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What woman in her 60s, or for that matter of any age, does not sometimes gaze in the bathroom mirror while performing her morning ritual of moisturiser, make-up and hair, and think: ‘I’m sick to death of the sight of you!’
Bored with the same old look, the same old life. Your greatest adventure changing your mascara from black to brown as it’s more flattering, or breaking loose with a new nude lipstick.
Certainly that’s how I felt, going through the same tedious ceremony many women perform every morning, staring bare-faced into their own eyes and thinking, where did it all go? Do I really look like this?
Twice a week I also tamed and straightened my curly hair with a half-hour blow-dry and curlers, shaping it into the same look I’ve had for 20 years, which one friend uncharitably calls my ‘helmet hair’.
Amanda Platell had the same straightened blowout hairstyle for 20 years before she decided to undergo the chop
And yet I can barely remember the younger woman who chose the ‘look’ that has defined me for decades. Now 66, I longed for a change. I asked myself, what can I do about it? Get a new boyfriend? Complicated. Move house? I love my battered old cottage. Quit work, a new job? Unthinkable. Go blonde? Not with my complexion.
Then suddenly, looking in the mirror at my same old face and helmet hair, I had an epiphany – I could get a fringe.
Before any males with their receding hairlines smirk, in that faintly condescending way, at the idea of equating cutting a fringe with buying a new house or changing career, let me tell you that there’s no doubt whatsoever that for a woman, changing her hair can change her life. OK, it’s hardly earth-shattering, but it was about taking control, even if in a small way. It’s harder to make drastic changes as you get older. Sparkly eyeshadow just emphasises your wrinkles. Coquettish eyeliner looks like desperation.
I am no stranger to Botox and have spent thousands on it in my time, but there’s no denying the signs of ageing. I’ve also noticed that my forehead has started to looked ginormous in selfies.
I turned to Google for reassurance and discovered that a fringe can work at any age.
It’s even good for your hair. Hormonal changes, along with a lifetime of colouring and blow-drying, mean hair gets dryer and more brittle over 50.
Cutting it short at the front can keep it looking healthy and hide telltale signs of damage linked to ageing, such as split ends.
A good fringe counterbalances changes that come with age, such as thinning eyebrows, lifting and softening the face
A bit more Googling and I found literally dozens of different fringes. Glamour magazine says there are at least 15 types of ‘bangs’ – a word I hate – wispy, curtain, curly, choppy, side, blunt, long and layered to name a few.
Then I viewed pictures of celebrities ‘before and after fringe’: Taylor Swift, Anne Hathaway, Cameron Diaz, Keira Knightley, Daisy Edgar-Jones. Maybe my headlong enthusiasm was making me biased, but surely they almost always looked better ‘after’.
Next, the acid test. I texted my girlfriends to see if they approved. Somewhat to my surprise, they all came back positively, one adding kindly, ‘for heaven’s sake get rid of your helmet hair, it’s so dated’. So, emboldened, I called my stylist Kerry, took a deep breath and said: ‘I want a major change in my life.
‘A massive change. I can’t go on like this. I want a fringe!’
Having known me for 20 helmet-haired years, Kerry first asked if I was really ready. But quickly he warmed to the subject and said: ‘I’m thinking Brigitte Bardot.’ ‘She’s 89 years old!’ I cried.
No, he meant a young Brigitte: a deep, longer soft-textured fringe with tapered pieces of hair around my face. Apparently this ‘modern Brigitte’ is the most demanded fringe of the moment, especially for women in their 50s and up.
It softens the face, he explained, sending me picture after picture. The loose bits around your cheekbones taper along the neckline, slimming your jawline and emphasising your cheekbones. The long fringe rests over your eyebrows, to frame and highlight your eyes.
You can wear it resting on the eyebrows or swept to the side. It’s also low maintenance, as it doesn’t need blow-drying – or so Kerry claimed.
Call me shallow, but the thought of looking like Brigitte Bardot (even in her 60s) won me over.
I’m no stranger to a fringe of course. Surely we’ve all been there at least once. As a kid my mum cut it with a pudding bowl. I also had one in my 20s and early 30s when my hair was naturally wavy – before decades of colouring and blow-drying wrecked its texture and left it frizzy.
Back then all my hair needed was a bit of mousse and head down with a diffuser hairdryer for a few minutes to make it messily lovely. I look back on those days of carefree hair with great affection.
Anne Hathaway was one of the celebrities, alongside Cameron Diaz, Keira Knightley and Daisy Edgar-Jones, whose look persuaded Amanda to make the change
A modern take on Brigitte Bardot’s style, with tapered pieces of hair around the face, is the most demanded fringe of the moment for women in their 50s and up
Still, by the time Kerry arrived for the cut — he does home visits for long-term clients – I was anxious and already regretting my decision.
What if I hated it? My perfectly blow-dried hair was my armour, I protested. He gently suggested maybe it was time to drop the armour. Who needs a shrink when you have a great hairdresser?
It’s worth pointing out that if you are going through internal turmoil, you might want to step away from the scissors.
Fringes are infamously a go-to choice in the wake of a break-up, when many women experiment with a dramatic new look, only to regret it later. And a fringe can take ages to grow out.
Los Angeles stylist Sal Salcedo says: ‘Hair is a tool that can mirror societal changes.
‘A fringe can also serve as a physical representation of change.’ He adds that fringes saw a huge surge in popularity after the pandemic.
Which all sounds like gobbledygook to me. And yet psychologists claim there is such a thing as ‘stress bangs’ or ‘trauma bangs’ and warn that a fringe will not cure underlying feelings of anxiety and depression. As Kerry says: ‘I’ve got a pair of scissors and a comb, not a magic wand.’
Well, I wasn’t having a life crisis or a break-up, I was just utterly bored with myself and wanted a new look.
To allay my anxiety, Kerry first cut a light fringe, a ‘half-Brigitte’. He separated out a triangle of hair about four inches wide and three inches deep, then snipped.
He said the fringe would feel better than my hair had before, as we were cutting off six inches of old, brittle, dead hair. I was not reassured. So he explained patiently that as we get older the forehead stretches upwards, our noses grow and our eyebrows get thinner. Who among us past 60 does not lament those years of brow plucking that left our eyebrows thin and needing daily redefining or even dying?
A good fringe counterbalances those changes, lifting and softening the face – and for just £150, including some new colour, as well. Kerry suggested we go lighter as it’s kinder on a more mature face, so I had the full-foil treatment streaking in honey blonde through my darker hair, focusing around my face to add light and make me look younger.
He blow-dried away and showed me the result: no hard line above my forehead.
I have to admit it was a bit of a shock. I looked so different.
Kerry said to sleep on it – and assured me it wouldn’t go crazy and frizzy overnight.
In the morning I combed my fringe out and confronted myself in the mirror. What a difference.
I called Kerry at once and said: ‘Call that a fringe? I want it deeper, thicker, more messy, I want “the full Brigitte”.’ He duly arrived, scissors in hand, to cut a deep V going further back towards my crown, with longer tendrils around my face and neck. I love it.
I’ve been freed from the tyranny of straightening my helmet hair and I’ve gained a flattering fringe that conceals the signs of ageing to a remarkable extent.
But don’t just take my word for it. The Waitrose delivery guy, who had to check my date of birth as the bags contained wine, said: ‘There’s clearly a mistake on the invoice as you can’t be 66, you look ten years younger.’
A neighbour arriving to hand over a misdirected Amazon parcel said: ‘What have you done to yourself, you look so much younger? A new boyfriend?’
Another pal not given to compliments simply asked in astonishment what I’d done. Was it more Botox, or fillers perhaps?
I rather proudly replied: ‘No, I just got a fringe.’
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