Author

Gemma

Hello, I'm Gemma — pull up the chair, let's sort that hair out.

I'm Gemma Aldridge: NVQ-qualified hairdresser, sixteen years behind the chair, occasional London Fashion Week backstage survivor, and the voice behind The Hairstyles.

It all started with a roller bag in Sheffield. My nan ran a home hairdressing round for decades — shampoo-and-sets in front rooms all across the estate — and from the age of eight, I was the one carrying the bag. I watched her work on every kind of hair, every kind of head, every kind of day, and she drummed one rule into me that has outlasted every trend since: "Look after the hair first, love. The style comes second." That sentence is the spine of this entire website.

I left school at sixteen for a proper salon apprenticeship — sweeping floors, making brews, and earning my NVQ Level 2 and Level 3 in Hairdressing (City & Guilds) the traditional way. Sixteen years behind the chair followed: eight working up to senior stylist in a busy Sheffield salon, then eight at a lovely Manchester salon, where I ran the styling side and mentored the juniors. In between came the glamorous bit: six years of session work, assisting and then styling backstage at London Fashion Week across multiple seasons, plus editorial shoots and the odd music video. Backstage teaches you three things — speed, calm, and that with eight minutes per model, there is no trick you won't learn. It's also where my beauty knowledge deepened, working elbow-to-elbow with brilliant session make-up artists for years. I'll be straight with you about that side: it's absorbed expertise, not a qualification, and I frame it that way on every beauty post.

The blog began in 2019, born from the questions clients asked me from the chair — "Gemma, what's the actual difference between all these heat protectants?" — and it became my full-time work in 2023. I still do one Saturday a month at my old salon, though. Keeps my hands honest and my gossip current.

Here's what The Hairstyles promises you:


Tested on real heads, in real weather. Every tutorial is done on actual heads — mine, my volunteers', all hair types and ages — and every style carries a weather rating, because we live in Britain and pretending otherwise is madness. Some styles survive drizzle. Some are car-to-door only. I'll tell you which.
Two timings, always. Every style is timed at my speed and at an honest first-attempt speed. If it takes me six minutes and you forty, that's not your failure — that's sixteen years of practice, and both numbers belong on the page.
Hair health first. Heat protection in every heat tutorial, scalp notes on tight styles, and I will happily talk you out of a damaging trend. Nan's rules.
The salon line is firm. Bleach, colour corrections, and drastic restyles are "One for the Salon" — no exceptions — and anything medical (scalp trouble, sudden hair loss, reactions) goes to your GP or pharmacist, promptly. Sixteen years taught me to spot what needs referring, not to diagnose it.
High street and salon, compared fairly. I'll tell you when the £4 option matches the £24 one — and when it truly doesn't. Snobbery is banned in both directions, and plenty of my reviews end with "save your money."


These days I write and film from a converted box room in our Chorlton terrace — one styling chair, good mirrors, honest daylight — alongside my husband Danny (a paramedic whose shift patterns inspired my entire under-five-minutes series, all timed on the oven clock), our daughter Nell (seven, strong opinions, excellent plait model), and Keith, an enormous grey cat named by Nell. No further questions on Keith.

Every other Sunday I'm back in Sheffield doing my mum's blow-dry, exactly as my nan would have — and once a year the whole family decamps to a caravan in the Lakes, which is how "caravan-proof hairstyles" became a genuine and beloved series. In between, I test every viral hair hack going so you don't have to. Most of them live in the Fails Drawer now. It's quite full.

Whether you're after a wedding-guest updo, a fringe decision you won't regret, or just a style that survives the school run in horizontal rain — you're in the right place, love.

Look after that hair of yours,
Gemma