Me time at The Wealden Retreat

A childhood trip to the hairdressers was generally a treat saved for the occasional wedding, Mum usually being the one to tackle my unruly curls. More often, my brother and I would wriggle in the waiting area while Mum grabbed a haircut herself.

A slightly fractious affair, Mum keeping one eye on us and another on the snipping. ‘Why does the hairdressers smell?’ my brother would ask, a question which only served to cement my early memory of our local salon - noisy and smelling of chemicals.

Twenty years later and in nearby Hailsham I’m being offered organic teas, the early sun lighting the whole room through its glass panelled front. I am at the Wealden Retreat, and owner and director Nikki is showing me a different side to hairdressing altogether, explaining how she fell in love with the premises a year ago and hasn’t looked back. Nikki and I share many values, her passion for creativity and naturally derived ingredients is informed and honest, and The Wealden Retreat is certainly not just a nod to ‘organic hairdressing’. Nor is it all about the products, impressive though they are (Nikki uses Aveda with their 97% naturally derived ingredients.)

Instead, The Wealden Retreat is very much about the experience, and I’m treated to a head, neck and shoulder massage, with a choice of three essential oil blends, which all clients receive before work begins. Nikki is passionate about the power of the human touch, and the massage not only relaxes clients but also allows her to connect with them ‘it’s all about attention to detail,’ she explains. ‘Sometimes hairdressers don’t even look at the hair’ she says, astonished, ‘you have to really look’ Nikki insists, her eyes widening as she pulls up handfuls of pretend hair in front of her ‘you have to really analyse the hair, otherwise you don’t know how it will behave’ and this is clearly where her passion lies, I’ve lost her to a world of techniques and palettes to achieve opaque and translucent colour, hair masques, colour combinations, and as if sensing my attention drifting asks ‘what do you use?’ I’m caught off guard and my answer prompts a desperate eye roll and my annual haircut is booked in for a week next Tuesday.