Can a ‘spiritual haircut’ help you get over a break-up?
It worked for RADHIKA SANGHANI, who’s now going to bury her heartache along with her ponytail at the New Moon
I’M SITTINg in a hair salon crying. Normally, this would be a very bad sign. But my hairdresser doesn’t seem at all worried that I’m weeping mid-hair wash. In fact, she is beaming brightly: ‘I’m always happy when my clients cry, because it means everything is actually working!’
Welcome to the ‘spiritual haircut’: a trip to the salon that claims to solve your woes and trim away ‘negative energy’ along with your split ends.
Spiritual haircuts are already big in Los Angeles, where the stars can pay upwards of £250 to have their hair cut in a ‘crystal cave’. After all, Hollywood has always been big on the idea that a new look can change your life.
In the UK, they’re rapidly growing in popularity, with spiritual hairdressers from the Tangible Hairdressing salon in glasgow to spiritual stylist gary Winer in Hertfordshire, who uses rituals in his work.
Meanwhile, I’m in the capable hands of Jannina Light, based in London’s Pimlico. She has been cutting hair for decades, including for award-winning salon group Headmasters, but she’s also a reiki healer and reflexologist, and it’s the combination that makes her haircuts so special.
So how on earth does a spiritual haircut work?
The basic idea is that our hair holds energy from our past. Chop it off and, lo and behold, your stresses and emotional traumas vanish, too.
Francesca Oddie, a spiritual expert, says: ‘Women have always intuitively had a haircut after a break-up. But now we’re doing this intentionally and using a haircut to heal.’
I heard about the trend when a friend sent me a photo of herself, ritually burning sage (a ‘purifying’ herb) next to her cut- off hair and saying: ‘I just had a spiritual haircut! I feel like a different person.’ After initial laughter, and lots of questions, I decided to try it myself.
I’m turning 33 and after a tumultuous few years, it feels like things are shifting in my life. I’m moving into a new stage professionally, writing for TV, and I’ve started dating again. So I want to officially leave my past behind.
I am still a little sceptical — but I’m no stranger to the post-break-up haircut, including one regrettable occasion when I gave myself a fringe. Maybe this is the way to embrace change without ending up with a terrible hairdo?
I book an appointment with Jannina (prices start at £80 for a haircut).
She explains that her work is based on the ancient Indian idea of chakras, or energy centres at key points in the body. ‘The crown chakra is on top of the head and is linked to clarity and intuition. Working with the hair is an opportunity to balance that chakra,’ explains Jannina.
She’s a smiling Peruvian with her own hair in a neat ponytail and she radiates calm. ‘ My mission in life is healing,’ she assures me. ‘ My clients don’t just leave with a good haircut — it’s so much deeper than that.’ She adds that she uses energetic connections to sense what kind of haircut her clients need.
My hair is long and feels flat. But instead of the usual questions about layers and length, Jannina asks what’s been happening in my life. It’s disconcerting, but as she smiles reassuringly, I find myself opening up about the changes in my life, career dreams and dating hopes. It feels like a therapy session, and at one point, I realise I haven’t mentioned my hair.
But Jannina nods earnestly and, when I’m finished, she tells me: ‘You’re ready.’
I’m not sure what I’m ready for, so I ask Jannina what kind of cut I’m having, but she just says: ‘Let’s wash your hair first. Then it will all flow.’ This does not reassure me — I want to know exactly how many inches we’re losing — but when I lean my head back into the basin and Jannina’s hands touch my head, everything changes.
My mind instantly quietens. But I also start to feel deeply sad and as thoughts of old heartache come unexpectedly to my mind — a past break-up that I thought had long ceased to bother me — I find myself tearing up. I am vaguely aware of Jannina washing my hair while giving me a head massage. At one point the sorrow feels overwhelming, but then she releases her fingers, and suddenly, it’s completely gone.
I open my eyes, dazed, and realise I’m crying. Jannina tells me she also felt like crying as she released all the old grief I was holding onto. ‘Hair washing is important, because the hair is like a magnet and it picks up so much energy,’ she explains. ‘ Water cleanses that negative charge. That is why hair washing can leave you in a sublime state.’
This must be why I barely bat an eye when she chops off my entire ponytail and places it next to me. I keep my glasses off so I can’t scrutinise Jannina’s every move; I just trust her.
As she cuts, we talk. Instead of the usual salon small-talk, I speak honestly about my family, friendships and career. Jannina offers heartfelt advice, sharing stories of clients whose lives she’s changed.
Like the businesswoman who came in tense and ‘completely
Jannina makes the haircut feel like a therapy session
I finally feel like the French girl I aspire to be
blocked’. She had no idea about holistic treatments and, after her hair wash, she demanded to know what Jannina had done to her. But she also teared up with gratitude; ‘she changed instantly and left a different person’.
Still, I’m scared when Jannina finishes blow- drying my hair, all too aware that I rarely like my hair after a cut, let alone when I haven’t even discussed what style I want.
But when I finally put my glasses on, I gasp. Because I love it. It isn’t the hippy haircut I’d secretly feared. Instead, it’s chic.
I finally feel like the French woman I have always aspired to be. Until Jannina hands me my hacked-off ponytail.
‘You can take this home to do a ritual with it,’ she adds.
She advises I bury it in my garden after a meditation. To bring abundance and growth into my life (and also to my hair — apparently, this can help thicken it), I should wait for the New Moon.
The heaviness I’d previously felt has gone, perhaps because I’ve just lost ten inches of hair, or maybe, thanks to Jannina’s healing hands. Either way, I’m grateful — even when my ponytail falls out of my handbag at brunch later that day, terrifying my friend.
The £80 fee is similar to what I’d pay at a salon in the area, but not only do I like my cut, I’ve also undergone a healing experience.
As I wait for the New Moon to bury my hair (something I can’t believe I’m going to do), I wonder why I’ve only ever opted for ordinary haircuts. I’m an official convert to the spiritual do.