Hair extensions like Shirley’s are not Strictly for Wags
Shirley Ballas, Strictly’s head judge, has given some questionable scores this season and even been accused of favouritism. Surely Shirley hasn’t awarded consistently good marks to Dan Walker because the host of BBC Breakfast and the sometime World Latin American champion have been friends for two years since they climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania together for Comic Relief ?
However the only fix that mattered on Saturday was Shirley’s hair extensions. At the age of 61, Ballas attracted comments for looking more glamorous than ever, with long, raven curls tumbling over one shoulder instead of her mid-length crop.
There is a definite, ageist sense that hair extensions are not something a nice, middleaged woman should have. That is exactly how I felt until I got them myself. One day, I got talking to a receptionist at the dentist who had the thickest, most lustrous short bob. When I complimented her, she said: “Oh, my hair was so thin, I got extensions – they’re great.”
It had never occurred to me that you could use extensions to add volume, instead of length, to hair which, alas, is not the Farrah Fawcett cascade of yore. Then, I read an article by India Knight which echoed my own doubts about first-generation extensions (“they basically looked like dreadlocks for white people, and they had to be burned on with glue to stick them in place”).
However, Knight went on to make a persuasive case for the confidenceboosting properties of a mane enhanced by a few tapes of hair subtly woven into you existing style. I booked an appointment.
Naturally, or should that be unnaturally, hair extensions hold out the frightening prospect that you will end up like Angela Rayner. The Labour deputy leader’s Titian tresses are a bit Rapunzel meets a mid-life Pippi Longstocking. I needn’t have worried. Thanks to highly skilled work by Lauren, my hair was more perky, mid-period Felicity Kendall than Wags on the pull.
Should I try hair extensions myself, I hear you cry. All I can say is that, in the two years I’ve had them, countless people have asked if I’ve had “work” because I look younger. Far cheaper than a facelift, extensions are a secret weapon against ageing. Just don’t tell anyone I’ve got them, OK?