Color Correction

I recently met a  woman who had a very unfortunate hair experience.  Her name is Stephanie.  Prior to this experience she had been coloring her hair  a rich dark brown.  While it was a very pretty color she decided she wanted to go back to her natural color, a dark blond.  Rather than go to a salon she went to a friend of hers who is a professional stylist working from his home.  (Please don’t take my mentioning working from home as an indictment.  I also work from home and have no issue with the practice.)

To go from brown to blond Stephanie’s friend needed to lighten her previously colored hair.  To achieve this he put bleach on her head, root to end, all the same strength and VERY strong.  Unfortunately many problems arose.  Here are the reasons for concern:

1)  When additional root has grown in it doesn’t need to be lightened.

2)  Lightening hair as a whole makes it very difficult to get even processing.  Some areas come up quicker due to body heat rising from the head.  Also, color saturated areas don’t lift as easily.

3)  Using a very strong process is tedious.  A stylist needs to watch it like a hawk or risk hair breakage.

Now I will show you the photos of Stephanie that were sent to me by a mutual friend the very next day:

The above photos do not reflect the desired result.

1)  Stephanie had about 2 inches of natural hair grown in.

2)  Stephanie’s hair was clearly lightened as a whole.

3)  I don’t believe Stephanie’s hair was watched during processing.

Note the bright white of the root and regrowth areas in the first 2 pictures.  They are definitely too light.  It is a result of her natural color being processed when it should not have been touched at all.

In the 1st and 3rd pictures you can really see the difference in color from root to end.  The ends are dark and brassy.  Actually the mid-shaft to ends are the very example of brassy:  they are various shades of gold and orange.  There is no uniformity to the color, no rhyme or reason.  That is because, as I stated earlier, some areas come up quicker due to heat coming from the head and color saturated areas don’t lift as easily.

The last photo shows the magnitude of damage done to the hair from the heavy processing.  Her hair was falling out in tufts on her shirt at work that next day.  According to Stephanie, her layers were not originally this short.

You can see the problems.  Now for the correction.  When Stephanie and our mutual friend contacted me Stephanie was  hoping to get her hair fixed as soon as possible.  My schedule was full so she was going to have to wait a week.  During the week of waiting this very smart woman slept with conditioner in her hair every night and wore a bandana during the day.  This helped to protect the hair from further damage.

The day of Stephaine’s appointment finally arrived.  Due to the extent of the damage I was skeptical of how well the color would adhere.  Would it last?  Only time would tell.

We use Goldwell products in the salon where I work.  Their process for a color correction is to fill the hair first to put back the lost pigment and then add the color directly on top.  Thankfully the color did adhere.  With that behind us the damage that was done by the original process needed to be addressed.  I had to cut 3 inches of hair all around.  That took care of some of the worst areas but the hair was still fragile.  She knew she would have to baby it for a while.  Nevertheless, I think we did pretty well.

Take a look at the results:

We were both very happy with the results.  It is not Stephanie’s exact natural color and she was ok with losing some of the length.  Now she is happier with her hair and knows it will take time for it to heal.

This is an extreme case but it is one that never should have happened.  If a professional stylist does not have the tools to finish the job they should not begin the job.  I do not believe the project should have been taken on by her friend in the first place.   Stephanie was left to feel like every day was a bad hair day for a week.  That’s disgraceful.  I hope her friend learned from this experience.  In the future he should be better prepared or not take on such a large project without access to additional supplies.

Fast forward to the next visit.  As I stated before, Stephanie’s new color was not an exact match to her natural so her roots needed to be processed to match.  To my elated surprise her color held fantastically!  It had faded slightly but no where near what I thought it would with all the damage that had been done.  Stephanie deserves some of the credit for conditioning every night.  I believe that helped with the hair’s porosity, allowing it to hold on to the color molecules better.  To my surprise:  Stephanie wanted to go darker.  That was easy compared to the correction!  She also requested a new haircut, short in the back to long in the front.  She has a completely different look – and she looks GOOD!

To home color, or not home color…

Let’s address this topic with as much decency as we can.  When you want to slightly experiment with your color or when you start showing an ever so slight amount of grey and want to camouflage it with a SEMI permanent color, I understand.  Note that the word “semi” is in caps.  This means the color is not permanent.  This means you are not altering your color drastically and it will eventually go back to your natural color.

Now let’s talk about big changes.  Changes you should not try at home.  I’m not talking about the teenager who wants to change their hair color because they can, they do, and they pull it off.  I’m talking about the average woman.  You know who you are.  As much as all the beauty magazines tell you that “anyone can do it” I like to think there is some skill involved in getting the right tone or shade as well as assessing the quality of the hair.  Stylists go to school for a reason and no, not everyone finds they’re excellent at it!  That’s why some people prefer to cut only, not color.  You know the lady you saw in the grocery store who’s hair looked like a zebra or a leopard, depending on where you looked?  That was most likely a home highlighting kit.  Not everyone can do it.  Remember the lady everyone said looked like she used shoe polish in her hair?  Home hair color, single process.  Which brings me to my next point…

Most people have no idea how damaging a box of hair color from the supermarket, drugstore or even health food store can be.  Yes, health food store.  Please do not think that a color is better because it’s sold at the health food store.  It just has different chemicals in it.  Most people who have come to me as a home color person are upset by how dry their hair is.  Can I tell you that you’re doing it to yourself?  Every time you apply that “formula” which has been formulated for the masses you are damaging your tresses.  Does the person with very little fine hair need the same thing as the person with thick, curly masses of hair?  Additionally if you just plop it on and rub it in every time you are further damaging and darkening your mid shaft and ends.  There’s a reason it says to apply at the root and pull through for the last 5 minutes.  If it’s your first application and your hair is already overly porous (as a LOT of grey can be) you may grab the color too dark.  This brings me to the next point…

Color can not be lightened with color.  When you buy the permanent medium cocoa brown and don’t realize that it’s been sitting on the shelf for months and due to either your hair type or the age of the product it grabs way too dark, you can not lighten it by putting another color over it.  Neither can I.  At this point you have to some how lighten it with bleach, via a foil or a malt wash.  Either way you’re creating a little more stress to the hair.  And don’t try the malt wash at home after googling it.  It gets messy and never gives even results.

All of which puts you in a stylists chair to fix it at a much higher fee than if you had just gone to the salon in the first place.  Come see me for color or highlights anytime.  It’ll probably cost less than half of what you would have paid for the box, your frustration, damage to your rug and curtains where the color spilled or splattered, and the fix I have to do combined.  I guarantee it 🙂

I had an appointment?

When you have an appointment at a salon you are in a time slot of the stylists day.  You are occupying their time in that slot.  No one else can get in that slot because it is yours.

When the salon calls to confirm your appointment they are reminding you that you are currently occupying that portion of the stylists time for services you planned at a previous time.  When you receive a call and they open with, “Hi, this is Sharon from Salon X-“, please listen to the whole message.  Did you or the person who gave you a reminder card write down the correct time?  Is it the correct date?  If not, please call and say something!  Otherwise you are taking an appointment space someone else may be in need of (or may come in too late to have services performed later).  Also, when a reminder call has been placed and the salon then calls you to see where you are 15 minutes after the time of the appointment, please don’t open with, “I had an appointment?”.  It’s just not an honest response after the reminder call went to a voice mail box with your name and/or voice.

Additionally, if you know you won’t be able to make an appointment please call as soon as possible to cancel.  If the salon knows on Wednesday or Thursday that you won’t be in Saturday (a salon’s busiest day) they can surely fill that time.  If you wait until Friday evening and call after the salon has closed it’s very frustrating to come in to get the message which leaves a blank spot in the schedule where someone else could have been receiving services.  Understandably, emergencies arise.  These are not the instances being referred to.  Things come up and changes must be made.  Just give the courtesy of a phone call so someone isn’t left waiting.  Because yes, you had an appointment, and now that person, who probably works on commission, has no one in their chair.