Hi-lo maintenance

Susie Bubble ran a post this week about her disinclination to wear makeup/do grooming. It struck an enormous chord with me as I ran around Vogue House for the whole of my 20's not giving a damn. British Condé Nast admires the individual fashion statement & immaculate grooming tends to be viewed with suspicion in the young. I made a religion out of just not caring about beauty & grooming. I got so much free stuff that I never needed to enter a Beauty Hall, although I gave most of it away to my friends. My mother used to lunch with me and despair at my long un-blow dried hair & shiny face. "Darling, you really should be wearing foundation." The only time I ever got a blow dry was for a big work party, using my Condé Nast discount at Mahogany (the salon opposite Vogue House where everyone goes for lunchtime remedial work.)

Then I hit my late 20s. Those continual late nights & endless vodka, lime & sodas in Soho House & the Groucho started to show on my face and, even tho I have great skin, it started to need some help. And then my hair started to look wrong too. The insouciant, hedge backwards, tousled look no longer worked with my almost 30-something-ness.

I started to make sure it was always brushed and shiny, & when straightened hair was all the rage, I was laughing as my hair is naturally poker straight, but the moment straightened hair came off the catwalks & into the mainstream I bought some heated rollers, a round brush and a hairdryer. Thus my initiation into the world of hair maintenance. My saviour has been Liana at Markos in Hampstead who shoved me to bake under the helmet dryer with my hair in tight rollers. A Blackberry-filled hour later I would have cascading curls, which an hour or so later would soften into gentle waves. (She's a great cutter too - £20, bargain.)

Now I'm in New York I have yet to find someone who can deal with my hair so, much against my inclination, I blow dry if I am leaving the house, and rather admire my salon selectives bounce. I still fucking hate doing it tho, but truth is, you can't wing it over 30....