Last week Friday, I walked into a room of models half my age.  Sticking out like a wrinkled sore thumb, I was told to sit and wait, so I took out my laptop and got on with one of my magazine assignments.  Distracting myself from the inevitable embarrassment was really the only thing I could do.  After writing for some time, I phoned the hair stylist who had asked me to attend, spoke to the organizers at The Beauty Concept and made every excuse for them to release me from said situation.  I simply did not belong there.  They all insisted that I was to stay put, however.  They wanted me to be a hair model for the day.

For hours, the young models and I moved from one chair to another, as stylists from Jamaica and Puerto Rico highlighted, washed, cut, treated and blow-dried our hair.  But the most important part of the operation was the Redken City Beats colour.  Justin Isaac, Global Colourist for Redken NYC, is the master of hair colour innovation.  He has brought this innovation to Jamaica and helped relaunch Redken in the most illuminating and illustrious way.

By five thirty in the afternoon, my hair was ‘pon fleek’ with gorgeous Redken Flash Lift blond highlights, akin to my much younger self’s natural blond, Chromatics 9N for my now grey roots and poignant wisps of City Beats Ballet Pink interspersed throughout my freshly cut ‘Bob’ of curls to frame my face.  My newly attained curls are ironically due to a chemotherapy drug, cyclophosphamide, that caused my hair to fall out two years ago and grow back curly!  The beauty of my forty-one year old self could not get better than this, surely.

I headed back home during rush hour, with little time to shower and change into my Julan ‘Little Black Dress’ before the Redken show would begin at Devon House.  Upon arrival, I was whisked into a seat and made-up by a skilled artist from Revlon.  The final results left ME awestruck.  This glam-team business that people speak of is truly the real deal!  As Justin talked about in his speech to the Jamaican media and salon stylists that night, having your hair done is not essential to anyone’s lives (neither is having your make-up, FYI), so they all owe it to their clients to ensure that they look after them and their hair as best as possible.

Hearing this, as I was about to lead the procession of the much-younger models, I was inspired to be the best model I could be for Redken, found my hidden mojo and glided onto the runway as if I had done this before in an alternate life.  Thanks to this glam team, they made me feel “Hot Off the Pink Press”.