Hairdresser who feared for business because of illness ‘blessed by angels’ as Middle East princess offers lifeline

A celebrity hairdresser bedridden with Crohn’s disease said she was “blessed by angels” when a member of a Middle Eastern royal family offered her a five-figure sum to colour the hair of five princesses.

Catherine Boden, 42, from Oldham, a colourist known for her signature Hollywood Colour Blend technique, had built up an impressive client list which included actors Michelle Keegan, Helen Flanagan and Kym Marsh during her 20-year career.

But in June 2024, Catherine suffered a huge flare-up of Crohn’s disease for the first time in a decade, forcing her to stop working for six months.

Catherine, who has 60,000 Instagram followers, feared for her business, but towards the end of the year she received a life-changing phone call from a Middle Eastern princess asking her to fly over for work.

“I got a call and she said ‘I’ve followed you for four years’. It was one of the princesses,” she told PA Real Life.

Catherine is now flown out to the Middle East every month or two with an assistant from the salon and her son Max, 10, to colour the hair of the princesses and their mother, usually doing two or three appointments in a day.

Now, with her salon thriving, lucrative trips abroad on a regular basis, and her Crohn’s disease under control, she is focusing on the positives.

Catherine, who began her career at Toni & Guy in Manchester, almost quit hairdressing in her 20s when she developed dermatitis, a skin condition that causes dry, itchy and red skin on her hands, a reaction to the products she was using to wash clients’ hair.

Taking a break from hairdressing, she trained as a make-up artist and began travelling the country doing bridal hair and make-up.

When the dermatitis cleared up, she returned to her work as a colourist and opened a small salon in her mother’s garage.

Inspired by the colour theory she had learned as a make-up artist, Catherine developed and trademarked Hollywood Colour Blend – a technique similar to balayage which involves bleaching hair then applying a range of dyes to create a natural-looking multi-tonal look that needs to be redone only around every six months – and began charging £250 per appointment in 2010.

Over the next few years, word spread about Catherine’s expertise and wealthy clients began to “fly in from all over the world”.

She was able to raise her prices to between £400 and £500 per appointment and opened her first standalone salon in 2016.

She coloured the hair of celebrities including pop star Tulisa and Coronation Street stars Helen Flanagan and Lucy-Jo Hudson, and became the go-to colourist for many of the WAGs of Manchester, including Michelle De Bruyne, wife of Manchester City star Kevin De Bruyne, and Phil Foden’s fiancee Rebecca Cooke.

Business continued to boom and Catherine hired a friend to manage a second salon in Ashley, Cheshire, but when the pandemic hit and lockdown rules meant neither salon could operate, Catherine decided to close the Ashley site permanently and bring all her staff under one roof, upsizing again in 2023 to a converted farmhouse in the Cheshire countryside.

The following year, she had a “dream come true” moment when she coloured actor Michelle Keegan’s hair for the National Television Awards.

“She’s lovely,” Catherine said of Michelle, who recently gave birth to her first child with husband Mark Wright.

“She must have been about three months pregnant at the time. We were talking about babies and stuff, but she didn’t let slip.”

Catherine suffered a huge flare-up of Crohn’s disease for the first time in a decade starting in June 2024.

Inflammation in her colon, bleeding, and pain “like childbirth” left her bed-bound apart from hospital visits every eight weeks to receive a drug infusion which produced “crazy” side effects.

“You put on loads of fluid weight, you can’t stop eating because your appetite goes through the roof and you can’t sleep because of the steroids,” she said.

“(The doctors) don’t know how long I’ve got on these drugs because they never know when your body’s going to reject them or build antibodies.”

The mother of one was unable to work for six months as a result, and her salon business was going “further and further into debt”.

But towards the end of the year, Catherine received a life-changing phone call from a Middle Eastern princess – Catherine asked that their country not be named – asking her to fly over for work.

The princess offered to fly Catherine out to the Middle East, “business class, all expenses paid, plus a massive fee to go and do their hair”.

Determined to save her ailing company, Catherine agreed to travel to Dubai for her first royal appointment, despite still being severely ill.

“I ended up in hospital because I was that poorly, but I needed to go and get that money for the next month’s rent,” she said.

“I was literally wheelchaired through Manchester Airport because I couldn’t walk. But I was saved. I didn’t have to close the business down.”

When Catherine travels to the Middle East, there is a hair salon in the palace, a “massive banquet” is laid on each time and Catherine is provided with five-star hotel accommodation.

“Because they know I’ve got Crohn’s disease, they put me up in a wellness retreat spa, where they do fresh juices every morning for me,” she said.

“They properly look after me. Thank god I’ve been blessed by angels.”

At the moment, she is symptom-free and feeling optimistic despite the many setbacks of the last few years.

In January, she started dating a new man after the two met on the dating app Tinder.

“Normally, I’m single for a year or two, but I thought, you know what, life’s for living. I’m happy and I love having a man to look after me. It’s going really well.”

“You’ve just got to put your faith into something and keep going,” she added.