The secret to ‘old money blonde' is easier than you think

Telegraph

3 days ago

Take it from me: being blonde is not for the faint-hearted. It's a high-maintenance love affair that lasts a lifetime. The frequent appointments are costly, and the at-home upkeep feels like a chore. And yet, I wouldn't have it any other way. While I bemoan the agony of sitting still for hours, poised like a porcupine with a head full of foils every eighth Saturday, when I emerge from the backwash with a halo of frothy highlights, I feel reborn. Needless to say, I'm closer to my colourist than some of my closest neighbours.
I prefer a pale Scandi vibe that requires a lot of bleach to achieve, so I do my utmost to minimise damage with daily hair masks and bonding treatments at home. To be fair, considering what I put my hair through, it's pretty hardy. As long as I douse it in conditioning ingredients and trim the ends regularly, I can maintain a certain level of glossiness.
But there's more than one way to be blonde. The once-admonished mousy roots are fiendishly à la mode when balanced with a smattering of highlights painted sparingly throughout. The once-platinum looks of Sienna Miller, Sydney Sweeney and Sophia Richie Grainge are case in point.
Colourist Harriet Muldoon, who works out of Larry King's Kensington salon, has been instrumental in shaping the new low-key colour trend she describes as 'heritage blonde'. You can see it on her client Sienna Miller, whose hair she took a shade darker for the summer months.
Miller's look is achieved through a technique Muldoon calls 'a partial', which marries fewer highlights applied with a light touch on the ends and perimeter of the face, with a semi-permanent gloss in Miller's natural colour on the roots and mid-lengths.
Partially highlighting hair, says Muldoon, is lower maintenance than colouring it blonde from root to tip. Substituting a permanent colour with a tinted gloss on the roots gives the hair an expensive-looking lacquer finish.
The 'tinted gloss' technique
'With Sienna I apply the highlights first, a couple on top and a few chunkier ones on the hairline to frame the face,' explains Muldoon. 'Then I paint in between with a gloss that matches her base colour, dragging the colour downwards towards the mid section.'
Glosses will blend in greys but they won't give you 100 per cent coverage, adds Muldoon, yet they are a smart way to adapt your blonde to last longer, as the regrowth is more subtle.
'Tinted glosses are like water colours for the hair. Unlike a heavy saturation of tint at the roots, glosses revive the shine and health of the hair, which makes it look more expensive,' she adds.
A seasonal switch
With a tinted gloss, there's no fear of going brassy in the sun – a compelling reason to downplay things in summer.
'I always encourage my blonde clients to go darker in summer and lighter in winter when you need that extra input of light,' says Muldoon, who explains that going darker doesn't mean you can't add warmth. 'Think of it like putting make-up on your hair: combining glosses and highlights together, you get this bronzed glistening base with a scattering of buttery highlights to make everything pop.'
The placement is equally important. 'I like to use creamier highlights around the face to create a halo effect and more golden hues underneath and at the ends. It's very old money,' says Muldoon.
Added extras
If you tire of the subtlety, you can always add more highlights. 'Poppy Delevingne came in for a quick hairline lift ahead of an event the other day. I added a few highlights around the face and blended in between with a gloss,' says Muldoon.
'You don't have to come in for the full service every time; you can book a quick refresh. That's the beauty of utilising glosses this way.' Glosses can also be mixed or combined to add dimension. 'In Sienna's case, we use a darker gloss on her roots and a golden one through the underneath section. Because they're transparent, you can be quite playful,' Muldoon points out.
Better hair health and fewer appointments? That's hard to argue with.
Three of the best at-home hair glosses
Muldoon is a master at matching each client's colour protocol to their hair type and skin tone, but if you want nothing more than a glistening coat of warm or cool atop your natural colour, it can be done at home using a supermarket hair gloss.