You beauty! Bad hair life

I'm having a bad hair life. I'm just about grown-up enough to deal with a wibbly day or a blotchy day, but leaving the house with scrappy hair can knock a person right off centre. Generally my saviour comes in the form of Vicky Demetriou at Daniel Hersheson on Conduit Street, a pocket rocket who can take a limp strand of failure and turn it into something lively and modish in 45 minutes. But what if you can't squeeze in a trip to the hairdresser? What if money and time are tight? And what if you have neither the skill nor the patience required for a glossy, spirited finish?

Big Hair by BaByliss is a 'what you'd save from a fire' kind of discovery. It's basically a portable hairdresser: a round brush that blows out hot air as it rotates. You pull this hot, round, blasting, turning thing through your hair - and that's as complicated as it gets. It gives you a boost from the roots and those soft, blunt ends that a bona fide blow-dry delivers.

It's best used on hair that has been 80 per cent rough-dried, or hair that isn't squeaky clean. It would work wonderfully on hair that's been windswept and blustered all day on a beach and brilliantly helps tackle humidity. A stiff styling spray such as VO5 Mega Hold also helps. Suddenly you find yourself with swishy, polished hair that is neither poker straight nor wavy and can be teased towards The Only Way is Essex proportions or sprayed and left to whoosh around. Now I want a smaller version so I can really dig in and deal with my frizzy roots. Presumably the barnet boffins at BaByliss are on to it already. I'll keep you posted
BaByliss Big Hair, £45.99, at boots.com