There's a particular kind of silence that happens in a good hairdresser’s chair around minute twenty — the small talk runs out, the scissors settle into rhythm, and you just sort of exist for a bit. That’s the feeling we've spent nine years trying to build into 22 Redchurch Street, our salon just off Shoreditch High Street.

We run seven chairs and a small colour bar tucked at the back, staffed by five stylists, two colour specialists, and a junior who’s two years into her apprenticeship and already better with a blow-dryer than most of us were at year five. Between us we've worked in Soho flagship salons, a couple of fashion weeks, and — in one memorable case — six months on a film set doing period wigs.

We don’t do walk-ins — every appointment gets a proper time slot rather than being squeezed between two others. We also keep our books open later than most salons on Thursdays, until 8:30pm, because getting here straight from work is the only realistic option for a lot of our clients.

One thing that surprises new clients: we send a follow-up text three days after any colour appointment, just checking in on how it’s settling. It started as a one-off thing one of our colourists did for a nervous bride, and it just never stopped.