Last Saturday I woke up and decided that my hair needed cutting immediately. Does that ever happen to you? One day your hair’s absolutely fine, the next, it feels all wrong. I’m not sure exactly what changed between me going to sleep on the Friday and waking up on the Saturday morning but swift action was required.

My hair has been pretty much exactly the same for the past ten years (blonde, and yes it’s natural, side-parted on the left, somewhere past shoulder length). For a long time I was loyal to one hairdresser but recently I’ve been changing things up. I say recently, previous to last Saturday I hadn’t had my hair cut since December.

So, anyway, I got up, went to a yoga class and then popped into Glasshouse Salon, which I’d read about in a five hot hair shops feature on the Topshop blog. Glasshouse appealed because it uses organic products, is around the corner from the yoga studio I practice at most days and they have an excellent blog (who knew hair salons had blogs, and that they were good?!). I asked when the next available appointment was and it turned out they could fit me in half an hour later.

Sitting down with my stylist I heard myself saying that I wanted enough of a trim to get my barnet back into decent condition and that, maybe, I’d like a fringe. I’ve had fringes in the past and over the last ten years have found myself considering one every now and again but the desire has always faded and never coincided with a visit to the hairdressers. At this point I should say that any previous change to my hair has involved weeks of agonising and the collection of many photographs, all of which would be shown to and discussed in detail with the hairdresser. This was uncharted territory.

The stylist asked me a few questions, it felt like we were on the same page, so I said go for it and she did. An hour later my hair was a bit shorter than it had been before and now had a long side swept fringe that cunningly covered up my frown lines. Instant Botox if you like.

A week later and I couldn’t be happier with my new do. It feels like a real change without losing the length I love and, as the fringe is long to start with, it won’t take aeons to become layered side bits (which I’m sure isn’t the technical term but you know what I mean) if I decide to go back to my previous style. The only downside I can see is that I’ll have to have regular fringe trims but as I’m often in the area it’s no biggie. In this case a change really has been as good as a rest.

Are you considering a fringe, a new colour or a total restyle? Had a spur-of-the-moment cut that totally worked out, or really didn’t? Who’s giving good fringe-spiration right now? See above for pictures of five of my favourites (Alexa Chung, Suki Waterhouse, Melissa Hemsley, Sophie Dahl and Langley Fox Hemingway). As always do share in the comments section below.