The excuse was my birthday party (don't ask!) and wanting to roll back a few years. I needed all the help I could get. Yet nothing prepared me for the curdling reek of hair dye as it was liberally plastered onto my slightly greying hair.

I might be approaching my middle years, but I was damned if I was going to look any older than 32; it was just my salt'n pepper hair holding me back. Smelling like rancid eggs, though. No one prepared me for that.

The Michaeljohn salon in Albermarle Street has been a mega-salon before that particular marketing word was first dreamed up by a waft of beauty professionals with big hair and even bigger nails. The salon still looks like an eighties throwback with its cream walls, matt black over-lit workstations and helmet-haired, skeletal Mayfair clientele. Yet watch this space as it's all about to change with new owners and a huge investment of money putting as much emphasis on the food and drinks as well the latest hair styles, colouring and treatments. All should be ship shape for next autumn with healthy Nobu-style eats and the kind of industrial pampering to rival an Arizona re-hab clinic.