BEAUTY

Hair products

I’ve been a fan of L’Oreal Paris hair products forever. It started with the discovery of Elnett, the iconic hairspray, which when it first came out in the 1960s, offered a non-sticky, brush-out alternative to sprays that made hair look like a helmet. Half a century later, Elnett (which is little changed) is still one of the most instagrammed beauty products around.

More recently, I’ve been lured by the volumising magic that is L’Oreal

Paris Elvive Fibrology, a range of thickening products containing an ingredient called filloxoane, which penetrates the hair fibre and expands it. Fibrology can make hair feel up to 30 per cent thicker, a tremendous boost if it’s ultra-fine or thinning, and it has a cumulative effect, with locks getting more voluminous wash by wash. (A word though: don’t expect hair to feel soft and slippery. Softness equals floppiness when it comes to volume. Fibrology adds texture and volume — it can’t make hair silky too.) One of the newest Elvive launches is Extraordinary

Clay, a range that promises to deal to two hair types (greasy roots/dry ends) in one. Unlike combination skin, which is well catered for, “combination hair” has historically been a tricky to treat. In a kind of bad-hair endless circle, suffers are forced to wash hair often to reduce oiliness at the roots while all those extra suds make the ends dry and ratty. According to L’Oreal, it’s a problem that affects more than 30 per cent of us. I tried it, and Extraordinary Clay really does seem to balance out moisture from roots to tip, leaving hair more manageable and less in need of an emergency squirt of dry shampoo at the crown or smoothing serum for those tatty ends. I love it, and at $6.60 each for the shampoo and conditioner, it’s gobsmackingly good value for money.

At the other end of the price spectrum (but certainly not unworthy of the investment) is Kerastase’s new Aura Botanica collection. Enriched with Samoan coconut oil (responsibly sourced) and hand-pressed argan oil, it is sulphate-, silicone- and paraben-free. If it were a person, it would be Gwyneth Paltrow — posh, beautiful and a big fan of clean living.

I particularly like the Concentre Essentiel ($79), mixing in a tiny bit with my styling products whenever I want my hair to look particularly polished. Last on the list of fab new hair products is

Helichrysum Wakening Hydration Cream ($48.50) from Angel En Provence. A leave-in conditioner specially suited for dry, damaged and coloured hair, it has a light, whipped gel-like texture and not only smells amazing but also protects hair from UVs, dryness and split ends.

Perfect for defining curls.