While ageing is a natural part of life, for many people retaining a youthful appearance is a popular goal. Globally we spend billions of pounds every year on anti-ageing products for this very reason.
Moisturisers that target wrinkles and fine lines, as well as hair dye that promise to cover any evidence of grey are widely bought procuts. And in recent years certain cosmetic treatments are becoming more and more sought after in the pursuit of looking younger.
But these are not the only options at hand when it comes to rolling back the clock.
Hairdresser Paul Watts revealed a specific type of haircut that can help women look years younger.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Paul demonstrated how to create what he branded the “facelift bob”.
Speaking to his 165,000 subscribers, he started with a mannequin that had an all one-length princess bob, with slightly longer sections at the front of the face.
“We’ve already got the bob shape in but it is one length,” Paul said. “There’s a tiny bit of graduation through the back that gives you that shape as you can see and it’s a little bit styled.
“The facelift layer, the facelift bob, is the haircut that you’re going to want to do to defy age. Let’s get into it.”
He specified that it’s best to create this haircut while the hair is dry, because it is more of a “refining” process.
The first step is to add what he called “scaffold layers”.
“You don’t want to be making it look too layered because when you’re of a certain age you could potentially be getting thinner hair, now that’s something that we want to sort of counteract,” Paul said.
“We want to make your hair look fuller but also give it some layer in there and give it some shape and make you look younger, which is where these scissors come in.”
He indicated to his serrated hairdressing scissors.
“All we want to be doing is where the hair or where the head curves away from that comb the parietal ridge around the head that’s where you want to be looking at putting these layers in,” he said.
“So it creates like a bevel but we’re going to be putting an internal bevelled layer into this haircut because that’s what really makes it youthful makes it look fuller but also gives it that shape – so when you’re blow drying you can get the fullness but taking it away giving you a really nice and youthful look.”
He then took small sections of hair from the top part of the head and placed his comb at the root of the hair.
Paul pulled the comb out to make the hair straight and stopped a couple of inches from the ends.
Here he used his serrated scissors to cut and then slide, removing just part of the tips. He repeated this three times.
Paul carried on using this same technique around the head, but not repeating it on the same section.
He explained: “We don’t take the previous section because if we cut into that we’ll be taking more hair away from the previous section, we don’t want to be doing that, you want to be very consistent and know where your next section is not too thick either.”
Once finished, he said: “There we go so that’s it finished. Let’s get the hair out now, it’s so much easier now to get more volume and lift in there because it’s got that scaffolding.
“We’ve put layers into it so it just makes it feel lighter, more wearable and it’s sort of multi-styleable.”