Wealden Times | WT262 | March 2024 | Kitchen & Bathroom Supplement inside

(Not so) mad
March hair
From rich blacks and smooth chocolates to radiant
reds and gleaming blondes, winter haircare is all
about conserving moisture to fight the frizz and
stave off damage. Here, Josephine Fairley edits
down her list of super effective tried-and-tested
products to keep your barnet in tip-top condition
istockphoto.com/ kobrin_photo / Mariia Vitkovska
A
few years ago, I sat around a table with some friends
‘of a certain age’ in late March and realised: everyone’s
hair was frizzy, fried, flyaway and – well, as a result
– really a bit ‘old lady-ish’. It’s the sort of damage we’re told
to expect after a summer holiday, but in fact winter assaults
our hair over a much longer period – notably through central
heating, which saps every atom of moisture out of an interior
environment. And out of our hair, at the same time.
There are some lifestyle steps that can help. One way is quite
simply to add more moisture to your home environment, if it’s
super-dry. A ‘room hygrometer’ (I bought mine via Amazon
for a few quid) will tell you whether it’s dry, moderate or (I’m
looking at mine now), just over the cusp of ‘humid’, which is
probably a healthy place to be, so far as my barnet’s concerned.
How can you add moisture to the air? There are pricey
Dyson machines that will do this, but I prefer lower-tech
methods: small bowls of water, for instance, placed near radiators.
Misting your plants, too. And actually, I like to dry the washing
over radiators, too, which – while making the place look a little
disordered on washday – really helps ramp up the moisture levels, as
well as saving on the ouch-making cost of running the tumble drier.
But, of course, it’s also about using the right haircare – to infuse the hair
shaft with moisture and nutrients, while smoothing the cuticle so it looks shiny
and healthy. And take note: there isn’t a single hairdresser that I’ve interviewed
over the years who didn’t prescribe a weekly deep treatment with a hair mask to keep
hair in tip-top nick – a piece of advice that you will not regret sticking to religiously.
Different fabrics that our hair comes into contact with have adverse or beneficial effects, too. I’m a big
fan of silk pillowcases (see below), which are much kinder to hair than cotton or linen if you tend to switch
sides in the night. Wool? Not so much. Fabulous as a beanie or a knitted hat looks, be aware that putting these
on and taking them off can rough up the hair cuticle, which leads to frizz. (They don’t call it ‘hat hair’ for nothing.)
Plenty of products have landed on my desk lately that I think are particularly suited to using
at this time of year, so I’ll share my favourites – along with some ‘old friends’, in terms of glossboosting,
re-moisturising haircare. It is frankly never too soon to start to undo the damage that
central heating (and blustery, whipping winds) does to hair – but never too late, either…
Sam McKnight Rich Nourish Shampoo, £28 for 200ml, and Conditioner, £28 for 200ml. If you haven’t yet
dipped a toe into the waters of ‘designer’ haircare, this is the place to start. (And I’m warning you: there may be
no turning back. My thinking is: I’d rather spend money on my hair than new clothes, because I wear my hair
every darned day.) From the ultimate A-list hairdresser, infused with fragrances created by stellar perfumer Lyn
Harris (Miller Harris, Perfumer H), this heaven-scented Rich Nourish duo contains strengthening plant keratin,
gloss-boosting sugar beet and a combo of 17 amino acids to smooth, soften and boost hair’s resilience.
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