Beauty bible

It’s time for hair repair

ASIDE FROM THE DAY I braved the doors of Donna Karan on Bond Street as a smiling 20-year-old – only to have a shop assistant hose me up and down and say, ‘You’ve got lipstick on your teeth’ – my biggest high-street humiliation occurred in Paris – and involved Struwwelpeter hair.

It was early September, and I’d just arrived in the French capital from Brittany, where I’d spent a happy summer frying every cell on my body in the 80-degree sun. I thought I looked goodborderline-great until I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window and was forced to accept that there were shades of Heinrich Hoffmann’s bogeyman to my sun- and sea-salt-singed hair.

Into the nearest coiffeur I went, where once the man had sat me in a swivel chair and made a series of uncomplimentary choking noises, I was spun around to face the other hair professionals. Just when I thought things couldn’t get much worse, one of them used the tail of her comb to lift a dreadlock and yelped, ‘Mais il faut couper! Il faut couper!’

So they cut – and they cut. And I left with heavenly hair that was sleek and smooth and… a bob. That’s when I resolved to do whatever it took to avoid end-of-summer hair frazzle and/or butchery ever happening again.

Thankfully, hair technology has become so advanced that it can now perfect and protect as well as salvage the unsalvageable. So I’ll rely on Paul & Joe’s Body & Hair Mist – a two-in-one hydrating miracle infused with orangeflower extract (£10 from beautybay. com) until my early September stop at Daniel Galvin’s George Street salon. There its Detox Miracle Solution will remove the build-up that occurs over the summer months and fortify the hair from deep within the cuticle before sealing it off with vitamin C.

If you’ve avoided the cut but found your colour’s either faded or gone brassy over the summer, Christel Lundqvist at STIL – the Scandi-cool salon the Notting Hill set are failing to keep a secret – will rectify faded or brassy highlights with her Colour Boost and Seal Treatment. ‘Heat, sun, seawater and chlorine not only remove moisture from the hair but often change the existing colour too,’ she points out. ‘And while the colour booster will gently tone the hair, the moisture treatment will hydrate and lock in the colour for a longer-lasting effect.’

With these in our armoury, we’ll never have to brave the French hair vandals again.