The Swinging 60s are calling, and Good Housekeeping cover star Davina McCall is answering in style. We’re so used to seeing her with her signature brunette locks flowing freely, but last night she proved that she can pull off any look – even one with some high drama (quite literally).
If there’s one celeb who’s always guaranteed to have a perfect ’do, it’s Davina – after all, her partner is renowned hairstylist Michael Douglas. Last night, Davina lit up the red carpet in London at the National Television Awards. While her glitzy minidress was certainly a showstopper and no doubt turned heads, it was her hair that left the GH beauty team staring in awe.
We got the lowdown on the look from Michael, who tells us it was a tale of two sessions, two decades and one mishap along the way!
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‘It was actually a style we did in two stages,’ Michael reveals. ‘Davina had a job first thing, so I styled her hair for that using my own styling range, The Numbers by mdlondon, which is coming out in December. We’re doing a lot of testing on those products at the moment, and I used a styling cream and blow-dry spray mixed together. Once I’d blow-dried those in, I used my straightening irons to get rid of her frizzy bits, the hair that grows from her scar [from Davina’s operation earlier this year to remove a benign brain tumour].’
The event hair itself was a quick, on-the-fly rework of his earlier prep: ‘I just filled her dry hair with texturising spray – I used mine, but Umberto Giannini Texture Boost is probably the closest thing to it – and put a lot of back-combing in,’ he says.
As Michael candidly reveals, the style didn’t quite go to plan initially. ‘We actually started off with a quiff on the fringe, but I didn't like it, so we got rid of it and brought it back to a nice soft fringe.’ A Davina classic that never fails.
‘I popped the mdlondon Wave under the fringe to smooth it out and get this little bang thing going on, held everything in place with four or five kirby grips and blasted it with hairspray,’ he says. ‘At the back, it was a 60s-inspired French pleat, a little bit messy, plus a soft 70s fringe’.
The gorgeous minidress from Annie’s Ibiza was also a key consideration. ‘She had her legs out, so there's something about the height of the hair, plus a lot of bare leg that made her look super tall and slim.’
To complete the look, Davina’s makeup was handled by celebrity MUA Victoria Reynolds, who shared a full-product breakdown on Instagram. Her complexion was perfected with some light coverage using Lisa Eldridge’s skin tint, followed by Armani’s Luminous Silk concealer to brighten the eyes.
The flawless complexion was warmed up with a pop of hot pink blush swept across the apples of her cheeks, courtesy of a GH favourite, By Terry Tea to Tan blusher. Coordinating with the pink blusher was a pink lip combo, so good, it looked custom-made for Davina. Victoria lined her lips with Lisa Eldridge’s Sculpt and Shade, then finished off with Mac’s Macximal lipstick in Modesty.
The eyes brought an extra addition of drama: obsidian Hourglass eyeliner along the lash line, plus a generous coating of Hourglass’s mascara on the top and bottom lashes for wide-eyed definition.
Michael put it simply enough – ‘She looked great!’ We couldn’t agree more!
