While Fashion Week has thrown up an incredible array of avant garde hairstyles, nothing excites the Stylist beauty team more than the genius tips we pick up from backstage experts that are actually useful and practical in real life.

From hacks to make hair appear fuller, plaits more polished or the trick to nailing the super sleek trend, these clever tips will change how you do your hair forever… 

While braided styles look impressive, they can reveal just a little too much of the scalp, especially if your hair is thinner at the hairline. Justine Marjan (aka the woman behind Chrissy Teigen, Kerry Washington and Olivia Culpo’s enviable hair) had just the solution backstage at Alice and Olivia when creating these plaited crowns.

“After braiding, use an eyeshadow that matches your hair colour and gently buff it in to scalp to give the impression of thicker, fuller hair,” Marjan revealed.

If you’re partial to using a powder for your eyebrows, that will work perfectly.

Backstage at David Koma, Syd Hayes hair used Babyliss Pro 230 straightener to iron hair into sleek glossy veils, adding a little edge with a French plait on just one side. But if you’ve ever tried a plait at home, you’ll know they can have a mind of their own, and can curl up like Pippy Longstocking. Hayes let us in on his secret for keeping plaits straight: “feeding a length of wire through the end of the plait will give it weight and allow you to mould the shape much better.” Genius.

Newsflash. The straightest hair never begin with a blow dry, Duffy explained to us backstage at Topshop Unique. Instead, he says the key is to drench it in a priming product (he’s partial to a bit of L’Oreal Professionnel’s Pli) to fill out the cuticle of the hair “that’s what will give it the shine later,” and then rough dry it.

That original texture will give it much more hold for the straightening that comes later. And that part: “straighten in tiny sections, the smaller the sections, the less you have to go over it.” Straightening irons don’t have to mean frazzled hair.

Perfect hair has definitely had its day if the autumn/winter 2017 shows are anything to go by. The backstage hair stylist set were adamant it was all about undoing hair ever so slightly – the messy quirks are what gives hair character. And backstage at Anya Hindmarch, we were rather taken with Luke Hersheson’s weapon of choice for creating a little hat hair: the humble balloon. Just before the models hit the catwalk, Hersheson (who was working with John Frieda) rubbed their hair with a balloon to create a little bit of nylon static, reminiscent of pulling off a beanie.

Black velvet ribbon has popped up time and time again at this season’s shows, but no look was more chic than the bows that Moroccanoil’s Antonio Corral Calero tied into hair backstage at Temperley. Looks fiddly right? Wrong. His trick makes it far easier than it looks.

“Do it in two parts,” he explained backstage. “First wrap a length of ribbon around the crown and staple the two ends together. Then tie a bow out of a second length of ribbon and then staple that to the first band.” Easy.

Images: Stylist, Rex, Getty, John Frieda and Babyliss