Britain’s shampoo manufacturers were aghast yesterday after John Humphrys, one of the nation’s most influential broadcasters, revealed that he somehow managed to wash his hair without spending a fortune on exotically named cleansing products.
“I don’t need shampoo,” Humphrys announced on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Why do you need shampoo? Water, yes. Soap? Hmm.”
With his thinning silver locks invariably trimmed to a short back and sides, Humphrys has not got much hair to keep clean, but his emergence as a member of a high-profile “no ’poo” movement spells trouble for the makers of “energising”, “miracle nourish” or “volume-enhancing” goo.
It was in 2006 that the Times columnist Matthew Parris first predicted he would one day be hailed as “a lonely prophet of the