Best Tressed

The Sunday Times, 4 December 2005

I once read a short story by Ingeborg Bachman in which a young Viennese woman desperately hopes that a visit to the hairdresser’s will transform her humdrum existence. With little else to punctuate her days, her trip to the salon becomes the focal point of her life — she longs for a makeover that will rejuvenate her, both physically and emotionally. With such high hopes, it was obvious she would be disappointed. But I certainly empathised — when a stylist doesn’t match up to expectations, it can be crushing. I recently found myself seething beneath a head of highlighting foils when, for the second time in a month, a certain hairdresser gave me brash yellow streaks rather than the caramel-toned enhancement I’d requested. In fact, she was my substitute hairdresser, as my first choice, Adam Reed from Charles Worthington, was busy with glitzier jobs. It’s a double-edged sword: the better your hairdresser, the more likely they are to go on to better things, leaving you in perilously unfamiliar hands. That’s why I’m currently building up an arsenal of alternative stylists. My first is Jonathan Long, of Chelsea’s Lockonego salon, who instantly put me at ease by pointing out a client whose bottom-grazing locks he maintains (what better proof that he wouldn’t get scissor-happy on me?). So, don’t have one great hairdresser — have several.