossible to think of Meester without imagining her in a headband (more on that later).

The actress has now undergone a drastic change that signals how far she's come from her days at Constance Billard: She's officially platinum blonde for the first time. She took the plunge at New York's Nexxus salon yesterday thanks to in-demand colorist Aura Friedman (who's done everyone from Lady Gaga to Jennifer Lawrence). The whole process took six hours.

Anyone who's bleached their hair knows how damaging it can be - Meester says she avoided it by using the new black rice-infused Nexxus Keraphix Masque and Reconstructing Protein Treatment. "My hair is amazingly shiny and soft considering how much it was just processed and I think that’s a real testament to the treatments I’ve been doing to replace the keratin protein in my hair," she told ELLE.com when we caught up with her after her salon appointment.

In honor of her new look, we decided to have Meester walk us through her archive of hair transformations - from pre-Gossip Girl crimp to her Blair Waldorf barrel curls and right on up to today.