British reggae and pop singer Melissa Steel on signature braids, straightening disasters and putting her hair through a lot.
My braids are my signature right now … people know it’s me just from catching a quick glimpse of my hair. The first thing people say to me ‘your hair is really cool’.
As my hair is in braids I literally use Olive Oil on my hair… I have lots of baby hairs so I lay my edges down with Dark and Lovely and I get it re-done every few weeks by my hair stylist Rio Sreedharan [also hairdresser for Alexander Burke].
I’m the kind of person who gets bored of my hair really quickly… so I always switch it up. Now I have half black and blonde braids. I was actually really tempted to get dreads but then I was like that is permanent so lets just stick to braids!
My hair is everything… it is a part of my character and a part of me, I got to whip the hair every now and then too.
My hair has been through a lot… growing up I went through the stages of straightening it, curling, dying. I’ve been blonde before, I’ve had orange hair – I’ve been through that stage where I stuck my hair to my head with gel, I look at pictures and I’m like mum why did you let me leave the house!
Once I completely ruined my hair by straightening it’s too much… I had a fringe and I never used to use heat protector until it broke off one day – I had a little tuff of hair it was so awkward.
Since it’s been in braids my hair grows really quick as soon as I stopped treat it badly its grown really long.
There are three people who are my style and hair icons… I love Cassie hair, the undercut looks really cool, I love Rihanna the way she can pull off anything and Aaliyah her hair was always on point.
My hair… is amazing.
