Here come the curls

I bought a new hair thingy. The results were not pretty.

Pain in kit form, a Dyson dupe hot air styling set

I have bought a new hair gadget. I know, I know, will I never learn?
But the internet knows that we are all only human and shows us its most egregious nonsense when we are at our weakest.

Which is why I am now the owner of a Lily 5 in 1 Multistyler Pro. It’s made of white plastic. The instructions hint at the need for a heat-proof glove.

You will note that I’m not the proud owner of this piece of Chinese-made tat. I am the opposite of proud. I have been humbled by this ponky Dyson dupe and conned by the bad online ladies who allowed me to dream that this time might be different.

For those who are bald, short-haired or wear a wig, the Dyson Airwrap is a revolutionary hair drying and styling tool which costs more than taking a bunch of girl bosses to space. It deploys science to wheech the hair around various barrels and brushes, from whence it emerges sleek and delightful.

Then, for those of us not sponsored by a megalomaniac tech bro, there are cheap copies with which annoying people on the internet somehow manage to make their hair look amazing.

It’s late stage capitalism at its most vicious.

Anyway I bought the thing. It was £40, not nothing but cheap enough to take a punt. A blow dry from the hairdresser is not much less. Oscar Wilde called second marriage the triumph of hope over experience. I’ve done that too. At least a hairdryer doesn’t wipe its cock on the curtains.

Why did I embark on this fool’s errand? My hair’s natural state is riot. It’s coarse and curly while going white from the front and top. This means I basically have two types of hair on one head. The white bits are chronically dry and friable. They do curl, but their lack of natural oil means they do so with less enthusiasm than the lower layers.

These are still pretty dark, iron grey with a faint miasma of the dark brown of my youth. Their natural state is a fat ringlet. At only around 20% white, they are generally bouncier and happier than the silver wisps on the top.

Both textures coexist uncomfortably in fat layers that are meant to frame my face and stop the whole thing turning into an untamed triangle of anarchy. With the regular application of expensive products, this works. Up to a point.

Curly hair is great. It’s human nature and late stage capitalism that are the problems

Where it all falls down is if I don’t want curls. And who ever wants the hair that nature and genetics gave them? Not me. So whenever I weary of my default look - tired Andie McDowall - I buy stupid shit that promises an alternative. With this I will be polished, perhaps elevated, whatever adjective is designed to get me unlocking Apple Pay with a big hopeful grin on my deluded face.

This is how the Lily gadget came into my life. It’s a base drying wand with five attachments. A hairdryer with a Dysonesque loop, a flat brush that struggles to penetrate my wire-woolly mop, a round brush and two curling tong-adjacent pointy bits.

Can you tell I don’t speak hairdresser?

I gave them all a go. It was painful, like an octogenarian setting up a Tinder profile.

The brushes were reasonably straightforward. The round one even did a passable job of the sleek waved-off-the-face style that my heart desires.

The curling thingies, however, were a mystery. There’s one for left and one for right. What confused me was that they were still. They did not rotate, like the hair gadgets of my past. Neither did they did sook in the hair as promised by the lying toads of social media.

I sent a polite email to the customer service department asking why their hair gizmo hated me.

The reply was a disdainful page of perfunctory instructions. Basically, put the curling bit on the dryer, waft it around near your head and it will create luscious waves by vibes.

I had another go. With some encouragement, it did a bit of half-hearted sooking. The waves it produced were not Insta-ready. They were straggly and crunchy, yet somehow incompatible with my natural waves.

And even when I managed to do something vaguely sleek and gorgeous, it failed to stay that way. The curls began asserting themselves almost immediately. Liz Truss had more staying power than my elevated hairdo.

Liz Truss as lettuce. Her hair actually looks better than mine did after a shot with the brush attachment

Do I blame Lily or late stage capitalism? Of course I don’t. I’m too busy googling what new styling spray I need to buy to make my hair stay polished for longer than 10 minutes. All the space in the hair drawer that is not filled with obsolescent styling tools is filled with sprays, unguents, gels, creams and mousses.

Despite these, my head is back to unruly before I’ve put on my earrings. Do I think something new will solve the problem? Of course I do.

And wait till I tell you about the new bonding paste that’s all the rage in the Emirates. I saw that on Instagram this morning. Once it begins working - three to five working months if I’ve read the instructions properly - there will be no stopping me.