Hair gel for you

Fenty The Gelly Type hair gel, Chanel eyeliner

First, some housekeeping. Literally!

For years my make-up bags have been plagued by ugly black and brown smears from my various eye pencils, despite fastidiousness about lids always being on. What was happening? It was a puzzle worthy of Ludwig. But this summer I worked out that the marks were coming from my eyeliner sharpener, which was spewing smudgy kohl futz out of its little butthole all over my nice bags.

So I scoured my junk drawers for a little drawstring pouch, which I assumed I would have, once upon a time, in a zombie hoarding-state, stashed somewhere. And indeed I found not one but two! I put my eyeliner sharpener in the nicest one and yanked the drawstrings closed a little too tightly. Problem solved.

Next. I have never even considered hair gel. What, that bright blue stuff that smells like Lynx Africa? What would I even use it for? Then I saw Sarah Jossel from Sunday Times Style on her Instagram demonstrating how it could have a place in my life.

In its natural state, Sarah’s hair is quite wild. I actually think it’s rather magnificent but I can see how living with it could be challenging. It reacts badly to heat and moisture and also hates Tuesdays and gets angry with her if she stays out late or eats cheese etc.

So when her hair is being uncontrollable and dementing and she wants to just slick it the fuck back, she uses gel - specifically Fenty Hair The Gelly Type Strong Hold Gel. My hair is not remotely uncontrollable, but I do like to leave it quite a few days between washes as I believe over-washing causes my hair to fall out. I also save hours in my week from not washing my hair. However, the last two dirty days are pretty nasty and I quite often want to scrape my hair back - but greasy hair is also unattractively frizzy, even in a scrapey low-bun. I also have two really irritating tufts of baby-hair at my temples, following some postpartum hairlosss with Sam, which sproing back up no matter what I do.