Savoir hair: the French revolution taking place in London’s hair salons

Ooh la la! From Gallic roots to Gainsbourg waves, explore the French way to style your hair
Eva Green is the poster girl for L’Oréal Professionnel’s French Girl Hair Brunette Bar
Emma McCarthy27 June 2016

We Londoners have been known to spend an inordinate amount of time on achieving hair that looks as though it hasn’t been touched. But if there’s one breed of woman who needs no help as far as “I woke up like this” hair is concerned, it’s the French.

Poster girls for the natural, effortlessly cool look — think of the crumpled, slept-in waves of Caroline de Maigret and the glossy, unstyled locks of Charlotte Gainsbourg — the insouciant Parisian has long been the source of our hair goals. But achieving that certain je ne sais quoi need not require crossing the Channel.

For one, quintessentially French style means embracing what Mother Nature gave you. So Knightsbridge salon Paul Edmonds has enlisted colour maestro Jack Howard to create a menu of services designed to bring a touch of joie de vivre to brunettes.

“Brunettes have been totally under-represented until now,” says Howard. “The L’Oréal Professionnel French Girl Hair Brunette Bar offers new techniques specifically for brunettes without them needing to go lighter. It’s soft, barely there colour that just gives a new dimension to brown hair.”

Using eight new Majirel French Brown shades, the bar offers four fresh approaches to colour (from £80) which emphasise a subtle, understated finish. Colour virgins wanting to stick to a low-key approach should try the French Polish — a touch of colour contouring that layers varying hues of brown to give flat coloura lift — while naturally dark or long-haired brunettes should opt for the Tricolore Chic, which blends three shades using a colour sponge for an impossible-to-detect but très flattering gradient.

The brand has also launched a range of products to help you maintain your French girl mane, including a CC Cream for Brunettes (£11.99) to enrich and protect your colour.

As for that coveted, perfectly undone texture, John Frieda has you covered with the launch of its Brush-free Blow-dry (£30) in its London salons. Adapted to give you a just-rolled-out-of-bed tousle — minus the fluffy frizz or sticky-up bits — your stylist will rough-dry your hair using their fingers (and a set of tongs if it needs a bit of extra encouragement) to give hair movement without volume.

“This look is really fresh, flattering and less structured,” says senior stylist Jake Davis. “It’s all about perfecting your hair’s natural imperfections.” If you can’t make it to the salon, Davis advises part-drying your hair at home before flat-pinning front sections of damp hair to encourage natural waves around the face. If tonging, leave the roots flat and the ends straight for a modern finish and gently scrunch with Colour Wow’s One Minute Transformation (£16.50) or L’Oréal’s Messy Cliché Styling Spray (£14.99) to separate the waves.

Another brand worth stocking up on is Ouai (pronounced “way”, the casual, throwaway version of “oui”) — the eagerly awaited haircare range by celebrity coiffeuse Jen Atkin.

Renowned for creating low-maintenance looks for the likes of Kim Kardashian (during her mussed-up blonde mop moment) and Gigi Hadid, each product — from the Texturising Hair Spray (£22, selfridges.com) to the shine-enhancing Finishing Crème (£20) — is created to help you perfect your lived-in look in 15 minutes or less.

Et voila!

Evening Standard Spa Reviews

1/11

Follow Lifestyle on Facebook and on Twitter @ESLifeandStyle

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in