Beckham Victoria - Great hair days: and how to have them

I think that the most important thing a woman can have next to talent, of course is her hairdresser.

JOAN CRAWFORD

I do maintain that if your hair is wrong, your entire life is wrong.

MORRISSEY

Im a big woman. I need big hair.

ARETHA FRANKLIN

Luke is someone I trust implicitly with my hair and that for me is key. He has a knowledge and experience so rich and varied that I feel comfortable listening to his suggestions, trying out new things and also importantly, just as happy to have what could be considered differences of opinion! And thats whats so refreshing. We have experimented, we have tonged and straightened, cut and lengthened for editorial, for events, or just simply for me and through each process I have learnt a little bit more about what I do and dont like for my hair.

Our hair is the starting point for feeling and looking good for all of us women. Its a fundamental part of our identity, our confidence, our look. Yet it can drive us to distraction. And here finally is our handbook to simplify and understand what we can do and how to achieve the best results without (and excuse the pun) literally tearing our hair out.

Im so excited that everyone can now share in Lukes expertise. This book brings together the answers to all our questions, provides invaluable advice for good and bad hair days and gives us all the help we need at our fingertips. Enjoy!

X VB

Just as there was life before the iPhone, retinol, gel manicures and Netflix, and will be afterwards, my life in hair can be divided into two distinct eras: B.H. and A.H. Before Hershesons and After Hershesons. Though B.H. could just as well stand for bad hair.

From an early age, my passion for all things beauty was made easy by an almost instinctive understanding of skincare and make-up. But good hair the third point of the triangle didnt come anything like as naturally to me. From as far back as I can remember, my hair and I were in a dysfunctional relationship, swinging perpetually between embittered battle, when Id grab crimpers, bendy rollers, clips or Carmens and attempt to force it into seemingly foolproof looks from magazines (and invariably end up with achy arms, superficial skin burns and a sad, frizzy kink in my usual style), and the other extreme where I ignored my hair altogether and got on with my day while it sat there looking damp and piteous. As I entered adulthood, spent and defeated, this latter mode prevailed. Hair just wasnt my thing. I couldnt do it, was blinded by science. I lacked the requisite coordination to master the two-armed dance between round brush and blow dryer, the patience for separating hair into uniform sections, the skill needed to create curls, the volume to keep any style in place beyond breakfast. So I simply opted out leaving my hair to dry naturally in a lank, shapeless curtain while I attempted to pull focus with good brows and a bold lip.

Its entirely true to say that in almost every amateur photo that exists of me pre-2013, my hair flat and forgotten, either ten years too old or too young for my face looks nothing short of atrocious. The only time it ever looked decent was immediately after a haircut or professional blow dry and even as I pulled on my coat to leave the salon, I was already wondering how little social mileage Id get from it before the whole thing reverted to its usual meh. A good haircut was a one-day deal, a cruel snapshot of what I could have won, if only I werent so utterly incapable of recreating the simplest of styles. Id see others with braids, surfer-girl waves, up-dos and big, pouffy bedheads and wondered how on earth I missed the memo. If it needed anything more than a swish-through with straighteners (and lets face it, everything post-Friends and Cat Deeley rightly did), I counted myself out. For a very long time, despite my life being surrounded by the worlds leading experts, I hated hair and the feeling was visibly mutual.

Its very odd to recall my life B.H., since and please indulge my incredulous boasting here Im now really very bloody good at doing my own hair. I can make it photo-shoot ready in ten minutes flat. People on social media ask for tips on how to get it looking like that, even when Ive just done it in the back of a cab. I can cheat a pro blow dry and breeze through three whole days before it starts to look grubby. Professional TV hairstylists have taken one cursory glance at my DIY do and ushered me on-set having decided to take no further action. Im even told that women occasionally take my photo into the salon and ask for my hair. Me! The person with a terrible, fine, flyaway mop and sub-zero natural aptitude for styling it! How? The entirely honest answer begins and ends with one salon.

A little over five years ago, having spent over two decades dating, rebounding and cheating on all the big London salons, I finally discovered true love and monogamy at 45 Conduit Street. From the moment Luke Hersheson cut off my long locks, grabbing fistfuls of strands and hacking into them as though felling forestry, I finally began to understand my own hair. From that appointment forward, he and the team taught me that hair is really not that hard and whats more, it actually looks a whole lot better when its not. That doesnt mean I was on the right track when I combed it wet and left it to its own devices. It means that like that of a good cook, florist or cocktail waiter, Hershesons approach is about taking three or four simple ingredients, and making something seem effortlessly beautiful.

What Luke, Adrian P., Jordan, Hadley, Grace, Sean and all the others have consistently taught me, is that my hair and I are on the same side. Its not about beating my thin, wispy, plentiful strands into submission or worse, into big, smooth, improbable arcs (as all the previous salons had done), its about treating it to the right tools, giving it a little more movement with my drying technique, a bit more texture with a single styling product. Its about binning the brush and getting my hands in there, about having the confidence to be casual, to stay on just the right side of unruly, to make little changes to mix things up and stay current. And most of all, its about getting a cut that doesnt need a round-the-clock hairdresser to keep it looking great.

I wondered why everyone wasnt doing their hair this way, why so many were wasting their time with complex, over-coiffed styles and looking way less cool than if theyd had an extra half-hour in bed. My boyfriend (hardly the observant type) kept asking me if Id just got my hair done when Id spent all day at the laptop. My girlfriends would tell me how good my hair looked when Id barely spent more than two minutes getting it ready to go out. One by one, I sent my crew, despairing and depressed with their inability to keep a good barnet, into Hershesons. One by one out they came again, evangelical and fully capable of maintaining their newly cool hair at home. My friend Lauren Laverne began to call Hershesons The Happy Place and we all understood, shuddering at the thought of it not being there, and of all the good hair days wed needlessly missed. For the first time in our lives, we actually liked our hair and knew how to work it almost as well as the professionals.