I’ve been peroxide blonde since the Eighties when I was in The Fall. I can remember the first time I did it, it felt absolutely fantastic. Perfectly white peroxide hair is the holy grail of hair colours because it’s really hard — both physically and mentally — to do. It’s a big decision and it takes hours. You can get a blistered scalp but when you finally get there, it’s sensational.
Going peroxide blonde is the quickest way to give yourself a completely fresh start. For Kate [Winslet], an actress who has traded on her look, it’s a bold statement. It’s a confident, strong woman who can pull off a short hairdo, and I love the contrast of the short edgy hair with the dark eyebrows, just like Edie Sedgwick. I think she looks unbelievably stunning.
That huge change was exactly what Kate needed to do, because she’s looked very similar for a long time. Especially when you’ve had something really dramatic happen in your life, like a divorce. It’s almost like revenge, you put them behind you and look so good that you make them wish they were still with you. You feel fabulous and confident in yourself and that is reflected straight back at you. When I briefly went back to brown I hated it, I felt drab.
Now the downsides . . .
When you get up in the morning with peroxide blonde hair, you pretty much look dead until you put some make-up on. The whole palate of what you wear in terms of clothes and make-up needs to change. And when I first bleached, people’s reactions to me changed completely. People actually think you’re less intelligent. You also get addicted to it, and whenever you’re having a bad day, you go to the hairdresser and go “blonder! Blonder! Blonder!” You’re channelling those iconic blondes, such as Marilyn Monroe, and you feel sexier, so women are more threatened by you and less friendly.
Advertisement
When it’s fresh and new, it’s fabulous, but as time goes on it dries out and your hair gets fried. It starts to look bushy, sad and frizzy. You have to get the roots re-dyed every 4-6 weeks, costing about £100 a go, so it’s an expensive habit. Eventually your hair gets all porous and you can’t make it darker because it won’t hold colour and just fades really quickly.
I’m constantly changing my look, from cyclamen pink to extensions and undercuts. When I tried to grow my blonde out I started to get very depressed. Every time I looked in the mirror, I thought, “Oh my god, I look like Myra Hindley in the prison years.” And if it’s done badly, you look cheap and nasty like Bet Lynch, another big fear of mine. It’s a tough look to oull off. You’ve got to work at it. Yet it shows how strong Kate must feel to have done it. It’s brave and fantastic. And it will totally kick off a trend.