Ombre has had a bit of a resurgence over the last few months with Jessica Alba and others jumping back on the bandwagon so to speak. And hey, I’m nothing if not on trend (ha!) so I too decided to re-ombre. I took myself off to Pastels Salon at The Ritz Carlton in Dubai Marina to experience the skillful wonder that is uber stylist (from Ireland, no less!); Anthony Walsh.

After a quick chat and a brief tour around my hurr, Anthony suggested some balayage style highlights around the front of the face, ombre style blonde to start around 3/4 of the way down and a nice warm shade of brown everywhere else to lift my naturally ashy brown hair. Anthony explained the difference between balayage and ombre to me as lately I’ve been getting more and more confused about what’s what. Ombre, is much as we all suspected; graduated light colour – usually blonde towards the end of the hair. He explained that Ombre should be a natural transition from your own colour to a lighter version and then lighter again towards the ends if you so wish. Balayage however, is basically highlights – but ‘natural’ looking highlights. He said a good way to think of it is like the natural highlights kids get when they have been in the sun, usually stands around the sides of the face. Clever, no?

So, on to the application. First, he applied the light colour – as in the top picture. This was left for about 30-40 minutes until it lightened enough to the colour we wanted to achieve. Then, the warm brown shade was applied to the rest of the hair and left for a further 30 minutes or so. All was rinsed off, shampooed once and then a toner was applied all over to take any harsh shades out of the hair. All the while I was enjoying lemon and ginger tea, free wi-fi and throwing lustful glances at a) the amazing selection of Redken products and b) Clare’s hair (another Pastel’s stylist – think Carrie Underwood natural bouffant blonde – amazing).

In the end, I left the salon with gently ombre’d locks, a bit of wavy volume, a new understanding of what balayage means and a rather ridiculous goal of someday having hair like Clare’s. All in all, I am delighted with the way my mop turned out. The colour is exactly what I was looking for and, if I do say so myself, it’s quite pretty! If you’re in Dubai and thinking of colouring/cutting your locks I really can’t recommend Anthony enough, he seriously knows his stuff and not only that, he’s hilarious too!