The finished video looked effortless.
Shania Twain stood on a moonlit beach, her hair falling in long, soft waves as she sang about a relationship that had survived everything thrown at it. The black-and-white imagery, the ocean, the intimate lighting and the quiet chemistry made “You’re Still the One” look like one of the simplest romantic videos of the 1990s.
Behind the scenes, however, Shania was having a completely different experience.
The video, directed by David Hogan, was filmed in Malibu and was designed to feel moody, cinematic and intimate. Twain later explained that she had shown Hogan the kind of lighting she wanted, drawing inspiration from photographs and even from Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer.” The result was exactly the atmosphere she had imagined: a dreamy nighttime beach setting that made the song feel almost like a private memory.
But there was one problem the camera couldn’t hide.
Her hair.
This was the first time Twain had ever used glue-in extensions. The shoot involved humid beach conditions, and keeping her natural hair looking full and smooth in that environment was difficult. The solution was to attach strips of extensions directly into her hair so the long, flowing look would hold up on camera.
For Shania, it was completely unfamiliar territory.
She had never experienced extensions before, let alone having them glued into her hair. Looking back years later, she described the whole experience as a “nightmare.” The irony was that the finished footage made the hairstyle look completely natural, almost as if she had simply stepped onto the beach with perfect hair.
Then the filming ended.
And that’s when the real problem began.
Everyone else could pack up and leave. Shania couldn’t.
She was still carrying all those glued-in extensions in her hair, with no experience knowing how difficult they would be to remove. According to Twain, it took days to get the extensions and glue out completely. What audiences remembered as one of her most glamorous romantic looks had actually required her to endure a surprisingly unpleasant beauty experiment behind the scenes.
Yet somehow, the risk paid off.
“You’re Still the One” became one of the defining songs of Come On Over, and the video helped give the song a visual identity that was every bit as memorable as the music. Twain herself later said she was especially proud of the video because of the role it has played in people’s relationships. Fans turned the song into a wedding and anniversary favorite, giving the video an emotional life far beyond its original release.
There was another interesting detail hidden in the production.
The male model appearing in the video was John Devoe, who had also appeared in Twain’s “That Don’t Impress Me Much” video. Twain only realized the connection when she saw him again, joking that she recognized him.
But the hair story says something bigger about the way Shania was building her image in the late 1990s.
She wasn’t simply showing up, putting on a costume and letting someone else decide how she should look. By this stage of her career, Twain was becoming increasingly involved in the visual details of her music. She cared about lighting, texture, clothing, hair and the emotional atmosphere surrounding a song.
And sometimes getting that perfect image meant putting up with a little—or a lot—of discomfort.
Today, millions of people remember “You’re Still the One” as a beautiful love song and a dreamy piece of late-’90s pop-country imagery.
They don’t see the glue.
They don’t see the humidity.
They don’t see Shania standing there after everyone else had gone home, wondering how she was ever going to get those extensions out.
They only see the finished fantasy—and perhaps that’s exactly what made the nightmare worth it.