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Italian coffee roaster Illycaffe SpA is partnering with e-commerce firm Hangzhou Onechance Tech Corp. to grow its business

Sun, sea and swimming pools may be the key ingredients for a fantastic summer holiday, but when it comes to hair colour maintenance, it’s a different story. UV rays, salt water and chlorine all have the power to turn rich brunette to mousy brown, ravishing red to sad salmon pink, and platinum blonde to yucky yellow. That’s why protecting your hair is so important during the sunnier months, whether you’re at home or on holiday abroad. Here, hair experts offer their advice on how to stop your hair colour from fading in the sun… 1. Use sun protection “The main reason why your colour fades in the summer is due to UV rays stripping away colour, especially if your hair is colour treated,” says Keiko Mizuno, education lead at Living Proof UK. “Naturally dark and light hair can get stripped from the sun too as UV rays lift all pigment, but it is more visible on lighter hair as blonde hair has less pigment compared to brunette hair.” Keeping your hair hydrated before you go out in the sun is the first step to lock in your colour. “Apply leave-in conditioner to repair and deeply nourish dry, brittle and dull hair, or create your own shade with a hat or parasol,” says Michael Kent, hair stylist at Blue Tit salon in London’s Streatham. “Try using a heat protector on your hair. This reinforces the structure of the hair and boosts natural defences against ultraviolet radiation.” 2. Apply a mask Not only are masks great for helping repair damage after a day in the sun, you can use them as a colour protector while sunbathing. “Using a hair mask while in the sun will enhance its conditioning benefits,” says hair stylist Adem Oygur, who recently opened his salon Adem in London. “You can dampen and mix a small amount to use as a setting product to keep stray hairs in place, whilst treating your hair to deep conditioning. When you wash your hair at the end of the day, it is hydrated and nourished.” Mizuno recommends adding a bonding treatment into your weekly summer hair routine: “Stronger bonds in your hair maintain colour vibrancy and longevity – plus it has UV protection as well as heat protection.” 3. Don’t wash your hair too often “Washing your hair every day with shampoo strips your scalp and hair of all its natural oil,” says Kent – meaning the colour can fade faster. “Instead of using shampoo, just use lukewarm water to remove the dirt from your hair without rubbing your scalp.” Alternatively, Mizuno suggests: “Elongate your clean hair by using dry shampoo.” 4. Use the right shampoo To keep dyed hair looking salon-fresh, make sure you tailor your shampoo choice. “Only use shampoos that are safe for colour-treated hair,” says Oygur. “You will cut down on how frequently you need to re-dye because these specially formulated shampoos won’t strip the colour, and will keep your hair looking fresh and vibrant throughout the summer.” To stop blonde tresses turning brassy, use purple shampoo followed by a hydrating conditioner. 5. Keep chlorine at bay While chlorine is necessary in pools for hygiene reasons, it can play havoc with your hair. “That’s because chlorine breaks down the proteins of the outer layer of the hair which leaves it feeling dry and rough,” Kent explains. “If the outer layers of the hair shaft have increased porosity, colour molecules can escape easily.” If you really want to protect your crowning glory, there’s only one solution, he says: “Put all your hair in a swimming cap – if you have long hair, braid or twist your hair up first and do not forget to tuck in all your edges.” If a latex cap is going to cramp your summer style, a moisturising barrier is the next best thing. “Rinse your hair with fresh water before you swim then gently coat it with conditioner, a hair mask, or some hair-friendly oils – this will create a barrier against the chlorine,” Kent says. “After your swim, rinse your hair with fresh water and shampoo and condition as normal.” Holiday hair heroes Fight the fade with these potent protectors… Hair Proud All Inclusive 5-in-1 Protection Milk, £8.95 Only Curls Heat Protect Spray, £16 Hair By Sam McKnight Sundaze Sea Spray, £26 Bumble and Bumble Hairdresser’s Invisible Oil Heat/UV Protective Primer, £29.50 Aveda Nutriplenish Leave-In Conditioner, £35.50 Adem Pure Hazelnut Hair Repairing Mask, £39, Sephora Living Proof Triple Bond Complex, £42 Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live This is why you keep waking up at 4am – and what you can do about it Hepatitis B and C could cause ‘significantly higher cancer risk’ than smoking daily pack of cigarettes Lauren James was told not to have role models – now she is one

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F1 returns to Abu Dhabi this weekend for the usual season-finale at the Yas Marina Circuit. Max Verstappen won the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix last week for his 18th victory of a record-breaking season. The Dutchman has now won six races in a row since Carlos Sainz’s victory in Singapore in September. Charles Leclerc finished second in Vegas after a terrific last-lap overtake on Sergio Perez, who despite dropping down to third place still sealed second in the world championship for Red Bull’s first-ever one-two finish in a Formula 1 season. Lewis Hamilton is still chasing his first win in nearly two years as Mercedes look to stave off Ferrari in the battle for second place in the constructors’ championship. Toto Wolff’s team are four points clear ahead of the final grand prix of the season. Follow live updates from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix with The Independent Read More Lewis Hamilton takes aim at Christian Horner: ‘He’s stirring things!’ Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen to miss first practice in Abu Dhabi Mick Schumacher returns to racing with Alpine in 2024

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London holds a special place in the hearts of food enthusiasts. In the halcyon days of the UK’s place in the European Union, it could even be said that the capital was one of the best cities in Europe – if not the best – for food. Despite it being beaten out by Paris in the Michelin guide (the French capital boasts 119 Michelin stars compared to London’s 74), the city’s sheer diversity made it stand out, with nearly every cuisine under the sun available somewhere in its streets. But recently it hasn’t really felt this way, and the people have noticed. Last week, Lily Allen tweeted: “Having been in New York for most of the time since Covid, I’ve spent long enough away to notice how far the standards have slipped in London’s restaurant scene… Delivery food and takeaways are even worse. Dunno if it’s Brexit or ghost kitchens or inflation or whatever, but it’s a terrible shame.” It’s evident from social media posts and online reviews that a lot of patrons feel the same. The restaurant industry has taken blow after blow in recent years, beginning with the UK’s messy divorce from the EU in 2016. And as it was trying to recover from Brexit, which resulted in increased costs, new bureaucracy and staff shortages, Covid hit. Restaurants were forced to shutter their doors for unknown periods of time, deal with confusing new rules, and magic whole new delivery systems out of thin air. Now, the industry is having to weather the cost of living crisis. In the face of all this, it might be a little cruel to denounce London’s usually thriving food landscape as “mediocre”. But, as painful as it might be, there is some truth to it. Ben Orpwood, a former contestant on the BBC reality series The Great British Menu, tells me that Allen’s observation, while perhaps a bit strongly worded, wasn’t completely wrong about the state of the industry. Orpwood, who was previously the executive chef at Gordon Ramsay’s Lucky Cat, has been cooking in some of the world’s finest kitchens for nearly two decades. But he says he’s never seen anything like the state of affairs at his latest opening, 20 Berkeley in Mayfair. “Normally when you first open a restaurant, the drop-off from the opening team [staff] is something like 20 per cent,” he explains. “You lose people who applied for something they’re not really ready for and opening week is very intense – so they go. But after we opened 20 Berkeley in June, apart from my core team, we had 100 per cent turnover. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He says that staff are leaving even with benefits like getting two meals a day, days and nights off, at least £13.50 an hour for employees with no prior experience, and a nice, conducive kitchen environment to work in – a far cry from the shouting and screaming he endured earlier in his career. “I had a pastry chef that left last week who worked 3pm-11pm, five days a week, no double shifts – he didn’t like how much work there was,” Orpwood marvels. “I can’t get my head around that mentality. The talent and the drive is just not there anymore, there are very few talented young chefs around and all the good restaurants are scrapping over them. When you’re going through that as a new restaurant, it makes it so much harder.” The chef, who has more than two decades of experience under his belt, explains that the aftermath of Brexit and Covid are primarily to blame. Brexit caused an exodus of EU citizens, many of whom questioned whether or not they were welcome in the UK. When Covid hit, more people returned to their home countries and discovered new work opportunities there, opting not to come back to British shores. “Then the government goes, ‘We’ll plug the shortage with young British workers’, except that they introduced needless academic requirements to apprenticeships with a minimum wage that people can’t pay their rent on,” Orpwood adds. The national minimum wage for apprentices aged 21 in their first year is £5.28 an hour, while the average rent for a room in London has rocketed to almost £1k a month. To say that we’re mediocre, I don’t really think it’s a fair reflection Ben Mulock Of course, some industry folk are more optimistic. Ben Mulock, executive chef of Balans, says: “The London food scene for me is still vibrant, it’s still innovative. We still have some great authenticity to it.” However, even the most positive outlook can’t ignore the biggest, most glaring problem restaurants currently face: the skills shortage. “I’ve been cooking since I was 14, and it’s never been like this throughout my entire career,” Mulock laments. “But we are striving and pushing our standards higher to try and give people the experience of years gone by with this new workforce. So, to say that we’re mediocre, I don’t really think it’s a fair reflection.” He adds that people who live in the capital have “some of the most discerning palates globally” and that feeding a London crowd “isn’t an easy thing to please”. “But when you get it right, it’s a wonderful, wonderful feeling,” he says. Perhaps, for anyone who lives outside of London, the bar has been set at an artificial high. Influencers invited to restaurants that have a marketing budget are more likely to post gushing reviews, complete with mouthwatering visuals as they stuff their gobs. Meanwhile, restaurant critics for broadsheets have been recently criticised for platforming establishments in more affluent areas, or only if they’ve been invited. Given some publications don’t pay for reviewers’ meals, this is unavoidable – but it generates a false economy in which readers believe those are the best places to eat. In his essay “London Finds Itself”, Vittles editor Jonathan Nunn wrote about the decline of reviews and the rise of simplified maps that pinpoint places to eat, which also manifests itself in lists. It’s why the algorithm adores those “10 stunning places to eat in London” videos, and why publications are desperate to churn out recommendation lists. He wrote: “The review is too discursive, too expensive to produce, written by people who demand to be paid properly. Far better to shop it all out to a freelancer who can google a bunch of stuff and stitch it together without context.” One has to wonder if this, too, has contributed to restaurants falling short of expectations – perhaps no one is looking closely enough. But Hugh Smithson-Wright, a communications specialist for restaurants, says that the food scene is no more mediocre than it’s ever been; in fact, there have always been plenty of middling eateries around. “Not everyone can be so great,” he says. “Some of my favourite restaurants have been places where food is absolutely fine.” But there’s a distinction to be made here. “Fine is OK if it’s not costing you a lot of money. Expensive is fine if the food is incredible. But now, with everything being so much more expensive for everyone on every income level, the places that are fine are getting more expensive, with smaller portions and cheaper produce, and that’s what we’re not tolerating.” Smithson-Wright points to the fate of Prezzo as a perfect example of this reduced level of tolerance. In April, the Italian restaurant chain closed 46 of its 143 branches and said it was due to soaring energy and food costs – but Smithson-Wright adds that its uninspired food was also a factor. “Prezzo was only fine – it wasn’t great or innovative, but as those prices go up, OK is not good enough. It’s these types of mid-range restaurants, whether chains or independent, that will find they have nowhere to go. They can’t suddenly make their food luxurious, and equally, they can’t suddenly charge the prices they perhaps need to be charging to keep the lights on.” Price is a painful topic right now, resulting in a bitter stand-off between some patrons and restaurateurs. But Britons have historically been averse to paying more for their food, lulled into a false sense of security by the cut-throat price war between supermarkets. Or a sense of: if I can spend less than £5 on a Sainsbury’s ready meal, why are restaurants charging three, four, or five times that for a main course? But, as Smithson-Wright points out, the “bravest thing a restaurant can do is charge what they need to” without fear of empty seats. “In some ways, restaurants punish themselves by not charging what they should and now they’re stuck in a mediocrity trap,” he says. “And they’re not helped by the psychological barrier people have over what they will pay for things.” So what does this mean for the future of food in London? The restaurant industry, as a whole, isn’t about to die any time soon. As Orpwood says, this is a resilient industry and will “just get on with it” until it comes out the other side with hopefully greener grass. Smithson-Wright adds that the current situation sounds a death knell for mid-level restaurants, many of which will not survive this period. But Mullock tries to offer a sunnier disposition. “The London food scene is alive and it’s doing some really good things. Everyone’s just pursuing deliciousness.” Read More Sorry lads, we just can’t afford any more reckless, middle-aged adventurers The dish that defines me: Alex Outhwaite’s Vietnamese bun cha Nappy changes and tantrums over Michael Gove: I took my one-year-old to a music festival Sunak rules out any new EU trade deal that undermines Brexit freedoms Tory MP broke rules over £150,000 loan from Russian businessman What is the future of the Conservative Party?

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As far as fashion stalwarts that stand the test of time go, beautifully crafted handbags are a common favorite — as are classically tailored overcoats and cashmere separates. For some people, it’s a good pair of shoes, particularly handmade, hand-stitched, buttery-soft ballet flats. After spending far too much time over the past year perusing the upcoming season’s selection of fine footwear, it’s clear to us that ballet flats have a whole new look. Balletcore is where it's at. Where once there were only leather options in neutral shades, now there are radiant hues, dazzling embellishments, and funky straps...and we are here for it.