‘I can’t remember when this photo was taken - I am guilty of not being totally present in my past but it looks like a photo shoot of some sort. I think I was in my mid-twenties. And I look like one of The Marx Brothers! The one with the really curly hair. I was always trying something new and experimenting with my hair at this time. I think John Frieda, my ex-husband, did it for me. He used to do lots of styles on me and actually he recently said, ‘how did you let me do this to you!’ He’d done a shoot with Brigitte Bardot where he did her hair similar to this so he then tried it on me and it didn’t work at all.

When I was very young I thought everyone was beautiful and I wasn’t. I was short and had boobs and the look back then was to be very thin and flat chested. I was always envious of that look. I had freckles and red hair and all the gorgeous girls seemed to be blonde. In those early days I loved people like Jean Shrimpton and Patti Boyd’s hair. Even Twiggy, though she was a little thin for me. People always used to call me cute which drove me mad! Naturally my hair was always light brown/mousey. I got told off at school and by my father when I dyed it far too young. I went to a salon where they put this red rinse on it – another experiment that went wrong. I had red hair until my late 30s – it became my signature look and it stopped me looking so mousey. I liked being edgy and out there.

"I had red hair until my late 30s – it became my signature look and it stopped me looking so mousey. I liked being edgy and out there."

I don’t know if I could ever say I love my hair – I am an analytical person and I’m never completely happy with my look. I’m always trying to change it slightly but I’m a blonde now. I’ve always been very opinionated and on a woman my age one of my rules is that I wouldn’t have a short, layered haircut all over – longer, choppy layers are more modern and less helmet-like. As I get older I try to live by the less is more rule. Don’t wear heavy makeup, hair colour can’t be too hard. I still go to Kevin at John Frieda who I’ve known since he was first there and he’s been doing it for years and years. 

I had the same research team on my hair line that has made all the John Frieda lines and I use the Lulu’s Time Bomb range every day. It’s been around for about 7 years and I honestly don’t use anything else. Why would I? We tweak as we go with the products to keep up with the times and I genuinely use just those.’