It's not your wrinkles making you look old! I'm a 53-year-old beauty expert: this is why your hair is ageing you and the three things you should be doing to turn back the clock By Hannah Betts For The Daily Mail Published: 16:45 BST, 11 August 2024 | Updated: 16:56 BST, 11 August 2024 e-mail View comments At 53, my hair has collapsed, died, passed over. Its texture has gone from soft and shiny to limp at the roots, plus ghastly, frizzy thatch through the middle and ends. It's so hideous I've been tying it back all the time – not a good sign.
Distraught, I put myself in the hands of midlife hair champion, Zoe Irwin, 57, John Frieda Creative Director, and the woman behind 52-year-old Lisa Snowdon 's ageless tresses. Zoe's beef with middle-aged hair is that too many women feel forced to go lighter when this doesn't suit them, while others become 'jarring brunettes'. It is clear which category I fall into.
Despite hardly having any grey, I have deployed crude concealing techniques, leading to a parched, porous block of inky, over-saturated colour. Many women feel forced to go lighter with middle-aged hair when it does n't suit them I've fallen into the midlife trap of paying attention to my skin, while letting my hair fall into ruin. I am by no means alone.
This has led to the trend known as the 'skinification' of hair, granting it the focus we lavish on our faces, and bolstering it with complexion ingredients such as peptides, hyaluronic acid, collagen and niacinamide. Now Zoe has created a spa-style, anti-ageing facial for your hair to detox your scalp and build strength into your strands, working in layers of moisture. Better still, Zoe teaches as she goes, so you can replicate her actions at home.
Cleanse and exfoliate Rehab starts with a Virtue Exfoliating Scalp Treatment (now £38.40, sephora.co.
uk), scented with lavender, chamomile and sandalwood. Zoe's technique isn't a scouring motion, but a firm, scalp-shifting kneading that allows the treatment's rice beads to boost circulation, stimulating growth. Lifting a T-section and massaging in Virtue's alpha-keratin formula to provide a face-cream-like repair.
Massage and moisturise The next step involves a moisture drench, conditioning the areas that need it – in my case, the middle and ends – while not smothering the roots. I cover the backs and fronts of my hands with Virtue Restorative Treatment Mask (£25.60, sephora.
co.uk), working it through the ends first, then the middle. Again, I separate out the t-section where my damage is worst, massaging moisture into my hair's lengths to restore bend.
Zoe also rates Pureology's nourishing Hydrate Superfood Deep Treatment Mask (now £27.80, sephora.co.
uk) and Beauty Pie's vegan keratin mask, Super Health Hair (members £14, non-members, £35, beautypie.com). Then, we rinse and go through the process again with Olaplex No.
8 Bond Intense Moisture Mask (£28, sephora.co.uk), pressing it into damaged zones for ten minutes.
Cleverest of colour Only now my hair has begun to be rehabilitated, will Zoe even begin to consider colour – with the most nuanced of touches. To make the look multi-dimensional she covers the tiniest micro-sections at the roots with multiple depths of permanent, dark-brown colour, weaving this with a deep ash gloss. Read More Beauty expert HANNAH BETTS reveals the six steps to stay cool For a home take, try Josh Wood Colour Permanent Hair Dye in 5.
5 Brown (£14, Boots.com) with Josh Wood Hair Gloss in Smoky Brunette, £19, joshwoodcolour.com).
Then, further down the length, she adds a conditioning, semi-permanent, clear glaze. Glaze Super Color Conditioning Gloss in Sheer Glow (£15.99, Superdrug) offers a DIY take.
Bringing my locks back to life will take time. However, from the outset, the effect is youth-restoring: the difference between dense, lacquer-type colour and a more pliant, pastel guise; infinitely more flattering to face. I'm set to become one of those high-maintenance women, forever haunting the salon.
But, when said trips involve being so exquisitely indulged, then this is no punishment. All this head massaging also makes the skin on my face glow, so I should look more spritely all round. Race you to it! Boy Brow brush-on grooming pomade is Glossier's cult product, youth in a tube.
Now meet Glossier Boy Brow Arch (£24, ukglossier.com): pomade in a pencil. Soft and realistic-looking, it also boasts precision, with a sharp edge for fine flicks, plus a flat one to fill in shape.
Waterproof, smudge-proof, in nine warm and cool shades, grey included. My icon of the week: Emma Willis Emma Willis presents reality television series Love Is Blind: UK on Netflix TV presenter Emma Willis, 48, is a devotee of Absolute Collagen Marine Collagen (from £27, absolutecollagen.com) and Dermaceutic Sun Ceutic SPF 50+ (£28.
80, cosmetify.com). She loves Charlotte Tilbury Pillow Talk Push Up Lashes in brown (£28, charlottetilbury.
com) and Hello Sunday Lipbalm SPF 50 (£7, Boots.com) to prevent cold sores. Cosmetic craving Sunspel Sea Moss Eau de Parfum (from £80, sunspel.
com) British outfitter Sunspel produces four scents, tributes to our national landscape. Oak Wood conjures its forests; Green Cedar, its verdant spring breezes; Neroli Sun its sun-dappled summers; and Sunspel Sea Moss Eau de Parfum (from £80, sunspel.com) its coastline.
(Try them all in the Sunspel Eau De Parfum Gift Set, £125). Created by Lyn Harris, formerly of Miller Harris, Sea Moss is a more masculine, British version of Miller Harris's late, great Fleurs de Sel: a beautiful beach walk, all driftwood, salty sea air and wild flowers. I'm not going away this August, so this is my summer holiday – a spirit-lifting, herbal tonic full of airy, mossy serenity.
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