John Frieda obituary

Hair stylist to the stars who created the ‘Purdey’ bob and the groundbreaking Frizz Ease product range

All beauty chains now have metres-long shelves of products for curly, coily and wavy hair, and among the proliferating varieties of “curl custard” and “scrunching jelly” there is always the purple livery of John Frieda’s Frizz Ease range, developed from his original 1991 silicon-based serum. It was the first care product to be sold for – and likely the earliest even to acknowledge – the exasperating existence of frizz.

Frieda, who has died aged 75, respected all types of hair, whether in or out of fashion. He added sculpted shape to straight locks, notably for Joanna Lumley’s pudding-basin “Purdey” bob for The New Avengers on television in 1976, which became a nationwide fad. He scissored and scruffed flat hair into cheeky urchin cuts, as he did for Shirley MacLaine and Diana, Princess of Wales (Frieda had arrived to style a secretive portrait session for the photographer Lord Snowdon not knowing Diana was its subject.)

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