DYE JOB with Annie Humphreys | How Colour Changed Everything

Hair colour has evolved dramatically over the past fifty years, and few people have witnessed—and influenced—that change more than Annie Humphreys.
In this episode of Dye Job, Sophie sits down with one of the true pioneers of professional hair colour to reflect on a remarkable career that began at Vidal Sassoon and helped redefine the role of colour within modern hairdressing.
Annie shares stories from the early days of Sassoon, working alongside some of the industry’s most influential figures and developing colour techniques that would inspire generations of colourists. She reflects on the importance of education, the privilege of mentoring others and why sharing knowledge has always been central to her career.
Together they discuss creativity, collaboration, leadership and the evolution of hair colour, as well as the importance of curiosity, kindness and investing in the next generation.
Warm, thoughtful and full of wisdom, this conversation is a reminder that the greatest legacy isn’t simply the work you create—it’s the people you inspire along the way.

Transcript

Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello, welcome to Die Job. I'd like to welcome our guest today, Annie Humphreys. Annie revolutionized contemporary colour. Today we're going to talk about early years with Vidal, her approach to colour, and how she's evolutionized the art of colouring hair and her mentoring of generations of hair colourists.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

I used to also um quite influence the cutters as well.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

There we go. And also how she influenced the cutters. I've got to take it back. So what

Early career and joining Vidal Sassoon

SPEAKER_00 0:39

version of you walked in to hairdressing? At the age of 15.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

I walked in at the age of 15 knowing absolutely nothing. Absolutely being a war baby, you didn't really get exposed to very much. Boys always had the priority, not like nowadays, then it was sort of, yeah, well, yeah, you will learn, but you know, it wasn't essential that you learnt to do everything that you were supposed to do. And the first job I had was in Knightsbridge. The gentleman was Italian, and the salon was called Biaggio, very alien to me, and they still had part of the salon with cubicles and part of it open, but most salons then still had cubicles, so it was kind of getting there, but not there. And they said my name was Anne, and they said, Oh well, you said to me, Yes, yes, I knew you were coming, yes, we know we're coming. But you know what? What I didn't tell you at your interview was you can't be Anne anymore. I thought, I can't be Anne anymore. And I just looked at him like you know, and he said, Yes, the manageress is called Anne, and so you have to be called something else. So this is an Italian shop. Show you're gonna be called Maria. I said, Oh, okay, fine, okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Can't imagine you think. So you started life as Maria? Yes, yes. For 18 months I was Maria.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

And when did you become Abby? When were you alone to work? Not till I left. 18 months later, I left and went to work in Bond Street for a salon called Josie Powell. And I'd been there a while, and along came this unknown gentleman called Vidal Sassoon that was going to buy it. And he said to everyone, he spoke to everybody and look very nice. And he said, Well, I'd like you all to stay. You know, Jose is moving on, he's going to South Africa. You know, just let me know in your own time if you want to stay, or or you don't. Already got a salon the other end of Bond Street, it's on the third floor. And in the end, I was the only person that stayed.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

How did your hairdressing change with the arrival of him? Were you already focusing on colour?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Not really, no, no, because I still hadn't come out of my apprenticeship officially. Because it was Bond Street, they were doing lots of starlets and stuff like that. So there was a lot of hairdressing, and people used to come in as well. People that lived around they would come in and have their hair done for the evening and rollers, something curls, and he was doing blunt Italian cutting. That was revolutionary as well. Some people still doing this sort of thing. It changed when Videl came along. He was the person really that made me think how I thought because he didn't speak at you, he spoke to you. He wanted you to go on a journey with him. It wasn't all about what he was going to do, it was what we were going to do, which has always stayed with me.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

And it must have been revolutionary back then if you've come from post-war school where women were semi-invisible to be on this journey which involves starlets and before Bidal appeared on the scene, was the apprentices or assistants or whatever you want to call them, were allowed, they were allowed to do colour, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:32

And I was quite amazed because the first time they said to me, Oh, you go into the basement, there was this big, scary-looking bottle, right? And it had 0.880 ammonia in it. And then we got a bowl, but you can only put drop in, but some proxide and some luxe soap flakes, and it was stirred up, and then you got an orange stick and put a cotton wool around it, and then you put it onto the parting.

The early days of colour education

SPEAKER_01 5:08

I think I'm a little bit scared of this, but I got through it obviously, but from that moment with the ammonia, I thought this is what I really am interested in because I think this is not really what should be going on. So how did it evolve? Just step by step, really. There was a guy that was working for Fidel in the little salon at 108 Bond Street, and he did colour only. His name was Lawrence, and I decided that I was going to tag on to Lawrence rather than to tag on to one of the other guys that were doing. And it was mostly men, I suppose about 98% were male.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

How did you cover?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

How did that inform your character? Well, you fall in. I just went along, I was just one of them. So I whatever they could do, I made sure I could do. So I got very, you know, accepted because I stayed and did all the model lights. I stayed and did whatever needed to be done after hours, and there was always a lot of stuff to do after hours, you know, because everybody was trying to learn something, Videl was trying to create a you know a whole atmosphere of people being involved and everybody helping everybody else, as opposed to the other way around where people were just only interested in their self and didn't share anything with anybody, they wouldn't tell you how they did it. So it was a really, you know, different, whole different thing. So I just they accepted me as one as the boys, they went down the path, I went down the path. But then, you know, when we got more girls, most of them didn't do that because they were interested in going out and finding a boyfriend.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Sharing, learning, growing, doing what other people can do, sort of informed the the ethos of Sassoons, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:13

That is how I learned, and that's how I always carried on. And my mentor was I need to make somebody better than I am so they can make someone better than they are, and they can go on and we can grow and grow and grow. You've got to nurture people. And really, hairdressing is all about people. You don't have anything if you haven't got the people. If you haven't got the people that want to be there, that want to do it, and that really into it, yeah, it'll work, but it won't work as well as if everybody is into what they're doing and everybody shares what they're doing, and everybody's having a good time. Most of the people would be around going out together and you know in groups and going to places, go to exhibitions, go to look. So it was a really they had their own culture in the end, which a lot of people found very different because they wouldn't share their secret of how to do something with anybody, whether it was a haircut or how to put a Fidel used to at the beginning he would use rollers and pin curls, and everybody used to have to make their own rollers for him, and they were made of cotton wool, and every morning the juniors used to be making cotton wool rollers like this. I remember doing the foils in the 90s. He'd make a pin curl, and you only need two hair pins to keep the curl in. And of course, you had to pass as quick. He would go chch and you have to go, and if he didn't pass, he was like, and if you got really angry, there would you got your bowl of rollers, he'd go. Oh, honey. And so then everybody else ran around trying to make more rollers. Everybody helped. Didn't help it.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

But you know, it's all part of learning. How did you redefine what it means to be a colourist and how did you do it?

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Experimenting, I suppose. Just working at it and experimenting, and I got into well, they were using L'Oreal, so obviously I got into that immediate cream D, it was called, and it was really very good, very good. But then I obviously went looking at everybody in. I got into Weller.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Would you almost go like try something if it didn't work, keep trying it in various ways, and then go back to the product company and say, I've not got this. Was that how it worked?

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Not really. Could you do that?

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Clow annie, could you do that? No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

You could say you know they think about it, but basically they had that own team of researchers that did stuff, and you talk to them and say it, then you would find that they had thought about it, and you might find you would get it,

Working with Vidal Sassoon and creative collaboration

SPEAKER_01 10:07

but they wouldn't say that's how it happened.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

They wouldn't give you, they wouldn't give you the credit.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

No, no.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

And I guess how, in terms of experimentation, how and when did you start using colour playfully?

SPEAKER_01 10:20

It's all based on the haircuts, basically, because for Dow it was all about perimeter. It was all the perimeter and strong, strong lines, and also it's quite mono, so very strong colours like very dark black or near black, dark browns, and blondes. So it was all about the lines, which obviously made him famous. I used to do a lot of blondes, so I got very much into blonde, and you know, dark is not darker, it's easier because you don't have to do so much to most people's hair. But lots of people want to be blonde that really shouldn't be blonde because they're so dark to start with. So you learn a lot, and then Roger Thompson came along and he started working with interiors, looser, looser shapes and more interior shapes. And also in the middle of all this, came he came along with the Greek goddess. So that was a little bit of a sidestep for a while. Non stop perming.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Those chemicals were strong in the what era are we talking about now when they started 60s, where they're going more sort of interior?

SPEAKER_01 11:41

You've got the bilevels and stuff which came with the Firefly, which that was Christopher, and basically that was the first two-dimensional colours, and so then you were working with making the shape stronger. So you use certain colours to make it look lighter and to make it look to come out, and then you go with the darker colours and the blue tones to make the it recede in the places where it wanted to be receded. So you were using dark and light colours to emphasize the shape of the haircut.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

And how long did it take you to section off that firefly? To get that colour because it's per like perfect.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Yeah, yeah. And then, of course, Daryl Benson came along with the beginning to the way that we know haircuts now, cutting hair shorter to push out the long balance, longer hair. So that's where you've got the botticelli, for instance, that and that was utilising a poem as well. But all of the shapes that you see now with lots of shortened and long and whatever, it all really stems from that one guy. You then looked and you worked towards the shape. Like this to be stronger. You know, can you make this look a bit more bold or can we make this look go in a bit more?

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Just to visualize you in a room with all those men working out exactly where to place the colours to get that.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

The major thing I think that changed hair colour in colour was crazy colour. You know, before Crazy Colour, there was no primary colours at all. And that was like a revolution. When did they come around? Renato came along with that.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

That was in the early 70s. What was your first crazy colour experimentation? Can you remember? Going back to 1927.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

The very first photographs were in black and white, obviously, because we only had black and white film. And the first colour photograph was called Earth, and it was a haircut that Christopher Booker did. And it was red, but it wasn't red because I'd coloured it red, it was red because you could then colour photographs by hand, but then the first real one that was colour was the firefly. And what an impressive image that wasn't in colour, but I think most people will think of that as being the first one. So then I guess the role of a colourist suddenly became like in demand, was uh when I first started, why nobody knew what to do, or they didn't pass on their secrets or anything, was because the average person would never say they coloured their hair.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Right? So it would always be the actresses, you know, theatre people or ladies of the night. But the average person would

Mentoring the next generation

SPEAKER_01 15:06

never ever say they coloured. No, no, no, it's all natural. Of course I don't colour my hair. So you never got a recommendation from anybody, you know, because nobody ever said you told you knew you existed. Because no one would say I colour my hair. And so, because you know, punk era and all of a sudden, and then people all then they then wanted to say, Yeah, of course I do it as well.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

I've done it a long time, but I never told anybody, and that was all beginning around the 70s. There's sort of this awakening of colours amazing, yeah. Because fashion as well, and the punk, it was all a big, you know. But even when you were playing with very bold colours, there's still a beauty to it, there's still a beauty element.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Yes, what sometimes people use colours, but they don't think why they're using them. And you, you know, it's like, well, why did you put that colour there? There has to be a reason for it to do with the haircut and the person because it's not only the haircut, it's also the person. Some people can get away with absolutely anything because you know they are larger than life, and some people want to be bright, but they haven't got the demeanour to, they're too much into themselves to have it, so you have to then give them colour that will go with their personality. You can't then just give them really out there because then they'll they won't like it.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

But also, I imagine that's why you brought in sort of putting areas of brighter colours that could be hidden or revealed. So I always sort of cite you with that. Rapidly moving through the 70s to the 80s, the product companies started making bolder colours and stronger colours.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

So you don't didn't have to go for your crazy colour, you know. So you could still give people very strong colours without that.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Without having to pre-lighten first.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

I mean, I did a lot of work obviously with Tim in the 80s and 90s. He used to say his hair cut was naked because it had a colour on it. Although it was great, he said it just made it that bit different. And we just did a lot together. And if you probably look through the archives, you'll see quite a lot of photographs with Tim and I together with colour and stuff, and also he liked blondes, and I think some people used to associate me with doing a lot of blonde.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

He told me she's amazing at a blonde and a red and a black and a purple, but she might not like green.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

So um, yeah, but I've been very lucky really because I had people to make canvases for me and very good canvases, and basically it's all about people working, you know, that Sassoon was all about it's a journey, we're doing it together and people working together, which was just revolutionary, it never happened before. Everybody kept their own secrets and didn't share anything. So it was if you look through at how fashion changes and hair changes and the styles change, and it's always somehow progressing in another way. So I think in the end, the manufacturers sort of caught on to the fact that you can't just do normal things, you've got to have a range that's got a bit out there for different things, and then it just goes on, and then the products get better, and shampoos and conditioners became very important. Vidal brought out his own line, which was originally a three-step line, as far as cleanse, condition, seal, and protect is what he did. Three steps, and that became quite strong in the UK as well as in the US, it was developed in the US.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

And when did you turn to business as well? Like what era did you because when I started, you were my big, big boss. You were the big boss, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 19:27

It wasn't really that different because I'd always been good with people and always had people that I'm in a way managed. To be honest, the only reason that we were all successful and the salon was successful was the people. You can't do it without people. And unless you can give the people confidence, and unless you could say, Come on, you can do it. Yeah, come on, you can do it. Towards the end when I was working on the floor, and even when I was in the office, I would be in staff training. Because that's where it's that's that's your crux. You've got to get

The evolution of hair colour

SPEAKER_01 20:10

them coming through, and it's the people, no people, no good people, especially. I mean, people, you don't just need people because if you didn't want to be there, it didn't work because it wasn't easy. But if you could get someone that was a little nervous and not so sure, and you can coax them into it, and they end up blossoming into a big, beautiful bouquet.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

I guess that is one of my questions, actually. How you sort of mentored and managed so many characters, and it was sort of Sassoon's was always a big mix of characters, it was quite diverse, and there was quite a lot of creativity. There was quite a lot of personality, so quite explosive people as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

But it's you have to really, everybody has got something to offer, and they just need to be told you know, and shown, look, look at that. That's really good. But if you just change it slightly, or just you know, try a little bit to do this, or no, no, no, no, but look, just yeah, right. Oh, look, I can see it coming on, yeah, it's getting better. Oh, fantastic, and then oh, that's marvelous. Look, you've got it, fantastic. But you know, you've got to want to do that for them as well, because they don't quite often don't know what they want to do, and you know how to do it. You know, it's like anything, you you have to have a leader or someone that's gonna help, a little helper. I always was always interested in bringing young people on and. And one of the people that I really worked quite a bit with and mentored to a certain extent is Mark Hayes. Because when he was in staff training, and I used to be doing staff training, he was really naughty. I quite like naughty people.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Mark Hayes being the global creative director of became stylist and everything.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

And then they needed a new art director in Manchester. And so I and I oh I talked to him. I did a little chat. I said, Go Mark, go on, go on, why not? You know. And in the end, he said, Oh, yeah, yeah, well, we don't have to go forever, you know, just go for a while. And actually did go, and I did some things with him in Manchester.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

So that would have been late 80s, wouldn't it? That would have been the Manchester time.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah, that was not Manchester. Everybody used to go to the Hacienda. He got the good days going to Manchester. Anyway, after that, you know, he did he went to Australia with Vidal as well. He did the show, he did the whole tour with Fidel in Australia. I worked very closely with him on shows and did colours for him. Some of the photographs in the foyer there, where it's the colour thing, are models that I've done with Mark. It feels as you walk through here a little bit of a homage to you as well, Annie. You had different people going out doing the shows. I did quite a bit with Mark as well, it was good.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

I remember the collections that were created, and how even when I was training at Sassoons in the 90s, and I was in Manchester, and we'd come down from Manchester for the soirees, and also to see the salon launches, and you'd feel like you shouldn't really be there because you were 16 and all the big people from London were there. And I remember you'd always like you'd make sure everybody always got to see the show. And just like how at that time, pre-internet, you'd never like kids up and down the country, we'd never seen anything like that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

But it was important that they saw it, people saw it, and also because you know we ended up with Salons in England, Germany, and the States. At one point, the States was completely separated from the UK. So they had a different business and obviously creativity and everything else. It was about 81 before it got really amalgamated for lack of a better word. Because they, although people would be go over there to work, the creativity and these the like collections didn't go that way. They didn't get transported

Education, AI and the future of the profession

SPEAKER_01 25:01

and showed the Americans the new collections and stuff, and that and then that was regularly done every time the collection came out, you know, twice a year.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

You used to do that globally as well, didn't you? You go to Asia with the collection, you know, to sort of show the world.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Like we used to go around every collection and show them how to do it physically, step by step, with the cut and the colour, and then see the whole thing in the end. But it was always quite busy when we went. We didn't actually just go to have a jolly up. But we did have a jolly anyway. All hairdressers have a jolly at the end. So that's part of the joy of hairdressing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 25:47

But also the experimentation side, I think. That's sort of not you taught people how to do it, and then people took it and made it and then came back to show you what they've done.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

And then part of it wasn't able to talk in a very open way, whoever it is could talk to anybody. And obviously, it you're more relaxed if you're ever in certain environments rather than.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

No, no, I can't. I can't. You have a moment that you just think.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Oh, we had a big show at the Albert Hall, which was a hairdresser at the Albert Hall, and the cutters were on stages doing stuff, and of course, as usual, I'm I'm in the basement. Right. Because Tinters always got put in the basement. Still do, Annie, still do. Always got put in the basement. So I'm in the base, right in the basement of the Albert Hall with all the colour going on, da-da-da-da-da-da. And this one, you know, it's all of us doing whatever we did. And then someone said, Fidel wants you and say, I said, I can't go. I'm right in the middle of doing this. Fidel says, You've got to come now. I can't leave this, I'm saying. I can't leave, I can't leave this colour. I'm going, oh no, right, right. And of course, I had to go, right? So I am dragged on the stage practically, saying that they say, No, this is Annie, no no no no, and you say, Well, I have to tell you about Annie. She came with the building, she's my mascot, and they're thinking I'm there in all my tinting gear, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:37

Looking absolutely lovely with my tinting open on. Everybody else is all dressed up.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

The stage of the role a little bit. I hear you've got some outfits, I hear you've got a fabulous wardrobe, Ali.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Probably that was the first time a tinter had ever been taken on stage.

unknown 28:01

Fabulous.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Which made me even more like that. I've got to get everybody on the stage.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Yeah, there's quite an interesting case at the minute, which is trying to get Tinters credits in magazines. Because often colourists aren't credited for looks and like we need honey on the case.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Yeah, but we if we had we would get credited if it was in the they would because they would do the both, but that's just because we insisted on it. Yeah, you know, our PRs and stuff were trained that they have to do it. They don't always want to do it, the people, you know, but you have to be nice to them and then is that the secret to get your own way?

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Ali says I've got to be nice. And what would you say your biggest challenge has been? Or have you had a low light?

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Well, yeah, sometimes it's difficult. I mean, we got I was with Tim and a whole load of models, and we used to do this show in the south of France, and uh Homre DeVaux, the guy's name that ran the show was called, and it was right down at on the edge of Spain, and it was always chaotic and manic, and people used to go from all the different European countries and different two or three teams from different places in the UK. And we were there, and then we had to get back, and we had top-line models with us as well. And something happened, I can't, don't know. We got to the airport, it was closed, and they were going, we got the Paris shows, we've got this and got that, and all that time of the year it was all going mad. So I'm in charge of all these things. I think okay, all right. I think, what have I got to do? I've got I managed to get them on a train halfway, halfway, right? And then all of us, right? But then, of course, I managed to get a hotel booked. But when it came to the rooms, we were a bit short of rooms, right? They all had to double up and they're going, don't want to double. Well, you either sleep with you know one of the other girls, or you know, or you know,

Career reflections and advice for young colourists

SPEAKER_01 30:20

there's only X amount of rooms, right? Because everybody was trying to get out of, I mean, all the other teams were trying to get, and I think we were the only one that managed to get on a train. You should ask Tim about this. So in the end, there was Tim, the makeup artist and myself in the room that was left. We were on the station with these big trunks. I'm thinking we're not gonna get these trunks, we were not gonna get to, you know, imagine trying to get people on seats on train. We're not gonna get this through, and it was carnet in those days. You had to do a carnet, a damn great carnet. Anyway, through customs, we ain't gonna eat this, so I thought we're gonna have to leave these. So I had to negotiate with somebody to hang on to the trunks in the station. Anyway, everybody got to the out there. We were gonna there in the end, a bit ragged, tagged, but we were they all got managed to get to their you know, their runway shows in Paris, which is what they were all that's why it was so urgent because you know the top girls that what that's what you know they were doing us a big favour coming to the the end of France, it's been doing the shit because we knew them quite well.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Like you know that was just one of the drivers. But that's quite one of the dramas, but one that you handled beautifully, impeccably. I can imagine it would have been you, we would have been doing the production on. What would you say mattered the most in your career? I wouldn't be here without people. Can I ask you if there's anything that's inspiring you in the world of hair and colour at the minute?

SPEAKER_01 32:02

I think it's very good that people are still trying to push boundaries and stuff. It's gonna be difficult economy-wise. But that's when people are at their best. So they always come out doing thinking of something. So I think it will all turn itself around. It just needs people, it's like anything. You you've got to want to do it, else it doesn't happen. If you don't put it into it, you don't get out of it. But I'm sure it will because there's a lot of good people around, and it's just finding a way to manoeuvre what's going on at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Yeah. In you know, in many ways, I mean the world is upside down. Well, a question I've got here is is it still possible to push boundaries? I think so.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Because there's always something, you know, there is I mean, the only thing that really scares me now is AI. Because I think it could be very dangerous. It could affect a lot of creative people, but it has to be uh managed in a way uh very strongly because I think it is such a strong good thing, and all good things, in especially when they're strong, have to have a good management and good structure. So I think it is possible, but I worry slightly that it won't take over from people and people getting credits for it, you know, people coming up with something and then they get the credit for it.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

It's quite undemocratic, isn't it? I guess with people borrowing things and bringing things forward, and there's a democracy in it. Like I I listened to an interview with you where you were talking about highlights, and you said, Oh no, no, I didn't come up with that, that was somebody else, that was Daniel Galvin. And I was like, that's that's the exchange that as humans you try and support each other, and I guess the issue with AI is with computer and data, we're so far removed from the operating systems that yeah, yeah, it's but yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

That's the only thing I think that but it may not, but I think we just have to be very conscious and aware.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Yeah, somebody said to me the other week, which I'm sort of living by this week, is that when you're good at your craft, it will prevail.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

I'm hoping that that will see us through. Yeah. In the industry, maybe. But do they see it as a craft?

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Maybe not anymore. I don't know. You know, on the law of averages, most people want to look their best, even if they don't behave their best, they want to be presented in a good light. So I think that will help because it's human nature.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Yeah. Yeah, yes, hopefully. And what advice would you have for anybody who a was starting out and b wants a career like yours? What would your advice be?

SPEAKER_01 35:27

Well, if you don't put in, you don't get out.

unknown 35:33

Good.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

You heard that from us. That's true with everything. You've got to do the time and the energy and the research. Is that how you'd break it down for hairdressers or yeah, it was with anything really, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

You've got to give, you've got to give of yourself. And the most difficult thing to do for anybody is to give of yourself. And you've got to give that to the people that you're trying to mentor who you're trying to bring on. Otherwise they won't, you know, they've got you've got to give it, you've got to do it. And that is important. And and people know when you're trying to help them, and they try even harder, you know. But you know, if people get ignored, it doesn't matter what it is, people or where you are, people do not like to be uh ignored and just you know swept away. It's because it's human nature, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 36:34

My closing question is, what did hair give you?

unknown 36:40

What did it give me?

SPEAKER_00 36:41

And what did it take away?

SPEAKER_01 36:43

It never took anything away. It always gave me everything. Without hair, I wouldn't be sitting here today.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

Where do you think you'd be? You would. You would, whatever you did, you'd do well, I mean.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

I don't know what I would be doing, but it was my world, obviously. Everything that I own and do, it's down to it in some way or another.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

So it's given you the life the life you've got now, an amazing life, would you say?

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Yeah. I think I've been very lucky, but then in life, you do have to have a certain amount of luck. But you've got, if you don't put in, you don't get out. But also, everyone needs a little bit of luck. And also, you need to be in the right place at the right time. And I happen to be in the right place at the right time. In the right era.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Through many eras, Ali. Through many eras. Oh, well, thank you ever so much. It's been an absolute pleasure, and I've really appreciated that you've spent this time with me.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Well, it's been my pleasure to talk to you.