The smell of Elnett hairspray is the smell of my twenties. The smell of my entire modelling career, really, wherever in the world it has taken me. Because I can’t think of many photoshoots I’ve been at where there hasn’t been a cloud of Elnett escaping through the door of the hair and makeup room; it’s one of the fashion shoot sensory staples, along with the sound of the clothes steamer and the frightening feeling of cold metal on your eyelids as the lash curler clamps down.
Mr AMR (who has been a photographer for far longer than I’ve been a model) didn’t know that we were shooting these pictures for an Elnett feature, but recognised the smell straight away. It’s just so nostalgic, I suppose, if you’ve worked in the fashion industry – it reminds me of those crazy, heady days in London or in Milanese or Parisian studios, rushing through the final shot with a motorbike waiting outside, ready to speed me to the airport to catch a flight to New York or Berlin or wherever it was I needed to go next.
But enough of the reminiscing; it’s not the nostalgic smell of Elnett I’m supposed to be talking about, or even the fact that it must be one of the most iconic beauty products in existence. It’s the versatility of this non-crunchy, lasting-hold spray that makes it as useful for taming flyaways as it is for creating dramatic avant garde hair sculptures.
I’ve put together three looks – and by R...