How to have good hair

Writing this from the National Theatre, here for a wig and costume fitting, otherwise known as the best thing about doing a play.

Something I love about theatre is how adorably analogue it is. When I did a TV show called Generation Z a couple of years ago, I needed to have my face measured for prosthetics. I went in, closed my eyes, they blasted me with lasers and I was done in 30 seconds.

For my wig just now, Phillip from Hair and Makeup pinned all my hair to my head and put a stocking on it. Then, a cling film wrap with a big flaps over my forehead and at the back of my neck. Next he tore off strips of sellotape and placed them all around my head until there were two layers and no gaps. Drew on with a marker where my hairline was and eyebrows are. Then, pulled the whole thing off as one, and that’s my head! They’ll then make a wig that fits is perfectly. Amazing.

Last night of course was the Substack Fete, and I’m still sweating sugar. The table of cakes from Substack bakers was a sublime touch, the Ottolenghi strawberry, peach, lime and sumac breeze block in the exact colour scheme of my living room:

….and my outfit!

I can’t believe I’ve only just gotten round to reading this after being recommended it for twenty years. It’s dark and rollocking and so so naughty, and the plot bolts. Oh it’s so nice to go on an adventure!

The form is so innovative and unique. I’m editing my manuscript at the moment and my poor UK and US editors are getting so much ‘Fay Weldon does it’ in response to their notes. I am of course, not Fay Wheldon (surprise!).

It’s the sort of book that makes you want to know everything about the author, and when I deep dived I wasn’t disappointed. ‘I’m the only feminist there is, the others are all out of step’ she said in 2009. I enjoyed reading this Guardian piece, where three writers speak of their experiences with her. One said:

I was shocked when, emerging from university, Fay told me that I needed to find a boyfriend who was taller, older, richer and cleverer than I was, so that I could respect him.

There is a character in my new novel who deploys this exact rhetoric, a product of a different time but no less on the side of women.

How lovely would this look with cream jeans and a black tank? £45, H&M.

….and that’s fine! This piece about Dua Lipa’s wedding (which I obviously cooed over like everyone else) was an amazing read. ‘Dua Lipa is a nice ultra-rich person. There’s no such thing as a good one’. Whew.

The thing about Dua Lipa is, I feel she’s on the right side of history. She’s politically outspoken in an era where celebrities utterly cack themselves about appearing to take sides, not wanting to piss off studio execs or half their audience or just make themselves less employable.

This week my former fave Gwyneth Paltrow turned out to be disgraceful, and I felt betrayed. More fool me, for having projected on her what I wanted her to be like. I suppose that Gwyneth Paltrow’s decision to be the face of the Israeli complex built on the ruins of a Palestinian village is a version of political outspokenness. It just baffles me, is all. I cannot comprehend how anybody needs money that much, or on a more cynical level would be that willing to show their hand in this flagrant way.

This, by my favourite ethical crystal company She’s Lost Control, blew my mind:

The way that I HOWLED when this was announced:

I laughed because Ed is my mate. I met him on Ten Percent in 2021. Ed’s an amazing actor, even on set you watch him and you’re like ‘yeah he knows what’s up’. But most of all, for someone so objectively good looking he is extremely self-aware, and hilarious with it. As a Poirot stan, I think it’s genius casting and I can’t wait for the world to agree.

I wonder what Suchet thinks. If you haven’t listened to Suchet’s Desert Island Discs, you are missing out. So pompous as to be ludicrous. Stories abound, but one of the best I ever heard - which might be untrue! - was when another (even more famous, very sweet old actor) ran into him once on the street and asked what he was up to. Suchet replied he’d been offered the Laurence Olivier role in the remake of The Princess and the Showgirl.

‘Are you going to do it?’ the other actor asked.

No no, replied David. It’s too obvious.

I have great hair. It’s ok to say it! I have difficulty with my eyebrows (thin), thighs (thick), knees (weird), forehead (small). But my hair is good. The person who should really be writing this post is Lauren Bravo, whose hair takes my breath away every time I see it, it’s Sleeping Beauty, it’s everything. When I asked her to tell me everything she knows, most of the products were UNDER FIFTEEN POUNDS so hang on in til the end where there’s a special section titled ‘Bargains’.

Anyway, a couple of years ago my hair, which had been great since I was a child, became wiry, frizzy, unruly seemingly overnight! Nothing seemed to work, not even conditioning & cling film-ing every night, so I had a bob cut. I loved it so much I dedicated a whole post to it:

Those were the days. Bob cuts are so delicious. Elizabeth Day wrote last week how people love to comment on how nice she’d look if she grew her hair out. Well, I have a whole ‘bob’ folder on my phone photos, ready for the day I get the chop again, and there are a lot of photos of Elizabeth’s hair in there, so there you are.

It was a different time. Washing took 2 minutes and used half the product. I could roll out of bed, quick brush and twas done. For a short time, I was French.

But being chic/french is costly. I had never before considered how often men need to have their hair cut. It’s a lot!

So I stuck with my hair through the hellishly boring growing out period, swearing that this time when my hair became long again it would look fulsome and glossy, putting everyone in mind of Sophia Vergara, a conker or a horse. I chugged this collagen and regularly doused it in this rosemary oil to make it grow long quicker. Both worked. My hair is now well past my shoulders and though I’m not immune to summer dryness, it’s in better nick than ever.

Here’s the equipment, with honest feedback: