Being 'Bettied'..vintage hair with flair.

I have never, ever, hankered after natural, healthy, unstructured hair. I grew up in the age of the Partridge Family, tabards, space-hoppers and David Cassidy. Therefore I actively dislike the 'Virgin Suicide' style. I am bored by the concept of blande, beige, dun, muddy coloured hair flopping down one's shoulders. It is the styling of my grandmother's generation that appeals, the curls, the up-do's, the rolls and flicks. The first thing I did upon becoming 13, and in my eyes a 'teenager', was to buy a bottle of jet black L'Oreal Recital and eliminate the dull brown locks I was cursed with. My father said I resembled a witch; I was delighted.

In a world of Kate Moss wannabees, Cheryl Cole add-ons and vast swathes of blonde highlights it is very difficult to find a hairdresser that gets, what you want them to get. For a couple of years now my locks have been tended by Miss Betty whose salon is in Kingly Court. I found her by word of mouth. I was complaining that I had to order hairdressers to cut my fringe, and that when they did, they would soften it, to make me look 'younger' grrrr. So determined was I that I marched into Betty's with hair half way down my back and demanded a chin length bob. Which I got, excellently cut and with no prevarication. I went back last Saturday to get my (now fiery red) locks touched up and my hair styled. I have bravely posted the before and after pictures below:

RED LEGS PRE-BETTY...

BETTY WORKS HER MAGIC...

The Salon itself is a pleasure, no sterile reaches of white ceramics and mirrors, so you don't feel like you are being coiffed in an abbatoire. Rather Miss Betty's parlour is highly feminine, all red velvet and black chandeliers. The pictures on the walls of glamorous screen legends and rockabilly hussies are better than rows of asinine pictures of gormless looking models. What stands out the most is that you do not feel isolated from other users of the salon, on Saturdays it is busy but you feel that you can chat with others, or not, as you wish. It also makes a difference that whilst you wait you actually get to listen to good music. I repeat GOOD music, it's a bug bear of mine, the classic modern hairdresser's obsession with Beyonce, Jamiroquai, Girls Aloud and Robbie Williams arrrrggghh! I end up wanting to grab the clippers from the hairdresser and run out with a shaved head just to get away from the noise.

Interior of Miss Betty's

Betty's main interest lies in styling rockabilly/fifties hair and previously having had a salon in Toulouse she is well known in that subculture. I also like the fact, and I don't think this is because English is her second language, that she is clear and straightforward and will tell you when she thinks something will or won't suit you. No flim-flam. I'm not, perhaps, her classic customer but she knows how vintage glamour works. You come out of the salon with seriously glamorous grown up hair. After leaving her salon I went off to meet Torquil Arbuthnot and Katie Chutzpah http://katiechutzpah.blogspot.com/ in Mayfair. In New Bond Street I heard someone say as I passed 'she's probably here for London Fashion Week'..entirely down to Betty's styling.

Another view of the interior of the beauty parlour.

An element of the salon that I enjoy is the fact that Betty shares it with her partner, retro/rocker barber Mr Ducktail. In fact his barbershop 'Something Hells' takes up the front part of the establishment. His expertise attracts a steady stream of gentlemen (and the occasional lady) who wants the perfect quiff or DA. This means there are usually a few nice looking young men hanging around, never a bad thing. In fact there was a very special young man in the salon on Saturday, Betty's 10 week old bulldog puppy Elvis; the cutest thing ever.

Interior of Something Hells, Mr Ducktail's barber shop.

One of Betty's up do's (taken at the Chap Olympics), it stayed up for days...

Now that's what I call a fringe!

Retro-hair is not for everyone, you do get looked at (surely the point?) and when not around experts like Betty you end up battling with rollers, stuck with more pins that a zombie doll and drenched in Elnett. However stylists like Betty make life a lot easier, and you know where to go for that knock-out hairstyle when you need it. I have sent several friends to her and they have always looked fantastic. So if you are in London and want killer hair you know where to go. No excuses!

Miss Betty's Beauty Parlour.

Tel: 0207 287 0241

Home page: http://www.myspace.com/something_hell

Interview with Betty: http://www.queensofvintage.com/ooh-la-la-vintage-hairstylist-miss-betty-shares-her-style-secrets

Ginger vitus

My original medium dark brown hair

A not particularly flattering photograph of the marmalade hair.

(The gentleman next to me is Atters, of Chaporgasmic terrors fame).
photo courtesy of the Chairman.

I now have hair the colour of marmalade, not a subtle shade, bright enough to attract the odd stare. With pale skin, freckles and grey eyes, I own the perfect complexion for russet locks. The shade of red I now have is a true ginger, but too strong to pass for natural. The reaction thus far has been interesting. Immediately after having it coloured (at Miss Betty's in Kingly Court) I realised I would need some new make-up, a red lipstick with orange undertones and a light brown/chestnutty eyebrow pencil. This necessitated a trip to Selfridges (again). The girls at the Chanel counter were very taken with my hair colour and made a point of remarking upon it, Chanel girls have never thrown me any compliments before. When loitering at the Mac counter another customer commented on my hair and said I looked 'fierce', which I gather is not an insult.

Mind you I have noticed a few other stares, perhaps because during the day time my look is not overtly vintage, nor do I look particularly alternative. My dirty book-moving day job means I get grubby and cannot wear the kind of clothes I prefer in my own time. I think strong hair colours are now primarily associated with counter-culture lifestyle and I don't immediately fit the bill. I also feel it is a reflection of an obsession with having highly coloured and treated hair that is nonetheless percieved as 'natural'. My sibling is a hairdresser and is amused at the blond highlights that are the norm in the UK. In his opinion the foil highlight is as bad for your hair as all-over colour as with more than two or three applications it ends up being all over colour..but stealthily and more importantly, expensively. As hardly any British women are blonde it is perfectly clear that all these natural blondes are fakes, self deception is rife. Strange how they are dyeing their hair only a shade lighter than it's own shade, if that were the case, why bother? The fact is of course that a good shade of pretty all over blonde can be obtained from a box of Nice and Easy for about a fiver and two of the prettiest blonde barnets I know of are obtained from exactly this brand.

Dyeing your hair a lurid shade is more tricky, perhaps because strong pigments such as red are fugitive and fade fast. To get my hair pale enough to take the red, its natural muddy brown had to be bleached and then tinted, a process when carried out professionally has little effect on condition, apart from the fact your hair gets less greasy. In fact my hair feels nicer now, probably because the tint has conditioned it.

Vintage style clothes and strong hair colours certainly match. Most of the beautiful women of the past I admire had ferociously strongly coloured hair: Grace Kelly, Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner. Even those that had their own colour had a soft minky brown that most women, in this country anyway, dye blonde. That minky colour is very close to good old fashioned, and often really attractive, English mouse brown.

Strong hair colour is arguably harsher and makes you look your age, in a world obsessed by infantilism that is not good. But I do not care, I would rather look my age than give in to insipid caramel. I'm not sure whether the marmalade locks I currently have will be darkened a bit next month but at the moment I am having fun trying to live up to the colour. Red in it's natural form is the rarest hair colour in the world, yet most common here in the UK. It's associations, even the negative ones, are really quite appealing. In any case I don't want it to look natural, there is nothing wrong with my own brown hair, and I am spending good money on it! Mind you the bearded one has been heard to say there most be some kind of state benefit out there for men who care for ginger girlfriends....