Hair Care Tips for Colored and Naturally Red Hair

Red hair is just beautiful. It's really no surprise why poets and painters have tried to capture the beauty of red hair with their words or their canvasses since time immemorial. Fiery titian locks evoke images of dancing flames, of sunrises and sunsets, of energy and passion.

If you have red tresses, it's only right that you celebrate the glorious color of your hair. And because red hair is special, you should also take especially good care of it to keep healthy, manageable and vibrant. Here are hair care tips that can help you maintain the beauty of your ginger mane.

Never go out under direct sunlight without any covering for your head. Exposure to direct sunlight is bad enough as it is because it can cause heatstroke and dehydration. It can also cause your hair to dry, and if your hair is ginger-colored, the beautiful color of your tresses can fade as well. Whether natural or applied, red pigments are vulnerable to sunlight and can wash out very easily.

Natural red hair is also naturally coarse and prone to drying, splitting and breakage. To prevent this kind of damage to your ginger strands, it's important that you feed your locks with moisture regularly and generously. So, be lavish with conditioning your tresses. Wash your hair with conditioner every day and coat it with leave-on conditioner or hair serum. Every week, pamper your mane with deep conditioning. You should also shampoo less often - no more than once a week - to allow your strands' natural oils to do their work in nourishing and protecting your mane.

As much as possible, use products appropriate to your ginger hair. There may not be a lot of hair care products available that specifically cater to redheads, given that there are only so few natural redheads out there. But a thorough Internet search will yield some good results and lead you to great products for your fiery tresses. If you're not a natural redhead, you should use hair care products particularly designed for colored hair.

If you feel that you need to enhance the red highlights of your hair, you can rinse it with cranberry juice after washing it. Cranberry juice is very effective in bringing out the red in hair. Just be careful not to stain your clothes, your towels or any important household linen with cranberry juice, however.

Always be gentle when handling your ginger hair. Red tresses are naturally fragile. So, make it a point to be careful when dealing with your hair. Avoid yanking or tugging at it so its strands won't snap off. Additionally, try to minimize styling it with heat-based styling tools. Red hair doesn't take heat too well and so should be protected from it. If you have to blow-dry or iron your hair, make sure your tresses are coated with leave-on conditioner first.

Red hair is beautiful hair. Rather than scorning the brightness of your titian locks, you should embrace it. Celebrate your ginger hair by caring for it the way it needs to be cared for all the time.

How Elizabeth I made red hair fashionable – in 1558

There’s a painting in the National Portrait Gallery that has long been a source of fashion inspiration for me; it dates from about 1575, and is a peerless image of redheaded chic. Elizabeth I wears a gown of white and gold satin with dashing scarlet frogging across the breast, like a hussar, and she holds a particularly wonderful feather fan – whites and sulphurous yellows, dark iridescent greens, oranges and russet reds. That ghostly face is turned three-quarters of the way toward us; her expression reserved; her lips compressed. The line of that nose – “rising somewhat in the midst”, as Sir John Hayward described it – is clearly shown. My nose does the same. My hair is also red. Elizabeth I has been my pin-up girl since I was tiny. But it was only when I began researching my book Red: A Natural History of the Redhead that I came to appreciate how revolutionary Elizabeth’s image-making truly was.

Elizabeth’s red hair was no accident. For most of her life, Elizabeth wore wigs, so she might have chosen hair of any colour she liked, but she chose red; she was so committed to the shade that she is even supposed to have dyed the tails of her horses to match. (Who says redheads don’t have a sense of humour?)

Nor was she following the crowd – far from it. The astonishing thing is that Elizabeth chose a hair colour that had typified the barbarian for centuries, since the time of the ancient Greeks and their encounters with the tribes living around the Black Sea. Its predisposition, as a recessive gene, of cropping up in the endogamous Orthodox Jewish community led to it becoming the hair colour chosen in much European art for the arch-traitor, Judas, too. No surprise, therefore, that it was also used to stigmatise Tudor England’s own barbarian and potentially traitorous “other” – the Irish and the Scots. So powerful a piece of conditioning was this that in Elizabethan literature you find red hair cited as positive proof that the clans of Ireland and Scotland (along with any other untrustworthy Johnny Foreigner you might care to include), were directly descended from the “barbarous Scythians”, a tribe living around the Black Sea 3,000 years ago, mentioned in King Lear.

It seems strange for a monarch to link herself visually with the very subjects who had most to gain should she lose her throne. But there were personal reasons behind Elizabeth’s choice. Displaying the red hair inherited from her father gave the lie to all those rumours of illegitimacy that had plagued her girlhood. There were public and political reasons too.

Red hair has always been other. It stands apart. The white skin that so often goes with it also spoke in Elizabeth’s image-making of her separateness, her status as the Virgin Queen. Red and white were also the colours of St George, England’s patron saint. Those courtiers who dyed their hair or their beards red, to follow Elizabeth’s lead, were not merely declaring their loyalty to the queen; they and she were also, I believe, making a statement of standing apart, in Protestant England, from dark-haired and less pale-skinned Catholic Europe. Red and white were the Elizabethan brand, if you like, and that brand has been one of the most successful in history, as recognisable now as it would have been in Elizabeth’s own day.

This taking of a stereotype and turning it on its head, this classic piece of reverse discrimination, strikes me as startlingly modern, and mirrors the way many redheads are dispatching prejudice today. Gloriana was a superbly clever propagandist without question, but perhaps you have to be a redhead to appreciate what a perfect piece of sleight-of-hand her image-making truly was.

Introducing the 'roadtrip' – fashion's brave new haircut

Forget Kate Middleton’s choppy bangs. A pair of nail scissors might be this season’s secret accessory: the hacked off fringe – a style we’re dubbing the road trip – is the haircut to have. Expensive salon treatments and My Little Pony colours are so over. Those nail scissors, and an Edward Scissorhands-like sense of abandon, are all you need.

Lady Gaga debuted her new fringe earlier this month – and had that halfway-up-the-forehead look that smacks of cutting it in the wing mirror, and – to all those who have seen Chappie – the girl from Die Antwoord, Yolandi. This caused the South African band to react angrily on Instagram, calling Gaga a “parasite” no less.

The road-trip fringe could be seen on, ahem, other “parasites” at the London shows last week. Sure, Edie Campbell’s shaggy number and Mica Arganaraz’s 80s curls are all very covetable, but they look like they require some kind of maintanence, and possibly a hairdryer. Far better the road-trip fringe, as seen at Christopher Kane, where most of the models wore fringes, and on Irina Kravchenko, at Margaret Howell.

Of course, while Yolandi is the poster girl of the road-trip fringe in 2015, even she would have to admit that there are precedents for nail-scissor haircuts. Most notably, these come from the 90s – the decade that everyone is trying to out-nerd each other on at the moment. See Emma Balfour’s long crop with mismatched lengths, Karen Elson as “fashion’s hottest property” on the cover of The Face in 1997, and Juliette Lewis’s various haircuts in 1994’s Natural Born Killers. Since that film actually involves a road trip of sorts, she probably wins – even 21 years later. Yolandi, though, can claim to take her nail-scissor work to new heights, with the front so short it’s almost cropped. Her haircut could be dubbed the high-speed road trip, perhaps. We’ll have to wait and see if others can keep up.

High Concept Hair, on Call

A firefighter turned globe-trotting editorial hairstylist, the New York–based Marcos Diaz brings a delicate, high-concept finesse to the runway (Diaz is a frequent Guido Palau collaborator) and red carpet alike. “Diaz reps a black book’s worth of New York girls-about-town—from gallery owner Dasha Zhukova and editor Giovanna Battaglia to DJ Mia Moretti—for major events,” says Vogue.com Beauty Director Catherine Piercy.

The Chameleons of Summer: How a Dramatic Hair Transformation Became the Season’s Secret Weapon

As summer prepares to make its slow, sunset-like descent into autumn, a quick look back at our favorite metamorphic beauty moments confirms that it was the season of the fearless hair change. Dramatic chops and color adjustments inspired us—while constantly keeping us guessing—and promised to provide a template for our own adventurous shifts going into September.

Case in point: Georgia May Jagger bleached her layered lengths before saturating sections in playfully bright pastels, resulting in a physical representation of summertime whimsy that will segue nicely into the washed-out shades of blush, lavender, and tangerine as the temperature dips. Meanwhile, Lupita Nyong’o proved that changing one’s hair can be done easily and often, morphing from short-haired siren into side-braid bohemian and back, this time with a headful of natural curls that we can’t help but mentally pair with a chunky knit sweater.

While many embraced the long, swingy lengths typically associated with beach bombshell season, hairstylist Orlando Pita snipped Amanda Seyfried’s signature wheat-colored mane into a shoulder-grazing, polished bob, and for a good cause—Seyfried donated her shorn lengths to Locks for Love. Also going against the grain: Poppy Delevingne, who lightened her honey-colored hair to an icy, Nordic blonde shade that seems rife for emulation.

But perhaps our favorite dramatic reveals arrived courtesy of Jennifer Hudson—whose ultra-short style only enhances her striking, pronounced features—and Greta Gerwig, who traded her shoulder-sweeping waves for a chin-length crop that she continued to braid, straighten, and slick back to transformative effect. Above, five summertime hair moments to inspire a seasonal reimagining of the mane.

Taking Care of Your Hair You Should Kknow

Your relaxed hair needs lots of extra attention if you want to maintain its health. Because relaxed hair is robbed of much needed moisture, you must make every effort to both replace lost moisture and to retain what moisture your hair does have. Many women with relaxed hair use heat styling methods to help preserve the straightness of the hair. Heat added directly to the hair may give the hair the appearance of health, but actually works to further promote damage to the hair.

1. Wash your hair with shampoos and conditioners that are designed to moisturize and strengthen relaxed hair. These products are available at drug stores and many other retailers. Like finding healthy foods for your family, you will have to read the labels of the hair products to find the best ones.strengthen the hair.

2. Wrap your hair at night with a silk scarf or hair wrap. As you move throughout the night, the silk will glide across your hair, not pulling as any other fabric does. Weakened, relaxed hair breaks easily, so simply turning your head against a regular pillow at night can cause you to lose hair.

3. When using a curling iron to style your hair, do not allow the barrel cover to clamp down on your hair. Hold the barrel cover slightly open and allow the hair to move over the curling iron barrel without the tugging and pulling caused by pressure from the barrel cover.

4. Never use hair oil on relaxed hair. Oil was designed for natural hair, and the usage of hair oils on relaxed hair is the major reason African American hair breaks off at such an alarming rate. If your hair is well conditioned you won’t need any oil at all. If you choose to use hair oil, rub a very, very small amount in the palms and spread lightly through the hair.

5. Moisturize frequently. Relaxed hair is naturally dry, so it’s important to moisturize daily, even if it’s only dipping your fingers in water and then running them through your hair. It’s a good idea to comb a moisturizer thoroughly through your hair every few days, starting from the roots then combing down. Also, when going to bed, wear a head scarf or cap to keep the moisture in at night (these scarves are also a good way to keep a hairstyle looking fresh!)

Hair Care Tips

Hair Care Tips

Designer clothing, perfectly applied makeup, and fine jewelry are all wasted if your hair looks greasy, dull, or messy. Fortunately, no one needs a hair salon or expensive hair products to have hair that looks professionally cared for and styled. With the right techniques for shampooing, drying, and styling your hair, it can be among your most attractive features.

We'll provide some useful hair-care tips in this article, starting with the basics.

Basic Hair Care

• To minimize breakage, make sure that your hair is thoroughly wet before applying shampoo. Use no more than a quarter-size dollop, and rub the shampoo between your palms first. Lather for no more than 30 seconds.
• After shampooing, rinse your hair with cool water to seal moisture in the hair shafts.
• To distribute the natural oils in your hair, bend over and brush your scalp and hair from back to front until the scalp tingles; then massage the scalp with your fingertips.
• Towel-dry your hair thoroughly before using a blow dryer. You'll save time and avoid damaging your hair with too much heat.
• To cut down on static electricity, dampen your hairbrush before brushing.
• Avoid using a brush on wet hair because it is subject to breakage. Comb out snarls.
• If you suffer from a flaky scalp, try the following treatment every 2 weeks: Section your hair and rub the scalp with a cotton pad saturated with plain rubbing alcohol. Let the alcohol dry, then brush your hair and rinse thoroughly with warm water but don't shampoo.
• To perk up permed hair between shampoos, lightly mist your hair with fresh water and push the curls into place with your fingers.
• Dull, lifeless hair can be a sign of a poor diet. Try cutting down on cholesterol and fats.
• Wait at least 48 hours after coloring hair to shampoo it. Every time you wet hair you open the cuticle -- so give hair time to seal in the color.
• Beer can remove residue from your hair. Add 6 tablespoons beer to 1 cup warm water and pour it over your hair as a final rinse.
• If your hair is prone to buildup from conditioners, styling gel, or hair spray, mix 1 tablespoon baking soda with your regular shampoo once a week. Rinse and dry as usual.

• Use pomade sparingly to remove static, control flyaway ends, and add a glossy sheen to either straight or curly hair. Apply a very small amount to one hand, and liquefy it between your palms. Then run your hands through the hair. If braiding, apply before braiding and use it for small touch-ups.
• Use gel after a braid is finished to smooth down loose or uncontrolled hairs. Apply it to your fingertip or to the end of a hairpin, directing it on top of the stray hairs to encourage them back into the braided pattern.
• Use hair spray to hold the finished design in place. If you want a soft finish but need to control the hair, spray into the palm of your hand and then smooth over the surface of the hair to control flyaway strands.
• Use a coated rubber band or a soft hair tie to secure ponytails and the ends of a braid to reduce the stress on the hair.
• Use gel to control hair when you want a "wet" affect. Apply gel sparingly to your hair once styled. To use for braiding, apply it to all of the hair before you braid, or when you want a clean, off-the-face effect, you can apply it to the perimeter hairline where lengths tend to be shorter.

Sideburns for women: get in the loop

If it ‘s good enough for the Prada catwalk … Photograph: Alexander Klein/AFP/Getty Images

A fashion trend that can count next-season Balenciaga models and Victorian women among its chief ambassadors has to be worth exploring, right? Say hello to spring’s most nuanced yet entirely uncomplicated and cost-free trend: sideburns for women.

I know. But it’s honestly happening. Back in February when Alexander Wang presented his collection for AW15, all of the models had their hair greased up into a bourgeoise bun with a distinct pair of 5cm sideburns slicked down in front of the ears. Meanwhile at Italian label Marni the models on the spring 2015 catwalk sported greasy side tendrils looped in front of the ears for an FKA twigs-meets-municipal-pool look. Despite it being a deliberate hair manoeuvre, no one stood up and pointed their finger until Leandra Medine AKA Man Repeller, US blogger, embodiment of the zeitgeist and blessed with excellent natural sideburns, suggested it could become the new sideboob. Only with less sexual, and more feminist, overtones.

Anita Bhagwandas, an expert on beauty for darker skin, is surprised by the catwalk trend, but like Medine also sees the positives in this sideburn celebration. “Traditionally women with visible sideburns – particularly those who have dark hair and paler skin like so many women of Indian and Middle Eastern descent have – have had them removed in fear of looking ‘masculine.’ But it’s empowering if it’s one less thing that women feel they should get rid of.”


Hair styled flat to the side of a model’s face on the Balenciaga runway. Photograph: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

George Northwood, hairdresser to fashionable clients including Alexa Chung (who herself pulls hair in front of her ears to create faux sideburns) and a man who understands the nuance of what 10 strands of artfully placed hair can project, has noticed pretend sideburns getting more traction in the high fashion in the past year or so. He says that it can be hard to pull off in real life, but that a softer version as worn by Ms Chung – more Bardot – is growing in popularity. “If you pull some strand out in front of the ear it has the opposite effect to the catwalk hair in that it softens the face.”

The haute status of the sideburn isn’t new. The look is as much National Portrait Gallery as it is Vogue. Painters such as Sir Thomas Lawrence made a career out of painting aristo women with standout sidies (Countess Grosvenor could give Man Repeller a run for her money). The Victorian women who favoured the so-called Loop hairstyle were all over the faux sideburn too – as was Barbra Streisand.
A Victorian woman with a Loop hairstyle, and classic 'burns.



A Victorian woman with a Loop hairstyle, and classic ‘burns. Photograph: Alamy

Tony Glenville, creative director of the school of media and communication at London College of Fashion, notes that when women’s sideburns in the late 60s and early 70’s were a Thing, they were cut as an integral part of the fringe and used as an aesthetic contrast – first to the Sassoon geometric cut, then later to add balance to a huge pile-up of hippy curls.

But the question is: what does it all mean? At Balenciaga the sideburn was intended to make the bun less uptight – more punk than plié. But could it be that the celebration of the sideburn on women – usually the preserve of testosteroned-up men – is evidence of redefining of what makes a woman’s face attractive? Or are we making a feature of the bits we don’t quite know what to do with in an up-do? Who knows. But haute, pragmatic, historical and possibly feminist? Bring on the sideburns.

Hair care: the salon wagon taking the stigma out of fitting a wig

hen clients of Demitri Jones, a former manager at the Cobella hair and beauty salon in Selfridges, expressed concern at wearing a wig in public for the first time, he would take off his badge and walk around the store with them to convince them that they looked natural.
“We would walk around and I’d say: ‘Look, no one is looking, no one notices, we’re just blending in with everyone around us,’” says Jones. “Katy Perry and Beyoncé wear so many different wigs, it has completely taken away any stigma associated with wearing one, but people are still worried.”
Jones, a stylist with 15 years’ experience specialising in wigs and hair extensions, has worked for celebrity clients and fashion weeks in New York, Paris, London and Milan, and has appeared on ITV’s reality show Models, Misfits and Mayhem, but he says it is his work with people with cancer and others who have hair loss that is the most rewarding.

This month, with his business partner and long-term boyfriend Marc Deacon, he launched Wigz on Wheelz, a mobile salon that specialises in hair loss. Jones travels to people’s homes or to hospitals in London and the home counties. The service caters for people with alopecia, trichotillomania – a condition in which a person feels compelled to pull out their hair – and hair thinning, and those undergoing gender reassignment.
“It is all about confidence,” says Jones. “Whether you are in a salon or a department store, if you are going through cancer treatment you are at your most vulnerable. Your hair falls out in patches. But you are surrounded by people getting blow dries and glamorous cuts.”
At Cobella, Jones worked with similar clients, but felt there was a market for a more private alternative. “We used to get hen parties and tourists coming in to look at wigs, and then you would get people who had just been through chemotherapy.”
Jones learned his trade from his mother, Lei, and her sister, Reena, both of whom were hairdressers, starting at the salon where his mum worked while he was still at school. His Aunt Reena, who died from breast cancer, wore an NHS wig, but, Jones says she hated it –”It was very poor quality.”
“There’s not a lot of help for cancer patients, in terms of where to go for hair loss,” he says, particularly when it comes to deciding whether to shave their heads. “It is a time when they have no control and the last bit of control is shaving.
“It’s not easy for anyone, no matter what age. Whether you’re seven or 70, a woman’s hair is her crowning glory, isn’t it? A young girl I went to see last week was in intensive chemotherapy. She had beautiful, thick, long brown hair. We discussed what was going to happen and whether she might want me to do it or someone in her family to do it. She was very emotional but she said: ‘I want you to do it.’ It’s a horrible thing to have to do, but I try to reassure people. I say: ‘This is not forever, this is just for now.’”

The best protein treatments for hair

Right now, my hair is rough. It’s become so dry and brittle that it breaks when I wrap it around a brush to blow dry it. The other day at the gym, when I got it caught in a hairband because it was so matted, rather than untangling it I just snapped it off. I should put on a hair mask. But, gah, I won’t. Instead I’ve found leave-in protein treatments, which aim to replace some of the keratin damaged or ageing hair has lost. My favourite type is a spray, which is about as easy to do as snapping hair off. It’s also great for fine hair as, unlike a mask, it doesn’t weigh down. A spritz of something like Philip Kingsley Tricho Pro Volumizing Protein Spray (£35, feelunique.com) a couple of times a week and, well... Thank God.
Alternatively
Phytokeratine Repairing Serum £17, lookfantastic.com Redken Cat Protein Reconstructing Treatment £17.30 (0800 085 4956) Label.m Therapy Age-Defying Protein Cream £17.95, labelm.com Aveda Damage Remedy Intensive Restructuring Treatment £29.50, aveda.co.uk

Why do older women always have short hair?

Age has taught me never to underestimate the importance of a decent haircut. Having ricocheted from one tonsorial disaster to another in my youth – including a DIY mohawk – I’ve found my signature style (a shoulder-length bob) and I’m sticking to it.

As I can testify, hair loses pigment, changes texture and becomes thinner as we get older; it basically needs more looking after which is why, presumably, older women tend to lop it all off. But while grey hair is coarser and dryer, the coarser bit can be quite handy when it comes to styling – it’s just key to make sure your hair is in tip-top condition. “The older you get, the weaker your hair can be,” says hairdresser and Pureology and Redken ambassador George Northwoo, whose A-list clients include Alexa Chung and Gwyneth Paltrow. “Ends get damaged, so it’s best to invest in a trim every eight weeks.”

Some hairdressers recommend a change of hairstyle for a quick age-defying boost and this can be a wonderful way to revitalise your image, but having a timeless cut that can be worn in a number of ways – I can tie my bob into a top knot – is my preferred option. Here are three of the best ageless hairstyles:

Living longer

Model Daphne Selfe. Photograph: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images

As outlined above, there’s a belief that as you get older, hair should become shorter – that long hair equates to being either a try-hard cougar or a slovenly old hag. I’m a firm believer in doing (and wearing) what you like, rather than following generic rules and anyway, there are loads of elegant women with fabulous long hair to disprove this notion. In the grey-corner: Professor Wendy Dagworthy, stylist and beauty entrepreneur Linda Rodin, artist Helen Storey and model Daphne Selfe. In the non-grey corner: actors Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep, designer Vera Wang and creative director at US Vogue Grace Coddington.

Julianne Moore. Photograph: Karwai Tang/WireImage

Long hair has to be in good condition, as the celebrated colourist Josh Wood advises: “Hair treatments, masks, conditioners – whatever you want to call them – are a must in my book. Coloured hair needs to be treated like cashmere and washed with a gentle touch. Grey hair needs to look supple and shiny.” When I spoke to Wood on the phone and baulked at his suggestion of adding a weekly treatment to my low maintenance beauty regime, he rightly suggested that I could’ve been treating my hair while we were talking. Point taken. As Woods continues: “Go easy on the appliances, keep away from too strong a heat when using a hairdryer, and keep the use of tongs and irons to a minimum. The better you treat your hair, the better the condition – and the better you feel.”

Get the look with: Philip Kingsley Elasticizer Extreme, Josh Wood Glossing Mask, Kérastase’s Age Recharge range. And George Northwood recommends “switching up your regime” with Pureology Strength Cure Shampoo and Conditioner, and Pureology Strength Cure Fabulous Lengths, for long hair prone to breakage.

The tousled bob

Helen Mirren with her grown out bob Photograph: Zhang Fan/Zhang Fan/Xinhua Press/Corbis

Anna Wintour’s power bob may have ruled the fashion world for decades but the shorter, choppier version of this classic style feels fresher right now. Helen Mirren has a novel twist on the bob, which can also be messed up if the above feels a little staid: “This is the perfect way to update the traditional bob,” advises Northwood. “But it needs a lot of volume and texture. I would start by using a root-lifting spray on towel-dried hair and then rough drying the hair forwards. If you have a pair of tongs, just apply to a few random sections, then rub a finishing paste in your hands and apply through the lengths and ends to give a messy, matte finish. This is all about creating a textured DIY look.”

Get the look with: John Frieda Blow Dry Lotion and Redken Rough Paste

The grown-up crop

Mia Farrow. Photograph: Globe Photos Inc / Rex Features/Globe Photos Inc / Rex Features

Chic as you like, the grown-up crop is another timeless option. Think Mia Farrow’s Vidal Sassoon cut in the 1968 film Rosemary’s Baby, Isabella Rossellini’s signature style and Julie Walters at the Baftas. “And Dame Judi is great example of an older woman who isn’t afraid of changing her style,” comments Andy Heasman, artistic director at Rush Hair. “Her pixie crop has been cut into a shorter style that gives her a cool edge. To create texture and movement, use a texturising paste and then work a bit of serum through the ends to give that red carpet shine.” Before going for the chop, Heasman recommends having a consultation with your hairdresser first. “It’s important to discuss what would suit your face shape and lifestyle before you take the plunge.” And it’s important to consider that although shorter, cropped styles have an effortless, wash-and-go appearance, they do require more upkeep. “Cropped styles grow out quite quickly and this means more visits to the hairdresser. To keep the style sharp, you’re probably looking at once a month.”

Kristin Scott Thomas. Photograph: Ikon London/Ikon London/Splash News/Corbis

For added versatility, the longer, more Parisian version of the crop worn by Kristin Scott Thomas and French photographer Garance Doré looks equally glamorous. Heasman recommends a root lifting product to damp hair and using a round brush to create volume and lift on top, while making sure the sides remain flat. “It’s all about volume,” adds Heasman. “And this look shows that red-carpet hair doesn’t need to be long and flowing.”

Get the look with: KMS Hair Play, Moroccan Oil

Alyson Walsh blogs as That’s Not My Age @thatsntmyage and is the author of Style Forever: the grown-up guide to looking fabulous published by Hardie Grant 13 March 2015

Hair today: straight or curly?

Like many addictions, it starts as a psychological prop, a way of making yourself feel more confident in social situations. At first you only do it on a night out because everyone else does. But then you become dependent. Before you know it, you're indulging first thing in the morning and then in the loo at work when you think no one's looking. You do it after the gym and even on holiday. You forget what you were like before the addiction took hold. The idea of living without it sends a shiver of cold terror down your spine.
I talk not of narcotics, alcohol or cigarettes. I talk instead of something that millions of women can relate to on an everyday basis: the simple act of straightening one's hair.
Over the past decade, ironed-straight hair has become almost the default style for white females of a certain age. At some point in the early noughties, it seemed we all signed up to the cult of the poker-straight. Our obsession was fuelled by advances in technology and the ready availability of salon-quality straighteners on the high street. When ceramic-plated GHD hair straighteners first hit the shelves, we rushed en masse to grab a pair capable of transforming our frizzy mops into long, sleek manes worthy of a member of Atomic Kitten. Everyone was doing it. Even Jennifer Aniston, propagator of that iconic layered mid-90s haircut "The Rachel", went straight.
In the grip of our addiction we didn't care about the damage done to our split ends or the occasional forehead burn or the times we had to dash back to the house, panicked that we'd left our straighteners on and they were burning a hole through the carpet.
I was no exception. With my straighteners I could iron the natural kink out of my hair in five minutes every morning. It was quicker and easier than getting a blow-dry. When I started my first job on a newspaper, I told myself that straight hair looked more professional than my customary tangle. Soon the straighteners were just another part of my morning routine. I was so attached to them I once took a pair on assignment to Mali – even though I was staying in a hotel with no electricity. For the best part of a decade I was a slave to the straightener. I didn't think to question my subservience because everyone else was doing it, too.
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But now something strange is happening. Silently, stealthily, a generation of women has emerged from under the steaming shadow of 230C heat. And hair has once again become something to experiment with. Blow-dry bars have sprung up in city centres. Extensions are something you do to your scalp rather than the side-return of your house. A battery of gadgetry has reached salon shelves: curling tongs and hot rollers and hair extensions and Argan oil and dry shampoo. Pop stars such as Katy Perry and Kelly Osbourne are dyeing their hair shocking pink and purple. Lady Gaga wears oversize bows made of hair. Women grow fringes to be like Lou Doillon, sport undercuts to emulate Rihanna and style peroxide-blonde mohicans in homage to Emeli Sandé, and no one bats an eyelid.
"It's not one, iconic haircut any more," explains Luke Hersheson, an award-winning stylist and a brand ambassador for L'Oréal Kérastase. "People used to embrace having the same haircut as Jennifer Aniston. Now there are 20 or 30 new trends, and individuality is so much more important."
Hersheson says that social networks such as Twitter and Instagram, which enable celebrities to establish direct relationships with their fans, have meant that we are now able to leap on new trends far more quickly.
"We've always had celebrity influence, but the world's a lot smaller," Hersheson says. "When I  was starting out in the early 90s, the only way I could find out what was happening was to assist hairdressers at a catwalk show. Those pictures were not released to the public for six months. Now I just go home and log on. The accessibility has changed massively."
Today hair is once again becoming a statement of individualism. Just in time, as it happens, because a few weeks ago my straighteners broke and my hair reverted to its untampered state: a nondescript wave that is neither one thing nor the other.
But the odd thing was that I no longer felt leaving the house without straightened hair was the visual equivalent of going out in public missing some vital item of clothing. Instead my female acquaintances were overwhelmingly positive.
Hair: Rihanna ‘Hair is once again becoming a statement of individualism’: Rihanna Photograph: Rex
My cousin said my hair looked better than she'd ever seen it. Some – like my friend Olivia – were almost affronted that I'd been hiding my curls from them for so long, as though I'd been leading a follicular double life. "You should leave your hair exactly as it is," Olivia insisted. "Throw the straighteners out."
The men I know were less sure. They thought my hair made me seem "a bit zany – like Minnie Driver". One male acquaintance cited Anita Roddick. My husband diplomatically said he liked it both curly and straight, which is basically why I married him. Interestingly, everyone I spoke to believed it made me look younger.
For women, hair is a tricky business. Straight or curly, it comes loaded with cultural meaning – a social symbol that, unlike clothing, is an intrinsic part of the body and one which grows on a daily basis.
"Hair is called a secondary sexual characteristic," says Philip Kingsley, one of the UK's leading trichologists, and the man who coined the term "bad hair day". "You can't flaunt your primary sexual characteristics in public, at least not in western society, so that's what makes your hair so important from a social viewpoint: it's about sexuality and morale. Lots of women, and men, find that if they are not happy with their hair then they are unhappy people."
Hair is a genetic inheritance, a marker of our biological roots, and yet the vast majority of us manipulate it through our lifetimes. The styling of our hair is, says Dr Sarah Cheang, a senior tutor at the Royal College of Art, a form of "social signalling". According to Cheang, who co-edited the book Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion, our impulse to straighten, dye or curl our hair comes from a psychological need to disguise who we really are. When hair continues to grow, it threatens to betray our biological roots or our so-called "natural" identity to others.
"We may have decided that our 'true' or 'correct' identity should be something else," she says. "Thus hair might need to be dyed, bleached, straightened, curled or hastily removed."
As a result we bombard our hair with treatments. We allow it to affect our moods, and we treat it as a means of both adornment and self-expression. When we lose it – through alopecia or chemotherapy – the trauma is intense.
The issue becomes even more complex for black women, for whom straight hair can often only be achieved through great expense, the application of dangerous chemicals and the endurance of physical pain. Straightening the natural texture of black people's hair has been perceived as pacifying a culture dominated by white ideals of beauty – but that is another, even more politically charged story.
All of this contributes to the fact that the average woman in the UK spends £26,500 on her tresses over her lifetime. A quarter of the respondents to a 2010 poll of 3,000 people said they would rather spend money on their hair than food. And although the grim economic climate has seen visits to hair salons drop off, an increasing number of women are styling their hair at home.
A consumer report by Mintel states that ownership of hair-styling products has expanded by 4.4 million adults between 2007-10. Twenty million women own a hair dryer and more than 5 million own straighteners (25% of whom say they couldn't live without them).
But why do we bother? Why do we feel this need to tamper with our hair? Hersheson sees it as part of an inherent human covetousness: "It's part of our being to want something we haven't got. We've got a natural, built-in desire to enhance, change or experiment."
This could be true. A natural brunette, I remember being desperate to have blonde hair as a teenager because it seemed that all the boys fancied Pamela Anderson. It turns out there is plenty of historical precedent for blondes being more admired. The Edwardian explorer M French Sheldon claimed to have dazzled the locals in East Africa in 1906 with a white gown and a long blonde wig that apparently rendered her all-powerful and untouchable. But colour is a fluid concept.
"Blondeness used to be a sign of youth," says fashion historian Caroline Cox. "Now, because so many women post-50 are dyeing their hair blonde, it's a sign of maturity, and young women are increasingly dyeing their hair in a grey tone that's almost silver or pale blue."
Hair cut, too, has long been a social signifier. When the bob gained popularity in the 1920s it was emblematic of a new era of modernity and women's emancipation in the aftermath of the First World War – a literal cutting-off from outdated Edwardian traditions. In the 1960s both men and women grew their hair long to rebel against accepted establishment norms. In the 1980s the first wave of women in the workplace often cut their hair short in order to fit into a male-dominated environment (in Working Girl, Mike Nichols's 1988 film about a secretary who yearns to become a businesswoman, there is a seminal moment in which the protagonist, Tess, is so desperate to be taken seriously that she cuts off her soft blonde hair).
These days, according to Cox, the dominant trend is for styling rather than cutting, and for "glamorous, long hair, and lots of it". It is a look that crosses the social divide and yet simultaneously emphasises it. There is an assumption that pneumatic glamour models and female cast members of Towie rely on "fake" hair extensions, whereas the luscious natural locks of the Duchess of Cambridge bespeak a woman with the time and money to devote to a deluxe blow-dry.
Hair: Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge The glossy mane – a product of the deluxe blow-dry: the Duchess of Cambridge. Photograph: Nicolas Asfouri/AP
Other famous proponents of the glossy mane include the caramel-tinted Kim Sears – when her boyfriend Andy Murray won Wimbledon, the BBC devoted almost as many camera angles to capturing the rippling movements of Kim's astonishing hair as it did to the tennis. As a result of this trend, the UK is now the third largest importer of human hair in the world, with £38m worth entering the country in 2011 and a 70% market growth in the last five years. There are even reports of Russian prisoners having their heads shaved against their will and the harvesting of hair from corpses to meet the surge in demand.
"It's a traditional idea of female glamour and it's kind of boring," says Cox. "It's the whole pole-dancer look: huge heads of artificial hair, faces that look as if they've been dipped in a bucket of make-up, ultra short skirts and huge stripper heels. In terms of fashion and feminism, it's like: oh my God – what was I fighting for?"
Big, fake hair has reached the workplace, too – as evidenced by the female candidates on the recent series of The Apprentice, one of whom made repeated references to her "voluminous" bleached-blonde locks on her CV.
Karin Lesnik-Oberstein, a professor of critical theory at the University of Reading and editor of The Last Taboo: Women and Body Hair, sees this as part of a broader trend towards cosmetic enhancement.
"There's an idea now that the more successful a woman is, the more glamorous and sexy she should be," she says. "If not, she has sacrificed her femininity. It's the same with cosmetic surgery or Botox. It goes with the idea of 'having it all' – because if you're a boss and also a woman who doesn't comply with trying to look sexually attractive, then really you're like a man and you become a castrated bitch."
And because the semiotics of a woman's hair are so complex, so inextricably linked with the story she wants to tell about herself and so shaped by the outside forces of gender, commerce and culture, it is truly shocking when someone subverts the narrative.
Hair: Jessie J ‘Short hair is still equated with masculinity’: Jessie J. Photograph: Andy Sheppard/Getty
When Britney Spears shaved her head in full public view in 2007, it was viewed as disturbing physical evidence of a mental breakdown. And although in recent years it has become more common for women to have partially shaved heads as fashion statements, it remains rare to see a female celebrity embracing a full buzz cut unless it is for charity (as Jesse J did to raise money for Red Nose Day) or professional reasons (as Charlize Theron did for an upcoming role).
"Short hair is still equated with masculinity," says Lesnik-Oberstein. "I have very short hair, and in England I often get mistaken for a man. It happened to me recently with two older ladies who mistook me for a man in the loo and said: 'Sir, this is a ladies' loo' very politely. They were mortified when I told them I was actually a woman. That never happens to me on the continent – for instance in Germany or Holland, where a lot of these societies are more egalitarian and matriarchal."
By contrast the looseness of long hair is said to suggest both a moral looseness and a natural sensuality – it was partly for this reason that Victorian women only ever "let their hair down" in private and why many religious faiths still require women to cover their heads completely. Long hair recurs frequently in fairy tales as a metaphor for sexuality, serving to remind us how close and how distant we are from the animal within, whereas tied-up hair is used in popular culture to denote the sexually repressed or uptight.
According to Harvard academic Thom Hecht, "disciplined" hair symbolises "the unseen disciplined mind". In his essay "Hair Control: the Feminine Disciplined Head", he explains that a ballerina's swept-back chignon reflects the supreme physical control exercised over her own body.
Elizabeth Day with a ponytail. Elizabeth Day with a ponytail. Photograph: Phil Fisk for the Observer
All of which could explain why, when I had my hair styled in a tight ponytail for the shoot accompanying this feature, most people who saw me thought I looked "unapproachable" (which might simply be a polite way of saying: "You looked like you had a rattail and a Croydon facelift"). By contrast, the hairstyle with natural waves was deemed the most likeable. Poker-straight hair was, the photographer said, "cold and expressionless".
But for me, the biggest revelation was how liberated I felt with curly hair. There was something about the lightness of it, the way it bounced as I walked, that made me feel happier – perhaps because I wasn't spending the entire day worrying about whether my hair would frizz hideously if it made contact with water. And I suppose it felt more natural, too, less like I was trying to be something I'm not.
But "naturalness", says Sarah Cheang is "a socially constructed concept like any other". That is to say, because hair grows continuously, the management of it whether by cutting or styling is – and always has been – an essential part of human social existence.
And in truth I'm not sure I'll be ditching the hair straighteners immediately. I definitely feel more comfortable experimenting with different styles than I used to, but I'm not sure I'm quite ready to abandon a decade's worth of personal grooming experience. It's going to be a gradual process of weaning myself off the GHDs before I get myself back on to the straight and narrow. In a manner of speaking, that is.
Elizabeth Day's hair was styled by Marc Trinder, art team director at Charles Worthington (020 7631 1370; charlesworthington.com)

Six party hairstyles: a step-by-step guide

Party hard: Michelle Obama, Alexa Chung, Sienna Miller provide hair inspiration Photograph: Getty Images

Hair stylist Richard Ward takes six fantastic party hairstyles and describes how to create them at home.

Michelle Obama's voluminous blow dry

Michelle Obama attends the 2013 Kennedy Center Honors. Photograph: Getty Images • Wash and towel-dry your hair, then spray Richard Ward Couture Hair Volumiser Root Booster to the first two inches of your roots.
• Blow-dry your hair using a radial bristle brush. Start at the nape of your neck, and work your way up to the crown. Ensure that the hairdryer nozzle is on, and each section of hair is the width of the brush you're using. As you dry your hair, curl each section up on to the brush and hold dryer underneath.
• Apply large heated rollers in a brick-work fashion, spritzing each section with hairspray as you go. Leave in until the rollers have completely cooled (about 20 minutes) and then gently remove.
• Tip your head upside down and spritz with Moroccan Oil Glimmer Shine Spray (£18.65) before raking your fingers through your hair to break up the curls a little. Create a strong centre parting and spray with a little more hairspray.

Alexa Chung's glossy waves

Alexa Chung at the British fashion awards. Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/Rex • Start with day old hair and begin by blow-drying it through using a radial bristle brush to smooth out any kinks.
• Create a low side parting.
• Take horizontal sections of hair from in front of the crown to behind the ear. Spray each with L'Oreal Techni Art Constructor (£11.25), followed by hairspray. The section should be about 3in wide and 2in deep. Wrap the hair around a tong. Hold for 10 seconds, before gently releasing the hair.
• Continue working up the head, towards the crown and repeat till the whole head has been tonged. Remember the thicker the section, the looser the finished wave.
• Once complete, gently brush the curls through, though not too many times or they'll lose their shape.

Zoe Saldana's messy bun

Zoe Saldana arrives at the Screen Actors Guild awards. Photograph: Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage • This look works best with day-old hair, ie hair that was washed yesterday. Start by brushing it through and applying a taming and de-frizzing serum like Kerastase Cristalliste Cristal Sculpt Double Serum(£25.80) taking care to focus on the mid-lengths and ends of the hair.
• Using a bristle brush, comb your hair up into a ponytail that sits between the crown and the nape of your neck, and secure with a hair band. Or alternatively use your hands to give the hair a more textured finish.
• Now, take the ponytail and twist it around itself before coiling it around the base of the hair band. Secure in place using plenty of hair pins and Kirby grips.
• Finish the look with a blast of hairspray. Gently guide the hair towards the bun with a comb as you're spritzing. Don't place too much pressure on the comb, this method is purely to direct and tame any flyaway hairs.

Jennifer Lawrence's fishtail plait

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in The Hunger Games. Photograph: Lions Gate/Everett/Rex Features • To get this look, start with day-old hair as it'll help the finished plait to grip better and stay in place for longer.
• Damp your hair slightly and apply Richard Ward Couture Hair Energiser Styling Spray (£19 ) before rough drying it through
• Next brush your hair over one shoulder starting a few inches below the crown, begin to loosely plait using a fishtail plait technique. Divide your hair into two channels, and bringing small, even section of hair from the outside edge to the opposite inside channel of hair. Repeat this step until you reach the ends of your hair and secure with a hair band.
• To create a dishevelled finish, simply tease the hair as you plait with your fingers, or use a tail comb to pull small sections of hair from the finished plait.

MIA's messy chic

MIA at the 2013 YouTube music awards. Photograph: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images • Start with day-old hair and begin by taking small horizontal sections of hair, (from the front of the crown to behind the ear), spray with a heat protector and tong. Hold for 10 seconds, before gently releasing the hair. The smaller the tong, the more curly your end result will be.
• Continue working up the head, towards the crown, and repeat till the whole head has been tonged.
• Once complete, apply Aussie Dual Personality Curl Definition and Soft Feel Serum (£5.19, Boots) to your hands, rub it over them like a hand cream and pull out the curls section by section. You may want to tip your head upside down so you can rake the underside fully and ruffle the roots to create extra volume.
• Once you've created the desired loose-shaped curls, simply create a deep centre-parting and spritz your curls with a flexible hold hairspray.

Sienna Miller's pink rinse

Sienna Miller at the British fashion awards. Photograph: David Fisher/Rex • Lou Rose, technician at the Richard Ward Hair & Metrospa has the following advice for putting a touch of colour in your hair:
"There are numerous way to create a similar effect, both at home and at the salon. If you're thinking of taking the plunge, do ask your hairdresser to initially opt for a more subtle effect. Start with a very soft shade, and then go more vibrant if you decide that you like it."
• L'Oreal's new colour chalks (£15), which need to be blow-dried into the hair, are a great non-committal at-home option, or you could try using one of the pastel pink hair home hair dye options that are on the market such as L'Oreal Feria Pastel Pink Panther (£5.79, Boots).
• Start with day-old hair and begin by blow-drying it through, to smooth out the hair line.
• Create a strong centre parting using a tail comb.
• Take random horizontal sections of hair from in front of the crown to behind the ear and spray with a heat protector followed by hairspray. Wrap the hair around a tong. Hold for 10 seconds, before gently releasing the hair.
• Continue working up the head, towards the crown and repeat till the whole head has been tonged. The thicker the section, the looser the finished wave, but a variation of different sizes works best with this look, so use both ends on your tongs.
• Once complete, gently pull out the curls with your fingers until they drop slightly, and apply Label M Shine Mist (£13.25) to the ends.