My First Color Correction Doozy.
My guest tonight came in for corrective color and the service itself, gave me a lot to think about. At this point in my studies I'm pretty good at understanding what needs to get done, especially with the cuts. And even with color, I usually have a general notion of how to begin, why and what the possible result will be. But when this girl sat in the chair tonight, I looked at her hair and was totally stumped. The roots were red pink, there was this weird band of grey all the way around and the ends were this brassy warm blondish. I had no idea how this could've happened, nor any idea of what her natural color was or even what her previous dyed color had been. And after consultation I was still confused. The next four hours were long.... The story was that she was using bleach to be platinum and had come into the salon just for a touch up of roots - the student stylist on duty that day looked through her hair and noticed a ton of breakage. I'd seen it too - at the the nape of her neck the hair had all snapped off, leaving about two inches of length, like an uneven undercut. There were also places all over the interior where the length had just cracked off, leaving clumps of inch long strands. So the other stylist pointed it out and suggested that maybe she stop bleaching because of all the damage. It sounded like they decided to use Avedas hair color, ELC, to achieve the high lift at the roots, which is alittle less harsh. ELC only works for natural blondies, levels 7 and up, which she clearly fit into. Then they toned with deposit only, and that's where some of the uneven color came it. Her virgin hair at roots, sucked everything up, but the length was so porous, it literally drank it up and shit it back out. The guest didn't seem sure of what they were using or why, or even what the final goal had been. Luckily my buddy Mona came to my aid, and we worked together the whole night. My instructor, who's amaze balls with color, came over and it looked like even she was momentarily puzzled. Took about ten minutes to formulate game plan: we started with a color cleanse at the bowl, then back to the chair to dry it. Next we used equalizer and deposit only in 9N to fill it. She was shooting for a golden 8 but because she was so porous, we knew it would pull through darker if we did the 8, and we were right. The 9 looked 8 for sure. Next we washed it again (no conditioner) and dried it. She was already warm enough so we put plain ole permanent 9N on with just a 10 volume, no additional tone. 20 mins processing time and again we washed, but this time conditioned and dried. The whole thing was excruciating. I didn't mind the work, but her hair was so poor I felt truly afraid she'd be bald by the end of it all. Her hair, literally fell out in clumps, on the brush, in the sink and during color application. Honestly what she needed was a short bob or even a pixie. This'll only get worse for her, and if it doesn't, it'll take forever to grow out. I get why people color, but the maintenance is so hard, and any kind of repeated bleaching is really foolish in my opinion. I also understand being attached to long length, but now having a little bit of experience working on the back of other women's heads, I truly believe in regular trims.