By . Helen Carroll . PUBLISHED: . 16:59 EST, 9 October 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 17:08 EST, 9 October 2013 . My hairstyle had been the same for years; the heavy fringe I hid behind as a shy teenager was the exact same one I now used to hide my frown lines in my 40s. The heavy locks hanging below my shoulders were the same ones I’d scraped into a ponytail for PE as a schoolgirl, and which I now bundled up hastily as a mum on the school run. I'd tried with varying degrees of success to steer away from this hairstyle, but it remained my default setting for more than four decades. I admit I was starting to get a bit bored of the same image staring back at me from shop windows and mirrors. I'd long adapted my wardrobe to reflect my advancing years, so why had my hair remained frozen in time? Rolling back the years: Helen is happy with her new crop, right . Then I read I was not alone in feeling I'd reached a crossroads with my hair: a survey revealed that 46 - the age I'm about to turn - is seen as a pivotal age for women and their hair. This is the age at which many finally accept they’re nearer to 50 than 40, and opt for a more mature style. All my contempories agreed: it really was time to go for the chop and embrace life as a more groomed and - dare I say it - middle-aged woman. However, I was at a loss to know what would be the right style for a woman who may be past her prime but isn’t quite ready for the knackers' yard. So I was apprehensive when celebrity hairdresser Jo Hansford - whose clients include Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie, no less - recommended a short layered bob, as sported by the evergreen Cameron Diaz. She assured me that, far from making me look middle-aged, it would actually knock ten years off my appearance. Star style: Cameron Diaz looks younger than her 41 years . Cameron does indeed look more youthful than her 41 years, but could that really be down to her hairstyle? The cut alone, I was told, would not be enough to complete the transformation. Although I'm a natural blonde, over the past few years so much grey has grown through that my crowning glory had begun to look more witchy-white than golden. So Jo recommended an all-over golden caramel tint with low-lights at the crown and highlights at the ends to give me a more youthful, sun-kissed look. As a mother of three with a demanding career and little spare cash to spend on myself, I was nervous about making changes that sounded so high-maintenance. 'As we age, longer hair can appear to drag our facial muscles down while shorter styles create the illusion of pulling them up, giving gravity a helping hand,' Jo Hansford told me. 'Your old haircut was triangular  - very heavy at the bottom and the length was weighing it down. 'You have a square-shaped head and chin (really?) so we'd suggest taking the length up above the shoulders, and putting in some graduation at the front, to soften these angles. Your hair would then frame your face, and we'd reshape the back to give it more bounce. 'Your fringe should sweep over to one side, like Cameron Diaz's, as this would soften your features, taking years off you. 'You look like the sort of woman who's too busy fussing with her hair to look after her children' 'Your old hair colour was luminous, so we will tint it all over to a more translucent, softer blonde, using golden caramel shades. This will look more sophisticated and should need re-doing no more than every couple of months.' While Jo's stylist, Evie Perkins, did my colour, the cut was done by senior stylist Marcio Oliveira, who insists the Cameron Diaz cut is the perfect style for fortysomethings like me. My hair, he told me, is twice as thick as and much curlier than the Hollywood star's, so he pared it right down to get it to lie as flat and look a little choppy like hers. And as my fringe was shorter than Cameron's, he created a kind of sweep-over, taking a chunk of hair from the right side of my head and training it to fall over to the right. 'Cameron will have a team of people whose job it is to make sure she always looks her best in public,' said Marcio. 'But with the right cut and blow-dry, women like you can achieve this look.' Not all happy: Helen's three children preferred her old hair style . So what was the verdict? If I'm honest, when I looked in the mirror after my blow-dry I got a shock. My hair has never been so short - or indeed dark, although, of course, it's still blonde. I felt immediately lighter, and more carefree, having shed several inches from the length, and a considerable amount more from the width of my hair. And, conscious that I'm wary of change, I decided to give it a day or two before deciding how much I liked the new me. But I wasn't bargaining on the reaction from my children - Daniel, 11, Isobel, nine, and Christian, five - when I arrived home. All three were visibly perturbed by my new appearance, insisting that I no longer look like their mother. 'We look as though we're out with a young childminder, not our mum!' Isobel, with her knack for getting to the nub of things, spoke for them all when she said: 'You look like the sort of woman who's too busy fussing with her hair to look after her children properly.' Sobbing at bedtime and insisting I could be an impostor pretending to be her mum, she begged me to go back to the salon and return to my old cut and colour, then left a note on my pillow saying: 'I want Mummy back!' The boys were equally unsettled, if a little less vocal about it. I'm sure Isobel thought she was just being reassuring when she called to them: 'Come and sniff her, she still smells the same. It must be Mummy.' My husband said I looked lovely and was amused by our children's reaction. Highly observant, he said he would never have known I'd had a tint if I hadn't mentioned it. His main concern then became how much it would set us back should I decide to maintain this new celebrity style (£380 every couple of months, though I didn’t tell him that). My sister, Louise, arrived later that night and told me the new look had indeed knocked a decade off my appearance. The following day I went for a walk with the children when Isobel, still giving me sideways looks, said: 'I hardly recognise you. We look as though we're out with a young childminder, not our mum!' Her brothers solemnly nodded their agreement. It was then I knew for sure that this is the cut and colour for me. johansford.com; 020 7495 7774 .
Helen Carroll had her hair styled like Cameron Diaz .
Sister told her she looked 10 years younger .
But her children were upset because she no longer looked 'like mummy'
By . Helen Carroll . PUBLISHED: . 16:59 EST, 9 October 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 17:08 EST, 9 October 2013 . My hairstyle had been the same for years; the heavy fringe I hid behind as a shy teenager was the exact same one I now used to hide my frown lines in my 40s. The heavy locks hanging below my shoulders were the same ones I’d scraped into a ponytail for PE as a schoolgirl, and which I now bundled up hastily as a mum on the school run. I'd tried with varying degrees of success to steer away from this hairstyle, but it remained my default setting for more than four decades. I admit I was starting to get a bit bored of the same image staring back at me from shop windows and mirrors. I'd long adapted my wardrobe to reflect my advancing years, so why had my hair remained frozen in time? Rolling back the years: Helen is happy with her new crop, right . Then I read I was not alone in feeling I'd reached a crossroads with my hair: a survey revealed that 46 - the age I'm about to turn - is seen as a pivotal age for women and their hair. This is the age at which many finally accept they’re nearer to 50 than 40, and opt for a more mature style. All my contempories agreed: it really was time to go for the chop and embrace life as a more groomed and - dare I say it - middle-aged woman. However, I was at a loss to know what would be the right style for a woman who may be past her prime but isn’t quite ready for the knackers' yard. So I was apprehensive when celebrity hairdresser Jo Hansford - whose clients include Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie, no less - recommended a short layered bob, as sported by the evergreen Cameron Diaz. She assured me that, far from making me look middle-aged, it would actually knock ten years off my appearance. Star style: Cameron Diaz looks younger than her 41 years . Cameron does indeed look more youthful than her 41 years, but could that really be down to her hairstyle? The cut alone, I was told, would not be enough to complete the transformation. Although I'm a natural blonde, over the past few years so much grey has grown through that my crowning glory had begun to look more witchy-white than golden. So Jo recommended an all-over golden caramel tint with low-lights at the crown and highlights at the ends to give me a more youthful, sun-kissed look. As a mother of three with a demanding career and little spare cash to spend on myself, I was nervous about making changes that sounded so high-maintenance. 'As we age, longer hair can appear to drag our facial muscles down while shorter styles create the illusion of pulling them up, giving gravity a helping hand,' Jo Hansford told me. 'Your old haircut was triangular  - very heavy at the bottom and the length was weighing it down. 'You have a square-shaped head and chin (really?) so we'd suggest taking the length up above the shoulders, and putting in some graduation at the front, to soften these angles. Your hair would then frame your face, and we'd reshape the back to give it more bounce. 'Your fringe should sweep over to one side, like Cameron Diaz's, as this would soften your features, taking years off you. 'You look like the sort of woman who's too busy fussing with her hair to look after her children' 'Your old hair colour was luminous, so we will tint it all over to a more translucent, softer blonde, using golden caramel shades. This will look more sophisticated and should need re-doing no more than every couple of months.' While Jo's stylist, Evie Perkins, did my colour, the cut was done by senior stylist Marcio Oliveira, who insists the Cameron Diaz cut is the perfect style for fortysomethings like me. My hair, he told me, is twice as thick as and much curlier than the Hollywood star's, so he pared it right down to get it to lie as flat and look a little choppy like hers. And as my fringe was shorter than Cameron's, he created a kind of sweep-over, taking a chunk of hair from the right side of my head and training it to fall over to the right. 'Cameron will have a team of people whose job it is to make sure she always looks her best in public,' said Marcio. 'But with the right cut and blow-dry, women like you can achieve this look.' Not all happy: Helen's three children preferred her old hair style . So what was the verdict? If I'm honest, when I looked in the mirror after my blow-dry I got a shock. My hair has never been so short - or indeed dark, although, of course, it's still blonde. I felt immediately lighter, and more carefree, having shed several inches from the length, and a considerable amount more from the width of my hair. And, conscious that I'm wary of change, I decided to give it a day or two before deciding how much I liked the new me. But I wasn't bargaining on the reaction from my children - Daniel, 11, Isobel, nine, and Christian, five - when I arrived home. All three were visibly perturbed by my new appearance, insisting that I no longer look like their mother. 'We look as though we're out with a young childminder, not our mum!' Isobel, with her knack for getting to the nub of things, spoke for them all when she said: 'You look like the sort of woman who's too busy fussing with her hair to look after her children properly.' Sobbing at bedtime and insisting I could be an impostor pretending to be her mum, she begged me to go back to the salon and return to my old cut and colour, then left a note on my pillow saying: 'I want Mummy back!' The boys were equally unsettled, if a little less vocal about it. I'm sure Isobel thought she was just being reassuring when she called to them: 'Come and sniff her, she still smells the same. It must be Mummy.' My husband said I looked lovely and was amused by our children's reaction. Highly observant, he said he would never have known I'd had a tint if I hadn't mentioned it. His main concern then became how much it would set us back should I decide to maintain this new celebrity style (£380 every couple of months, though I didn’t tell him that). My sister, Louise, arrived later that night and told me the new look had indeed knocked a decade off my appearance. The following day I went for a walk with the children when Isobel, still giving me sideways looks, said: 'I hardly recognise you. We look as though we're out with a young childminder, not our mum!' Her brothers solemnly nodded their agreement. It was then I knew for sure that this is the cut and colour for me. johansford.com; 020 7495 7774 .
By . Helen Carroll . PUBLISHED: . 16:59 EST, 9 as sported by the evergreen Cameron Diaz. She younger than her 41 years . Cameron does indeed fussing with her hair to look after her children' insisting that I no longer look like their