Archive copy by Jenni Baden Howard

The inner courtyard, with gardenias, roses and orchids, is a favourite spot for clients to hang out or have lunch between treatments. The “styling stations” are flooded with natural light, and non-flourescent bulbs when the sun goes on. “I’ve knocked out walls from floor to ceiling to let the light in, because it is so bright in California that you can see everything,’ says Luna. ‘You can’t wear too much make-up here, as it looks ridiculous, and you can’t have your hair too light - it looks fake.”

Walk into the back garden and you find clients sitting in old wicker chairs with highlighting foils in their hair. Luna’s client list reads like an Oscar nominations list, but it’s not just the idyllic surroundings that draw those in the know. He is renowned for his face-flattering cuts and natural-looking colour work. “He cuts according to people’s faces, not an idea of what’s fashionable,” says Angelica Huston, who became a fan when Luna persuaded her to cut her long, one-length hair into a slightly layered bob.

Nevertheless, on the most important date on the Hollywood calendar, Luna’s garden gate stays firmly locked. “The salon is closed on Oscar day, because it’s like every celebrity’s wedding day,” he says, laughing. “I decided years ago not to work on award-show days. I don’t do big hair and I don’t like my clients when they do it. The day is wide open for mistakes, and I don’t want to be involved.”

Luna makes an exception for Huston, with whom he spent the day of the Oscars this year hold up in LA’s Four Seasons hotel. “Angelica’s hair looked lovely and natural, not ‘done’,” he says.

According to Luna, the “less is more” mood is catching on in Hollywood. “Women are starting to look more like themselves, particularly the new young breed of actresses such as Minnie Driver, who always looks impeccable, never under- or overdone. The dresses they wear might be mind-blowing, but they don’t cloud them with the biggest, hairiest Harry Winston diamond they can find. It’s not about being flashy any more.”

He applies the same philosophy to hair colour. Luna was first responsible for tinting Winona Ryder’s naturally fair locks a shiny raven, before she decided to go back to her roots not long ago. “We used to apply dark rinses to Winona’s hair. She came in to have it lightened up to her natural colour, then she let it grow out after she finished filming Alien Resurrection.”

Luna’s pet hates are flat, one-tone tints. “If you want to change your colour, you have to layer colour into the hair,” he maintains. “Right now, a lot of blondes are going darker. The biggest problem I see is when people just put a dark colour straight on top. It looks flat and dull. If you’re a light blonde and you want to go brunette, you have to shampoo some gold in, which fills in the colour and stains it a strawberry red. Then you put brown over the red, so that you end up with a brown that has depth.”

Not surprisingly, many of Luna’s clients are colour chameleons. The model Tatjana Patitz is a perfect example. “We made her really blonde. A week later, she said ‘I want to be brunette.’ We did it, and she loved it, for about a week. Now she’s back to honey blonde.”

With Luna’s reputation for producing authentic sun-kissed highlights, he is often called upon to colour-correct blondes who have hit the peroxide bottle a little too enthusiastically. When Sharon Stone felt her hair was looking ashy while filming Sphere, Luna came to her rescue.

“Sharon knows exactly how she wants her hair to look,” he says. “We took her colour back to her natural sandy-brown, then - because her hair was very short at the time - I just twisted the ends with colour, what I call ‘tipping’, to create some contrast of light and dark.”

Daryl Hannah also recently got the two-tone treatment. “She loved the way we made the top part of her hair light, with a darker blonde underneath. Doing it this way, you create chunks without the colour looking stripy,” he says.

Tress-distressed Brits will be glad to hear that Luna’s own haircare range is being launched in the United States this summer and will be here later in the year. It will include a hair-lightening gel, developed in Hawaii. Anxious to distinguish it from self-developing lotions that tend to keep developing, Luna reveals that the formula was inspired by the age-old trick of squeezing lemon juice over your hair on the beach.

“It’s a much easier approach,” he says. “It contains aloe gel, lime and secret stuff that makes your hair blonde.” And, presumably, no pips.

• Art Luna Salon, 8930 keith Avenue, West Hollywood, CA 90069 (00 1 310- 247 1383).