193ELLEBeautyELLE.COM/UK Nove mbe r 2O19
ne moment it was there,and then it was gone.
Sitting in a South London hair salon, I watched
as, strand by strand, the clean white streak that
had run through my hair faded away like an
aeroplane trail in the sky. Three and a half minutes
later, it had disappeared for good. I looked at my reflection
and reacquainted myself with a woman I hadn’t seen in almost
a year. A woman whose cherry-red hair fell in carefully tonged
bends around her face. And I felt, for the first time in months,
like I had reclaimed an essential part of ‘me’.
Eleven months earlier, I was perched in the same leather
salon chair, where an identical reflection sat eagerly
awaiting an AW19 hair transformation. Having sur vived
29 years of transient hair trends (dodgy purple dip dyes,
permed undercuts and misguided mullets each had its
moment) only to shrug them off again once their allure – and
their colour – had faded, I’d fallen into a rut of horrifyingly
sensible hair. I was almost 3O. A grown-up age. And, as
such, I had started to yearn for a more elevated style.
I wanted simplicity, sophistication and a head of hair to draw
stares, not for its ‘wacky’ dip dye, but for its chic insouciance.
One impulsive hair appointment later and it was done.
Dubbed ‘the fashion streak ’ by the hair industry’s pur veyors
of taste, a fresh white stripe peeked out from the front of my
hair. Equal parts Daphne Guinness, Deeda Blair and Ginger
Spice (circa 1996), my novel bleached streak was undeniably
‘fashun’. Which, when you’re working for a fashion magazine,
is no bad thing. I felt sophisticated, yes. But also – and this was
the bit no one told me about – like an entirely different person.
You see, with it came a whole new persona. At least,
a perceived one. Suddenly, with my snowy-white stripe
sitting front and centre, the general public made hugeO