My slot is Tuesday at 8.15am, a civilised compromise between the office and the school run of other people’s lives. I like the hush before the rush. The way the salon lights hum to full brightness like a gallery switching on. The receptionist has learned my coffee order and the fact I always forget my umbrella. My stylist, a cheerful assassin of frizz, greets my hair like an old friend who gets into mischief. There is a choreography to it now: cape, comb, root lift, a quick negotiation of parting versus cowlick, then the audible exhale as the dryer starts its low, patient sermon. I open my laptop, finish the paragraph I couldn’t land the night before, and let my head be managed while my mind goes elsewhere. People think a weekly blow-dry is vanity. It is really delegation.
I learned to do my own blow-dry in the austere way you learn anything you have to wear visibly in this industry. I can coax a passable smoothness out of a round brush and a prayer. But at home the task expands to fill the available time – the nozzle never quite sits at the correct angle; the product builds up; I withdraw from the mirror looking like I have entered a difficult period. In the salon chair, there is competence and momentum. The sectioning clips move like quotation marks; the bristles hold tension and intent; the cool shot at the end seals the argument. The result is not simply sleeker hair, it is a cleaner day. A week with a blow-dry has a happier, more confident edge than a week without. Meetings go better when the crown behaves. Emails become firmer, kinder. A collar sits properly. It is astonishing how much diplomacy resides in a neat parting.
People often ask if it is worth the expense, as though one could itemise composure on a spreadsheet. They want numbers and penance; I offer habits. I book a block of appointments in advance and treat them like Pilates – non-negotiable unless London actually floods. In return I cancel at least one other ‘maintenance’ ritual I do not truly need. I have given up the fortnightly manicure I chipped within hours, and the waxing I talked myself into that is unforgivingly painful. The blow dry survives because it pays me back in time and temperament. It gives me one silent hour when somebody else is responsible for physics.
'"Occasionally I skip a week and my calendar falls out of tune. I spend twenty extra minutes every morning arguing with a hot brush while reading emails with one eye, and I begin to resent both. The money I believe I am saving evaporates in faff."'
The salon itself is a soft civic space with sockets. I like watching the city arrive as the morning goes on: women in trench coats, men determined to pretend they do not care, a pair of friends with matching top knots and copy-and-paste tote bags Occasionally a micro-celebrity arrives with sunglasses and a dog; the dog is greeted with more fanfare. Nobody is truly famous in a salon chair. Your stock is measured in partings and patience. I have watched pre-interview graduates practise their smiles in the reception mirror, and older women conduct breezy negotiations with their colourists about what they insist on calling “the situation”. I have seen a bride arrive with limp hair and an iron will, and leave with a veil of glossed calm you could bounce a coin off. I have overheard the kind of gossip that clarifies human nature more efficiently than a novel. People underestimate the politics of hairdressing. It is a place where people literally and figuratively show the back of their head to strangers and ask to be treated kindly. The exchange is practical and metaphysical. You pay for shape, yes, but also for a certain steadiness of self.
Occasionally I skip a week and my calendar falls out of tune. I spend twenty extra minutes every morning arguing with a hot brush while reading emails with one eye, and I begin to resent both. The money I believe I am saving evaporates in faff. And then my fringe develops opinions; my ends giveaway my frazzled state. On those weeks I remember what the blow-dry buys me: not glamour, though that helps, but an exit strategy from the bathroom. When life becomes a game of what to drop, I prefer not to drop my own head.
'"It is no different from a standing PT session or a pre-packed Ocado basket. It is simply another domestic outsourcing that frees brain space for better things"'
Friends tease me that a weekly blow-dry is a throwback to a 1950s set, that it signals dependence or performative femininity. I counter that it is no different from a standing PT session or a pre-packed Ocado basket. It is simply another domestic outsourcing that frees brain space for better things. The difference is that women have always had to defend any investment in themselves that does not come with visible sweat. Hair is suspicious because it appears effortless when done well. We are supposed to look like this for free. I refuse the bad bargain. If I can buy myself an hour where I do not juggle six tabs in my head and emerge with a hair that behaves for a whole week, I will do it gladly and without apology.
There is also a faintly rebellious pleasure in ritual. In an age of ‘low-maintenance’ ideals, and trends like skinimalism, dressed up as moral virtue, I enjoy a high-touch service that leaves no trace but confidence. The world does not offer much safe, uncomplicated touch to adults who are not in crisis. A good blow-dry belongs to that small category. I do not confuse it with intimacy, but I do not discount the chemistry of being taken care of for 45 minutes by someone who takes pride in their craft.
The best part of my weekly blow dry is the leaving. There is always a moment just outside the door when the cool air hits the freshly sealed cuticle and my coat sits properly on my shoulders and my phone has not yet resumed its campaign of interruption. I check my reflection in a window and the city grins back, conspiratorial. Good hair is not transformation. It is alignment. The person you feel like inside has a fighting chance of making it through the week in tact. So yes to weekly blow drys. Not as penance to patriarchy, nor as a nervous tick, but as an elegant, practical bargain with a busy life. The blow dry is my small, reliable dividend – a modest redistribution of effort that returns as clarity. London will continue to test the limits of humidity and human patience. I will continue to walk into Tuesday morning with a coffee I did not have to make, a head I do not have to fight, and the slightly smug knowledge that delegation, when done well, looks an awful lot like good hair.
You're invited to..
MALIN+GOETZ x EAST LONDON LIQUOR RUM SESSION COCKTAIL MASTERCLASS + Q&A
Join Malin+Goetz and Alex, the founder of EAST LONDON LIQUOR CO., for an evening of cocktails, conversation + exploration of their dark rum collection.
