Hair: strobing at Charles Worthington

Before

Strobing in progress...

And after!

Strobing has been a hot topic in makeup over the past few months. A bit of a new take on contouring, it removes any need for the darker, sculpting shades and instead focuses on heavy amounts of highlighter to help your skin glow.

The team at Charles Worthington in London have taken this one step further and have started to offer a bespoke colour service that works on the same principles as makeup strobing - a custom blend of highlights are used to frame the face and hit where the light would naturally reflect. I absolutely loved the concept when I heard about it at a recent press day, so headed down to their Percy Street salon to see how it would work in practice.

I sat down with the lovely Johanne, one of their creative colour experts, for a consultation. Each strobing session is unique to the individual - different shades are used based on your skin tone, your natural hair colour and hair style. Johanne used a colour chart to see whether I was best suited to cool or warmer tones (cool tones for me) and then gently lightened very fine sections around the front quarter of my hair. A toner was applied afterwards to soften the highlights and add a slightly minky tone to them.

The overall aim is to get a really natural finish that leaves you looking more radiant - both your hair and your skin. It doesn't look obviously highlighted, instead it's more like a sunkissed, post-holiday finish.  I left the salon with a lovely swishy blow dry, feeling rather fabulous.

If you're looking for a subtle colour change and want something that will lift your complexion, I'd highly recommend trying the strobing service. I've been really impressed with how natural it looks, yet still different enough to make me feel like I've had my hair done.

Prices start at £70 (based on your stylist) and can be booked directly with the Charles Worthington salon.

*I also want to mention their fantastic refreshment policy, where for a charge of £2, you get as many drinks and snacks as you like from their seasonal menu. Very handy for when you're in the chair for several hours! The same policy *may* have been responsible for my Dry January fail, but never mind. Ahem.*

*appointment provided free of charge, would quite happily have paid for it myself. It's awesome.