When you have the perfect hair colour, the first thing people should notice is your eyes – Daniel Galvin
Hair colourist Daniel Galvin recently marked his fiftieth year in the industry, yet the Galvin name has been synonymous with hairdressing for over a century. Daniel’s grandfather and father were both hairdressers and while Daniel was still at school, he spent his Saturdays sweeping the floors and hanging up the towels at his father’s London salon. Daniel’s late brother Joshua also carried on the tradition and his three children, Daniel Jnr., James and Louise, all follow in their father’s footsteps.
Daniel was a young apprentice in the early 1960s when he first became fascinated by hair colour and its power to transform the way we look. This was the era of swinging London, and Vidal Sassoon was revolutionising the world of haircutting. Daniel decided he wanted to do the same for hair colour. This wasn’t an easy prospect. Very few people coloured their hair at that time but if they did, it was simply to cover up grey. The idea of a hairdresser specialising in hair colour was unheard of.
Determined to forge his own path, Daniel began scooping up locks from the salon floor, dying them with different formulas and creating his own colour charts in the process. Soon his artist’s eye caught the attention of both Vidal Sassoon and Leonard Lewis: both of these renowned stylists invited Daniel to work at their respective salons and Daniel elected to choose Leonard because he had a bespoke hair colouring department. At Leonard, Daniel helped to launch the career of the model Twiggy by transforming her into a pale blonde using a new highlighting system he’d invented called 'brickwork'. This technique is now used by colourists worldwide.
In the late 60s Daniel began to develop his famous 'crazy colours', experimenting with silk and nylon dyes to create dazzling effects. Daniel’s idea was to shock the general public into reconsidering hair colour as something creative and expressive rather than only functional. When his designs began to be featured in Vogue, people realised that the possibilities for colour were endless. After the success of crazy colour, Daniel took on another challenge, reinventing hair colour so that this time it would look completely natural. He reintroduced henna, mixing it with other natural ingredients such as black coffee, lemon juice, the yolk of an egg and even hot red wine. Through working with semi-permanent colour in new ways, he developed numerous colouring techniques, such as Tortoiseshell Lights using three tones of highlights. Daniel began to pay close attention to the way that eye colour and skin tone work with the hair’s pigment.
When you have the perfect hair colour, the first thing people should notice is your eyes; never your colour
This fact, he maintains, is testament to the skill of the naturally gifted hair colourist.
During the early 1970s, Daniel started working on films, including such classics of the era as Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon and Murder on the Orient Express. In 1977, he left Leonard to open his first salon on George Street in Marylebone, the same street where he can be found to this day. The Daniel Galvin Salon was Europe’s first specialist colour salon and it was here that Daniel began training a new generation of specialist colourists, many of whom have gone on to become some of the biggest names within the industry.
In the 1980s, Daniel achieved another milestone, becoming the first colourist with a signature line of professional hair colourants and haircare products design to create and nurture natural, iridescent colours ‘more beautiful than nature intended'. Then, in 1990, he was invited to endorse a range of professional colour products in Japan for Hoyu Co Ltd. He has since become known as the man who introduced the concept of professional hair colour to Japan and the Far East, where some 63 million people now colour their hair. Throughout the 1990s, Daniel continued to push the boundaries of hair colour, inventing new techniques and always focussing on achieving stunningly natural hair full of movement and shimmering colour, unlike anything seen before.
In 2003, Daniel’s international reputation and the continued endorsement by his loyal clientele led him to open Europe’s first super salon. Spanning some 9,000 square feet, the importance of colour is emphasised with the entire ground floor dedicated to colouring, supported by an equally excellent styling department on the lower ground floor. Daniel’s expertise continues to be regularly sought by many of the world’s most discerning and high profile names.
Although Daniel has received many industry awards for his work, his highest honour came in 2006 when HM The Queen awarded him an OBE for his contribution to hair colour and the hairdressing industry. He was the first in the industry to be recognised in this way. In December 2011 Daniel was also awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Fellowship of British Hairdressing, an accolade of which his is very proud.
Of his life’s work, Daniel says,
Hair colour is my absolute passion and I count myself so lucky that I have a job that allows me to be an ambassador for something I love.
He continues to push the boundaries and still gets a thrill out of the confidence-boost a woman gains from a new cut and colour.
He points out,
Hair is a woman’s ultimate beauty asset. Tthe only thing that she never takes off.