Every three-and-a-half weeks I make a pilgrimage to Melanie, my colourist at Hari’s hair salon on the Fulham Road. Calculating precisely when the next appointment will be needed is always a complex activity – I certainly don’t want grey roots for any public appearance – but it’s crazy to book myself in any earlier than necessary.
Three weeks is too soon, but as a rule, four is pushing it.
The tricky issue is, as any brunette who colours her hair will know, one day you are the full Elizabeth Taylor, lusciously dark, and literally the next you confront the mirror and hey presto, you’ve turned into the speckled warbler in shades of grey and brown.
Every time I sit in Melanie’s chair discussing whether we will go a little lighter at the front or whether I only need roots not highlights, or whether perhaps it’s all gone a bit too brassy, I wonder whether this palaver is necessary.
Why don’t I just give in to my natural hair colour and save the time and certainly the money? After all, look at Jane Fonda and Andie MacDowell, photographed at Paris Fashion Week flaunting their silver locks in the service of L’Oreal, where they are both ambassadors. Silver Not Sorry read the screen behind them.
Every three-and-a-half weeks I make a pilgrimage to Melanie, my colourist at Hari’s hair salon on the Fulham Road – I certainly don’t want grey roots (Stock image of a woman checking her hair)
‘It’s crazy to book myself in any earlier than necessary. Three weeks is too soon, but as a rule, four is pushing it,’ says ALEXANDRA SHULMAN
And every time you open the fashion pages of a magazine there she is, the token grey-haired model used to demonstrate that fashion is not only for the young. Even older women can rock a pair of pink trousers, is what that hair colour is saying.
But on the odd occasion I come close to thinking I’ll give up and see what nature has intended, since I have no idea what my hair colour would be without Melanie’s services, I bolt at the starting gate.
It’s all very well embracing your natural self, but in my mind my natural self is a brunette. I have no idea how I would feel if I turned into a silvery person.
There are some grey-haired women who look absolutely wonderful. And there are others who have just accepted this as a natural part of ageing and get on with it. But I doubt that would be me.
If I tried watching the encroaching badger colouring at my roots take over my whole head I would feel that I’d taken a step into another life stage, and I’m not quite ready for that yet.
Chill out, it’s just my ‘resting b***h face’
Have you ever seen a picture of her (Sue Gray, pictured) looking happy? I haven’t
Still on the subject of appearance, I have a certain sympathy for Sue Gray, since she and I share a physiognomic characteristic – ‘resting bitch face’.
Have you ever seen a picture of her looking happy? I haven’t. But that’s probably because she, like I, naturally look depressed, cursed with permanently downturned mouths.
I can be thinking sunshiny thoughts until someone tells me to cheer up, at which point they flip to mirror my disgruntled appearance.
I went through a period experimenting with a false smile, turning up the corners of my mouth in order to avoid this, but that become tiresome.
Even so, perhaps on occasion a glimmer of a false smile would do wonders for Sue Gray’s reputation.
Balancing the books isn’t Naomi’s style
Naomi Campbell in a cream co-ord outfit coupled with a gold chain belt attending a Book Signing at Librarie 7L on September 27, 2024
The extraordinary thing is not that Naomi Campbell has been barred from being a charity trustee after discoveries of misuse of funds from her Fashion For Relief initiative, but that she was ever one in the first place.
Running a charity involves oversight of the financial proceedings, not an experience that Naomi is known for.
Her skill set is turning up several hours late and looking marvellous.
In the Naomisphere, extravagance is the norm, no matter who is paying. A £12,000 flight to France, expensive hotel rooms and spa treatments all coming out of the charity coffer would no doubt be considered appropriate by her, in return for lending her stupendous body and extensive address book to publicise the cause.
Reading the bottom line and questioning the validity of this behaviour would not come into it.
Still, the French clearly think it’s acceptable since even if she’s not a whizz with a balance sheet they have just awarded her the prestigious Ordre des Artes et des Lettres.
Another example of where we differ from our friends across the Channel.
It’s the set designer who steals this show
David Oyelowo and Kaelum Nelson attending the press night after party for Coriolanus on September 24
David Oyelowo opens in the title role of Coriolanus at the National Theatre wearing a velvet tuxedo and holding a glass of champagne.
It’s a clever, short-cut device to demonstrate the arrogance and aristocracy of this doomed Shakespearean general, but the real hero of the production is the designer Es Devlin’s sets.
Gone are the days when the curtains would fall on one scene change, before rising for the next.
Instead, Devlin’s atmospheric sets seamlessly transform the stage from a battleground to the rebellious people’s forum and to his mother Volumnia’s elegant house in a matter of seconds.
They keep the audience immersed, in a play that has particular currency at this time of tension between political populism and the elite.
Will we see Victoria down the Old Vic?
Brigitte Macron sports a chic entirely look whilst attending Dior’s blue carpet at Paris Fashion Week
Brigitte Macron not only sat front row at the Dior and Balmain fashion shows but she has a cameo in Netflix’s Emily In Paris. In contrast, Victoria Starmer is unfairly criticised for showing her support of London Fashion Week by similarly appearing at a show in a borrowed outfit.
Would it be OK for her to drop into EastEnders? Perhaps she could have a pint in the Old Vic, to discuss the winter fuel allowance, wearing the M&S trousers she has in her own wardrobe?
Soap stars are making a comeback
After years of everyone replacing bars of soap with liquid – spurred on through Covid – hard soaps are having a renaissance.
Bronnley has just released a new edition of its lemon, the first fruit-shaped soap, and increasingly the shelves are brimming with the nostalgic packaging of brands like Roger & Gallet, Trumpers and Yardley.
So much more distinguished than a plastic bottle.
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