The true cost of celeb hair

It is important to have good hair, vitally so. It says everything about us, whether we're feeling lazy, glamorous, inventive or practical.

This can materialise itself in a number of ways, including the classic scrunched up look – which we can do with our eyes closed – the very time consuming shiny, sleek and near flawless aesthetic, or the modest hairstyle, the one we have for work.

That's defined as nice, but by no means amazing. It simply works and looks good enough for an evening out with colleagues afterwards.

One thing I can certainly say on behalf of women – well, the majority of us – is that we spend a lot of money on our hair; sometimes too much!

I have been thinking about this today because some of the girls in the office were talking about how they had heard that a quarter of women are more than willing to spend around £2,000 a year to ensure their tussles have that wow factor. In other words, they want to have celeb-like hair, whatever the cost

This was the finding of a study by Fabriah.com, which supplies professional hair care products. It also discovered that a whopping 82 per cent of women it polled visit a hair salon every eight weeks to ensure their hair is in impeccable order.

Francesca Davies, a representative from the website, commented: "We’re surrounded by photos of celebrities with amazing looking hair, so it’s no surprise that women try to copy their look. It’s certainly not a cheap thing to do."

Now I adore my hair, take pride in it, and still love to experiment a bit – though not as far as Rihanna, that I will leave to the 20-year-olds – but I have my spending limits. I get mine cut every three to four months, depending on how I feel, and that averages out at around £350 a year.

Men might faint at the sound of that, but really, that's quite a modest figure, I assure you. I suppose it can appear to be excessive, but you have to understand that ever since we were kids, the idea of looking after one's locks has been a normal part of things. We thus call it an investment.

Now, if I were spending close to half a grand, then I would be worried. My husband Paul certainly would be – let's hope he doesn't read this!

Do you spend a fortune on making sure you have lovely locks?

Posted by Elsa Pienaar