Lockdown has taught us the amazing power of all kinds of people. We knew about nurses, and now anyone who has had to home-school definitely knows about teachers. But hairdressers? Once you’ve tried to cut your own hair, you realise very quickly how important and brilliant professional hairdressers are.
My family and I went absolutely feral in lockdown. Don’t get me wrong, we had great haircare – I’ve been using Head & Shoulders my entire life. But when it came to cutting our own hair, that’s another story. My fringe grew repellently long, to the point it was almost down to my chin. Thankfully, I had my hairdresser George Northwood, who is the King of Fringes – and hair in general – on Zoom speed-dial to teach me how to cut it, and boy did I need professional help. I’m quite impatient and, as you can tell by what I look like, I’m not a perfectionist. I tried to do it in about three seconds and assumed you just get some scissors and cut across, job done. ‘No, you have to cut vertically into it,’ said George, virtually demonstrating for me.
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I managed to make it work (at least I did according to my terrible eyesight) but cutting my nine-year-old son’s hair was so bad I can’t even tell you. My husband ended up taking over and cutting it like you see in films. He put a bowl over the little one’s head and just snipped around it; we had to do it in the bath because there was hair EVERYWHERE. I didn’t even attempt to cut my husband’s, I don’t think either of us trusted me after the hatchet job I did on my son! After that, I just knew we needed to get back to the professionals as fast as we could. As soon as I was allowed back into the salon at the beginning of July, I raced there.
The atmosphere felt like Christmas Day – everyone was so grateful to be back. The clients were slightly devil-may-care; I could hear people going, ‘Just get rid of all of it!’ As soon as I sat down they were like, ‘Claud, what have you done? There’s whole chunks missing! Thank goodness you’re here now...’
After I finally had a new ’do, the mood boost was simply unbelievable. I walked all the way home swooshing my hair.
I have quite an emotional attachment to hairdressers because I know how amazing they can make me feel. I think all of our respect for so many professions has gone through the roof this year. For me, hairdressers just ruled.
Claudia's favourites, the Head & Shoulders Supreme Strength with Argan Oil & Bamboo Extract Shampoo & Conditioner from the new Supreme Dual Oils range is available at Superdrug.