Three ways to pamper yourself

Three ways to pamper yourself

After a stressful and manic festive period, we reckon the new year is the perfect time to really spoil yourself. We’ve done the tough job of finding three ways to pamper yourself…

Balayage at Live True London, Clapham, London

From £100 (plus cut and blow dry, from £47), livetruelondon.com

There’s nothing like a professional blow-dry to make you feel glamorous in an instant. Well add on a new cut and colour in front of that blow-dry and you can guarantee you’ll be feeling your Sunday best, and that’s what happened to me at Live True London’s Clapham branch.

The uber cool salon is nestled in Clapham North’s railway arches, giving it a huge open layout and high ceilings that make a real change from the usual stuffy central London salons I’m used to. After a quick consultation with my stylist, he’d earned my trust enough to help me decide to go for quite a change. Not only would I be taking a little length off (a big deal for me!), but I’d decided also to go a lot lighter than my natural colour and take the balayage effect higher.

The stylist did his thing, nailing the balance between achieving the lightness in colour while still keeping the strength and condition in my hair. My hair is naturally super dark – almost black – so I always appreciate it when colourists are realistic with the colour they can actually land on. While the final colour wasn’t as platinum as I’d expected, it was still drastic enough that I loved it, and I was grateful that my tresses still felt smooth, silky and strong.

As for the cut, my locks were chopped away to give me a dusting-the-shoulders length that ticked all the boxes: not too short that it couldn’t be tied back, just enough shape and complimentary of the new colour.