You know what I want with a haircut? Silence. I want the hairdresser to keep his or her eyes on the scissors and not get distracted by conversation. I want to know that, during the crucial period when it could all go horribly wrong, the man or woman at the back is concentrating. I like having a conversation with hairdressers, who are generally interesting people, but I just don’t want it while they’re working. I was rather impressed by Leslie Cavendish, The Beatles’ hairdresser, who was on Michael Berkeley’s Private Passions series recently and made clear that at Vidal Sassoon’s salon in the 1960s, the Trappist approach was preferred during cuts. It was the same when I visited the legendary Leonard Lewis, creator of the pageboy hairstyle, who wouldn’t say a word while he was combing, then cutting.

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So I was rather excited when I got to try something called an ‘energy haircut’, offered by Sabina of the........

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