Hair care legend Philip Kingsley suddenly passed away on Saturday, September 3, 2016. Born in 1930, Kingsley was 86 years old. He is survived by his wife Joan and three daughters.

Kingsley has been called the ‘Hair Guru’ by the New York Times, the ‘Hair Wizard’ by Vogue and the ‘Hair Doctor’ by the Sunday Times — and, coined the phrase ‘bad hair day.’

As an internationally renowned trichologist and leading authority on hair and scalp health, Kingsley’s client list included celebrities Sir Laurence Olivier, Cate Blanchett, Eva Herzigova, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sienna Miller, Jane Fonda, Victoria Beckham, and many members of the royal family.

Kingsley was the first to link hair health with nutrition and well-being. He wrote four books on hair care, and for ten years, he penned an immensely popular hair advice column in London’s Sunday Times Style magazine. He has also researched female hair loss at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York while developing products for people undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Kingsley believed that the traditional classifications of hair as ‘Normal, Oily and Dry’ were inaccurate, and introduced the concept of hair textures instead: Fine, Medium, Coarse, African-Caribbean.

The Product Range & Elasticizer, Formulated for Audrey Hepburn

Philip’s hair care range started with a mere five basic products and has grown to over fifty bespoke formulations. (See one of his latest launches, Swimcap, here.)

Kingsley was best known for creating the world’s first pre-shampoo hair masque, Elasticizer, in 1976, which he formulated personally for one of his most famous clients, Audrey Hepburn. Elasticizer is still an international best-seller, with one being sold every two minutes.

Looking Back

Kingsley was born in 1930 to a working class family in London’s East End. At the age of 14, he apprenticed at his uncle’s hairdressing salon in Bethnal Green and attended the Institute of Trichologists.

Kingsley opened his first London clinic in Marylebone in 1957, and his flagship Trichological Clinic opened on Green Street, Mayfair in 1968 — followed by a clinic on New York’s Fifth Avenue in 1977.