While the obvious two tone dip-dye might be passé now, subtly highlighted hair lights up features and demurely says: ‘I summered in Sardinia.’ As I did not spend my summer whiling away on a yacht, faking it is the only option.
This is not one for just any hairdresser, so I headed to Eleven in Mayfair to place myself in Jacqueline Tarlier’s hands for highlighted hair that didn’t look highlighted and a trim that didn’t look neatly trimmed. Yes, I am one pernickety customer when it comes to my hair.
I went to the right place – instead of standing behind me awaiting a quick instruction before starting, Jacqueline sat down and and listened patiently before clarifying: I simply wanted honeyed hair that didn’t require much upkeep. Once both on the same page, I was pleased to find Jacqueline both cuts and colours and that I would be entirely in her hands.
The technical part is best regaled in her words: ‘In order to make the colour multi-tonal and natural I added several complementary shades and only coloured the mid-lengths and ends, leaving your own hair colour as a base for a look that requires very little maintenance and minimal time in the salon.’ Yes, she had clearly understood.
After a Joico treatment to boost protein and moisture, Jacqueline trimmed away before drying my new head of hair. It was perfection: in two hours she has successfully given me a gleaming head of hair that looked as if the owner had spent two months cultivating the colour somewhere exotic. Alas, my carriage home was a tube and the most exotic place I could find in which to sun myself was my little garden. But, still. One is entitled to pretend.
