I’m having a bronde moment

It’s a fairly insignificant problem in the grand scheme of things. But it’s always annoyed me that I’ve never really had a satisfactory way to describe my own hair colour. It’s not blonde. It’s not brown. It’s somewhere inbetween.

None of the usual descriptors were quite right. ‘Mousy’ is too unflattering; ‘caramel’ too pretentious; ‘dirty blonde’ too unhygienic. And having two kids with similarly indeterminate barnets has only deepened my identity crisis.

So thank you, L’Oréal, for bringing the word ‘bronde’ to our attention. I don’t know whether they actually coined the word or not, but they’re putting their considerable marketing muscle behind it, and for that, I applaud them. Their new ad campaign – starring the patron saint of brondeness, J-Lo – describes the shade as ‘sexier than a blonde, spicier than a brunette’. Yesssss. Take that, ‘mousy’!

I normally have a low tolerance for fashiony portmanteau words. ‘Shoots’ is too ambiguous (it means ‘shoeboots’, in case you’re wondering). ‘Coatigan’ sounds as frumpy as it looks. And don’t even get me started on ‘treggings’. But ‘bronde’? Utter genius. It’s succinct, useful, accurate and impossible to argue with.

I’m going to be randomly dropping it into conversation until it catches on. Brondes of the world, who’s with me? We will not rest until it’s in the dictionary. We’re worth it.