"I used to get in trouble because I would stay up really late to watch it when I was a kid in the '80s," GLOW hair designer Theraesa Rivers says of the original wrestling show that inspired the Netflix comedy. "The little girl in me who was obsessed with the show is now nominated for an Emmy for helping retell those stories. I can't believe it."

Makeup designer Lana Horochowski, who also was a fan of the original series, relished re-creating retro looks from her adolescence. "I got to pull out all my old looks from my childhood," she says, adding that the key to authenticity was "making sure everything appeared 'homemade.'"

To perfect the imperfect aesthetic of Alison Brie and the rest of the cast, Rivers (who also is nominated for her work on Amazon's The Last Tycoon) and Horochowski opted against wigs and modern beauty tools. "We stayed true to what was used back then: mousse, gel, hot-roller sets and hair spray. Nothing fancy," Rivers says, noting that Brie and several of her co-stars "committed" to cutting their hair for the sake of embodying their wrestling personas. "Every girl rocked their own hair. It looks — and feels — more real that way."

A beauty blender was nowhere in sight on set. "The '80s were all about severe, harsh lines," Horochowski says, revealing she "went as fast as I could" in the chair. "I applied the girls' makeup as if they were applying it themselves really quick for a show," she explains. "If something was a little wonky, I'd just leave it."

Each actress spent only about an hour and a half in hair and makeup each day. However, Horochowski and Rivers — who worked together on AMC's Mad Men — had plenty of time to prep before filming. "We had a solid month to put together look books," says Horochowski. "Creatively speaking, those might have been the best four weeks of my career."