I’m sitting in a hair salon crying. Normally, this could be a really bad sign. But my hairdresser doesn’t seem in any respect frightened that I’m weeping mid-hair wash.

In reality, she is beaming brightly: ‘I’m at all times completely happy when my clients cry, since it means the whole lot is definitely working!’

Welcome to the ‘spiritual haircut’: a visit to the salon that claims to resolve your woes and trim away ‘negative energy’ along together with your split ends.

Spiritual haircuts are already big in Los Angeles, where the celebrities pays upwards of £250 to have their hair cut in a ‘crystal cave’. In any case, Hollywood has at all times been big on the concept a recent look can change your life.

Within the UK, they’re rapidly growing in popularity, with spiritual hairdressers from the Tangible Hairdressing salon in Glasgow to spiritual stylist Gary Winer in Hertfordshire, who uses rituals in his work.

Meanwhile, I’m within the capable hands of Jannina Light, based in London’s Pimlico. She has been cutting hair for many years, including for award-winning salon group Headmasters, but she’s also a reiki healer and reflexologist, and it’s the mix that makes her haircuts so special.

So how on earth does a spiritual haircut work?

The essential idea is that our hair holds energy from our past. Chop it off and, lo and behold, your stresses and emotional traumas vanish, too.

Francesca Oddie, a spiritual expert, says: ‘Women have at all times intuitively had a haircut after a break-up. But now we’re doing this intentionally and using a haircut to heal.’

I heard concerning the trend when a friend sent me a photograph of herself, ritually burning sage (a ‘purifying’ herb) next to her cut-off hair and saying: ‘I just had a spiritual haircut! I feel like a unique person.’ After initial laughter, and numerous questions, I made a decision to try it myself.

I’m turning 33 and after a tumultuous few years, it seems like things are shifting in my life. I’m moving right into a recent stage professionally, writing for TV, and I’ve began dating again. So I would like to officially leave my past behind.

I’m still just a little sceptical — but I’m no stranger to the post-break-up haircut, including one regrettable occasion after I gave myself a fringe. Perhaps that is the technique to embrace change without ending up with a terrible hairdo?

I book an appointment with Jannina (prices start at £80 for a haircut).

She explains that her work relies on the traditional Indian idea of chakras, or energy centres at key points within the body. ‘The crown chakra is on top of the pinnacle and is linked to clarity and intuition. Working with the hair is a possibility to balance that chakra,’ explains Jannina.

She’s a smiling Peruvian together with her own hair in a neat ponytail and he or she radiates calm. ‘My mission in life is healing,’ she assures me. ‘My clients don’t just leave with a superb haircut — it is so much deeper than that.’ She adds that she uses energetic connections to sense what form of haircut her clients need.

My hair is long and feels flat. But as an alternative of the same old questions on layers and length, Jannina asks what’s been happening in my life. It’s disconcerting, but as she smiles reassuringly, I find myself opening up concerning the changes in my life, profession dreams and dating hopes. It seems like a therapy session, and at one point, I realise I have never mentioned my hair.

But Jannina nods earnestly and, after I’m finished, she tells me: ‘You are ready.’

I’m unsure what I’m ready for, so I ask Jannina what form of cut I’m having, but she just says: ‘Let’s wash your hair first. Then it can all flow.’ This doesn’t reassure me — I would like to know exactly what number of inches we’re losing — but after I lean my head back into the basin and Jannina’s hands touch my head, the whole lot changes.

My mind immediately quietens. But I also begin to feel deeply sad and as thoughts of old heartache come unexpectedly to my mind — a past break-up that I assumed had long ceased to hassle me — I find myself tearing up. I’m vaguely aware of Jannina washing my hair while giving me a head massage. At one point the sorrow feels overwhelming, but then she releases her fingers, and suddenly, it’s completely gone.

I open my eyes, dazed, and realise I’m crying. Jannina tells me she also felt like crying as she released all of the old grief I used to be holding onto. ‘Hair washing is very important, since the hair is sort of a magnet and it picks up a lot energy,’ she explains. ‘Water cleanses that negative charge. That’s the reason hair washing can leave you in a sublime state.’

Jannina makes the haircut feel like a therapy session 

This should be why I barely bat an eye fixed when she chops off my entire ponytail and places it next to me. I keep my glasses off so I can not scrutinise Jannina’s every move; I just trust her.

As she cuts, we talk. As a substitute of the same old salon small-talk, I speak truthfully about my family, friendships and profession. Jannina offers heartfelt advice, sharing stories of clients whose lives she’s modified.

Just like the businesswoman who got here in tense and ‘completely blocked’. She had no idea about holistic treatments and, after her hair wash, she demanded to know what Jannina had done to her. But she also teared up with gratitude; ‘she modified immediately and left a unique person’.

Still, I’m scared when Jannina finishes blow-drying my hair, all too aware that I rarely like my hair after a cut, let alone when I have never even discussed what style I would like.

But after I finally put my glasses on, I gasp. Because I like it. It is not the hippy haircut I’d secretly feared. As a substitute, it’s chic.

I finally feel just like the French woman I actually have at all times aspired to be. Until Jannina hands me my hacked-off ponytail.

‘You’ll be able to take this home to do a ritual with it,’ she adds.

I finally feel just like the French girl I aspire to be 

She advises I bury it in my garden after a meditation. To bring abundance and growth into my life (and likewise to my hair — apparently, this will help thicken it), I should wait for the Recent Moon.

The heaviness I’d previously felt has gone, perhaps because I’ve just lost ten inches of hair, or possibly, due to Jannina’s healing hands. Either way, I’m grateful — even when my ponytail falls out of my handbag at brunch later that day, terrifying my friend.

The £80 fee is comparable to what I’d pay at a salon in the realm, but not only do I like my cut, I’ve also undergone a healing experience.

As I wait for the Recent Moon to bury my hair (something I can not consider I will do), I ponder why I’ve only ever opted for extraordinary haircuts. I’m an official convert to the spiritual do.