Who’s feeling in the mood to chop and change? September always feels like the perfect moment for a hair reset and there’s one cut that everyone’s booking in for right now: the swingy bob.
That’s the view from the floor at the Nicola Clarke Salon, whose eponymous founder looks after everyone, from Madonna to Cate Blanchett. Not only does this trending cut offer instant swish, it’s easy to look after and is the perfect shape for adding shine to grey hair.
Hair naturally changes texture as it goes grey, which often makes it harder to create a polished gleam. The answer: a sharp and swingy bob cut that’s easily smoothed over and is especially flattering for grey hair.
‘This clean, swingy bob cut is the answer for hair that’s low-maintenance but also gives a much stronger look,’ says Mitchell Ladbrook, star stylist at the Nicola Clarke Salon and the man behind Fearne Cotton’s recent swingy bob transformation. ‘It’s one of our most requested styles right now – nothing beats a clean-cut bob!’
A sharp, swingy bob is also excellent if your hair has become straggly and broken, and the ends are adding nothing but an ageing, shapeless few inches.
It’s a problem we tasked Mitchell to address for Good Housekeeping’s kitchen manager, Linzi Pucino, 36.
‘I’ve not a proper haircut in years, so it’s not really got a style at the moment,’ Linzi told us. ‘I love embracing my natural greys, but I’m finding it harder to make the colour look shiny when I blow-dry it right now.’
The swingy bob makeover
Linzi gives her verdict on the cut of the season
‘I did that thing everyone does when they turn 30 and/or have kids – I got all my hair chopped off in a bob. I loved it and I thrived on not having to dry and style it every day. It was also when I started growing out my greys and I found my changing colour worked really well with a bob.
Those kids are now five years old and I’ve neglected my hair a little, so I jumped at the chance to get a new-season bob makeover.
When I arrived at the appointment, Mitchell asked me how short I was willing to go. ‘Honestly, I’m not bothered’ was my reply – and genuinely, I wasn’t. I’m very lucky that my hair is quite thick and grows back relatively quickly, plus I was flying to Italy for my holiday two days later so wanted something that would look good and be easy to look after.
Mitchell agreed it needed a good chop. ‘Because it’s long, it’s fairly shapeless’ was his verdict. He explained he was going to create a blunt, sharp shape and also eliminate thickness in certain areas to avoid it looking too bulky.
The aim, as he explained, was to create a style that would save me time on washing and styling my hair. My hair has a slight natural wave, so he explained that this cut would also sit perfectly if I wanted to dry my hair without styling tools. Result!
I couldn’t be more pleased with the result. Mitchel took a lot of care cutting it into style, teaching me how to ‘flip’ my fringe from one side to the other (I still need a little practice at that bit, to be honest…) and chatting me through how this is the ‘style of the season’. He wasn’t joking either – when I looked the two women either side of me, I realised they were both having it, too!
The reaction from friends and family has been positive (yes, my husband did notice!) and I’m over the moon that I don’t need to shove it up in a ponytail. It fell perfectly on my holiday and I’ve found it easy to style myself since being back home.
It’s so much quicker to blow-dry and I think the cut works so perfectly with my colour. I love being grey and this bob really makes the silver tones shine.’
