Mousy hair’s just got screamingly fashionable as exemplified by Taylor Swift

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Alice Hart-Davis has had blonde hair for 20 years
Decides to try out having mousy hair, a trend popularised by celebrities
Alice doesn't think she's cool enough to pull off the transformation

By Alice Hart-davis For The Daily Mail

Published: 19:54 EST, 22 November 2015 | Updated: 03:20 EST, 23 November 2015

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Only when I saw the 'before' pictures of my blonde hair did the enormity of what I was about to do dawn on me.

Such a lovely colour - even if it's a very different shade at the roots (dark blonde, peppered with white). Did I really want to go mousy?

Mousy, dirty-blonde is the hottest hair colour right now. Elle Macpherson, Taylor Swift, Alexa Chung and Carey Mulligan all have this hair, with darker, more-brown-than-blonde roots, and streaky highlights around the face and ends. It looks seriously cool - in an annoyingly effortless way.

Alice Hart-Davis has been blonde for so long she considers it her natural colour - although it isn't

So I had jumped at the chance to try it, especially as my transformation would be carried out by Josh Wood, possibly the world's best hair colourist.

Widely hailed as the 'King of Colour', Josh tends to the hair of countless celebs (including Macpherson), acts as global creative director for Wella Professional hair colour and is constantly flown around the world for fashion shows, shoots and home visits to elite clients who don't go to salons.

Appointments with Josh are like gold-dust, so I crammed into his busy schedule first thing on a Monday.

Monday is the Sunday of the hairdressing week, which runs from Tuesday to Saturday, but even so, as I arrive, his Holland Park 'Atelier' is tending to a few clients, dressed down in skinny jeans with expensive-looking handbags. They don't look mousy.

Surely mousy is the worst hair colour. So, I ask, why is it now the latest thing? Josh considers the question, before laying out his reasons like a seasoned fashion futurologist.

Partly, he says, it's a backlash against the bold, bleached looks we've seen recently. On the catwalk, there's been an influx of Eastern European girls who haven't had their hair coloured so look fresh and youthful.

But, mostly, what he's trying to do with dirty-mouse is to get away from the 'overdone blonde' that he sees everywhere in London.

Celebrities such as Taylor Swift have hair that is mousy blonde, rather than full golden highlights

'There's a certain age group where all the women's hair looks the same, and it's so ageing,' he says.

'In smart restaurants, it's a sea of magnolia blonde. All those bleached highlights with a golden edge. They're like the new blue rinse. Many wealthy women feel they need the £300 highlights to go with the £10,000 handbag - and it's over the top.'

For Josh, these observations all clicked into place the day one of his clients announced: 'I have to lose some of this blonde - I'm starting to look like my husband's mistress, rather than his wife.'

Hence the need for a cooler, less try-hard alternative. 'Mousy-dirty-blonde is less bling,' he says. What he's too modest to add is that the new mousy is now a trend because he started it - although that's almost certainly the case.

Suddenly, it all begins to make a mad kind of sense. It might sound wrong, but in the volatile world of fashion, 'wrong' hair is usually the coolest thing on the block.

We've had fads for dirty, 'second-day' hair (a reaction to the big blow-dries of the early Noughties), the 'bed-head' (a kickback against straightening) and, more recently, halfway-house colour trends, such as 'balayage', which involves highlighting with a paintbrush for a natural effect, and dip-dye.

This year also brought 'bronde', where brown hair fades to blonde at the ends, and 'ronze', a brown-red-bronze collision. It's enough to make anyone want to go natural. The new look, however, is what Josh calls 'hyper-natural, like hair that has never been coloured. It lets women of a certain age access 'cool' without looking like they're trying too hard'.

I like that idea. The last time my hair was its natural colour was 20 years ago - and cool it was not. I'd just had a baby and been made redundant. I'd given up on highlights while pregnant and my short, almost-brown hair made me feel utterly nondescript.

It might sound wrong, but in the volatile world of fashion, 'wrong' hair is usually the coolest thing on the block

I've been growing and colouring it ever since and, thanks to the ministrations of a brilliant colourist called Debbie Bhowmik (known to her clientele, including actress Rosamund Pike, as 'The Blonde Fairy') I now think of myself as blonde.

But all the highlights, lowlights and tints that keep me blonde mean my transformation to mousy will take time.

First, my hair is daubed with a colour-glaze to fill in the yellow that has been bleached out. 'That way, when we add a cooler brown, it won't go violet or green or blue,' says Josh. Perish the thought.

When this is rinsed off, my hair is orange all over. But this doesn't bother me. It's only a stage. Next comes a darker brown base, which is squished through my hair for 15 minutes, before Josh adds grey dye for five minutes.

Grey! Which part of mousy blonde needs grey? Josh reassures me it's just to add a variety of shade, and I breathe again.

Alice's hairdresser Josh Wood, a renowned hair colourist, used lots of different colours to get a mousy effect

Time passes easily in the Atelier. The coffee is good, and the shabby chic decor makes it feel laidback.

Again, my hair is washed and rough-dried. Josh looks satisfied. 'Look at all those different shades in it, it's got that pre-pubescent angst, hasn't it?' he says, happily.

I don't know about angst. It's rather dark, and there are gravel-grey highlights. Yet it does look good. The dark frame of hair around my face echoes my eyebrows and eyelashes.

My complexion looks paler and, possibly, more interesting. Wow.

Next, blonde is added: highlights in the hairline around my face, as well as balayage into the bottom six inches to mimic the effects of normal wear and tear that leaves hair lighter at the ends. All this to get a natural look!

Alice THINKS that she likes her new hair - but her family isn't sure that she's cool enough to pull it off

After a final wash (possibly the fifth of the day, but I've lost count) and blow-dry, some four hours after we started, it is done.

Even as we do the 'after' photos, my new look divides opinion.

Juliette, the photographer, a brunette, thinks it a great success. But make-up artist Virna, a blonde, shakes her head. In the real world, my female friends tell me it's great, that it suits my complexion and brings out my eyes - but my husband is less keen.

'It's nice,' he says, diplomatically, 'but I prefer you blonde.'

My son doesn't pull his punches. 'Mum, it's different. But is writing about your hair really a proper job?' he sighs.

And my mother shrieks: 'Why do you think I went to all the trouble of marrying a man with thick, curly fair hair? So that you might escape the limp, mousy locks I inherited! Wash it out!'

I'm still in two minds. Every time I pass a mirror, I startle, not recognising myself. I didn't realise I had become quite so attached to being blonde. I'm sorry, Josh, I did want this, but I'm not sure I'm cool enough to carry off mousy.

joshwoodcolour.com