Broadcaster and podcast host Gabby Logan, 51, knows all about the confidence-boosting power of having healthy hair. She talks to Joanna Ebsworth about hair disasters, caring for her locks during perimenopause and staying strong from the inside out.
I’ve learnt so much about hair health since talking to lots of experts on my podcast.
It’s called The Mid·Point With Gabby Logan, and it’s all about facing the challenges of being in midlife, as well as challenging expectations. These days, I think we’re not so willing to accept the concerns we face every day with our hair, like hair shedding or poor scalp health, because it has such an emotional impact on us. Hair loss was always traditionally seen as a male problem, but more and more women are talking about it, and it can happen at any stage. Our confidence shouldn’t be detrimentally affected by our hair, and I feel we’re lucky to live in this age where we can all talk about our issues.
My hair is my coat of confidence.
It’s always felt like that for me. If I was going out for lunch and you told me I had to choose between either having my make-up or hair done professionally, I’d always want my hair done because I feel I can take on the world when my hair looks good. I think your hair becomes even more important to you as you get older. Maybe it’s because your face changes and you don’t have that dewy freshness and “springbackability” of youth where you can just throw your hair in a bun and skip along, but I always feel I can accomplish anything when I’ve had my hair professionally done.
I like my hair to look good when I’m presenting on TV.
And you know why? Because it’s so distracting when somebody’s hair is a mess on telly, especially when a newsreader has a hair out of place. It really bothers me because it’s distracting, and that means the message isn’t being heard. In my job, I want the message I’m talking about to come out. I don’t want you sitting at home going, “Oh, I don’t like the way her collar is sitting”, or “she needs to pull a comb through her hair”!
I don’t think it matters what hairstyle you have if your hair is healthy.
When I was a kid, it was all about looking through magazines to find out what the trendiest haircut or colour was, but it feels like anything goes now so long as your hair isn’t brittle or broken off. All the experimenting I did with colouring and different haircuts over the years definitely affected my hair condition, along with several other factors like my lifestyle and nutrition. But I think my hair was at its lowest point about five years ago, probably due to being perimenopausal.
My hair really changed when I entered the perimenopausal phase.
Historically, it’s always been very fine and wavy, but my hair was also very thick because I had a lot of it. If it wasn’t tamed, it would go really big and, well, frizzy, let’s be honest! But I noticed my hair was starting to feel thinner and less luscious, and even frizzier and crazier in midlife. I could almost see a bend coming out of my roots! So, there was this kind of dichotomy where I was applying more heat to get rid of the waviness and frizz even though I knew it was causing more damage to my hair. I remember thinking, “is this it?”. But then I decided I wanted my hair to feel better, and thicker, so I set about making some changes to improve its condition. (Read our editor Katy’s thoughts on hair loss during perimenopause in her regular column!)
Having professional styling all the time has probably been the most damaging thing for my hair.
Back in the day, the person doing my hair on a certain day wouldn’t care about how much heat I’d already had on my hair that week. They just wanted it to look good on that day because it was their badge of honour. We all used to think more is more, but now I know that less is so much more. These days, I regularly work with the same hairstylists so I’m able to say to them, “look, I’ve got six shows this week, so let’s work out a plan where you don’t blow dry my hair or put heat on it every single day.” I’d much rather schedule in a ponytail one day and leave the curls for special events.
I slacked off from having regular trims for a long time.
But I’ve recently started having regular trims every six weeks to keep my hair looking healthier and less fine. Having occasional keratin treatments also really helps, but using styling tools with temperature control has been a game changer. The memory of almost hearing my hair sizzle while using straighteners in the early days horrifies me now, so CLOUD NINE’s Variable Temperature Control technology is perfect for my hair because I know the exact temperature I’m exposing my hair to. My favourite CLOUD NINE product is the 2-in-1 Contouring Iron Pro, which has curved plates so you can both curl your hair and use it as a straightener. I set it somewhere around 150°C for the best results.
I’m not naturally good at using hair tools.
I often look at my 18-year-old daughter and think, “how did she do that?”. I think it’s because she’s of the TikTok generation and she gets all these top tips, so we’ve had very different experiences of growing up and styling our hair. Interestingly, she’s got amazing hair, but she focuses on hair health. That’s her main priority. She’s a show jumper and she’s been away in Spain competing for five weeks, and the first thing she did when she got home was to book in for a trim. When I was her age, my priority would not have been spending money on my hair being healthy!
I’m pleased to say my daughter has listened to me about hair colour.
I told her to stay away from hair dye for as long as possible because her natural hair’s a lovely colour. She’ll say to me she’s thinking about going blonde and I’m like, “leave it! Don’t do it. Just wait”. My Sun In phase was my biggest hair disaster. I was 13, and it coincided with me growing like a beanpole, so I had an orange mop on top of my head, and I just looked like a lollipop. There’s a picture of me outside Windsor Castle and my daughter said, “What did you do to your hair?!” And I said “well, that’s called Sun In”. I was inspired to try it because one boy at school had done it so the rest of us wanted to try it. Of course, it came out differently and patchily on everyone. But we lived in an age without Instagram or TikTok, so we didn’t care.
I noticed the biggest improvement to my hair when I shifted to a high-protein diet.
I’ve always had an interest in muscle health, so I already knew that muscle starts dropping off at a similar rate to collagen levels once you hit a certain age. But when you start experiencing it for yourself, you’re like, “Give me a chance!” There’s been a lot of talk about collagen and the fact that its benefits won’t necessarily go to your hair at first because it goes to where your body needs it most. But I don’t need my ankles to look better – I want my hair to look better! I feel like good nutrition is everything for healthy hair, and I now have some sort of protein for breakfast every day. But you need to consistently stick to a good diet or take supplements for a few months at least to start seeing the benefits.
I’m very active, so I honestly plan my blow dries around my workouts.
I might fancy going for a run in the evening, but if I need to get up really early the next morning and know I’ve got a super-long day ahead, I also know I’ll have to wash and style my hair that night after the run, otherwise I will need to get up even earlier. If you do a lot of sports and you get really sweaty hair, it’s almost impossible to style it afterwards, so I’ll look at my week and decide when I’m going to train and when I’ll wash my hair because it’s time consuming more than anything. The only time I can be a little spontaneous with my workouts is if I do Pilates because I don’t get as sweaty, and I don’t have to wash my hair afterwards. There’s almost zero spontaneity in my life!
Gabby Logan is CLOUD NINE’s healthy hair ambassador. To work out the perfect heat setting for styling your hair, try their new Temperature Calculator at cloudninehair.com.
Words: Joanna Ebsworth. Images: @vivienneedgephotography.
