Do not for any reason ever lie to your hairstylist about putting box color on your hair! Here is why: I had the most horrifying experience with a color about 6 months out of beauty school. I had a client who wanted a gorgeous cherry-cola red color all over. She was just a couple shades lighter than where she wanted to go and had told me that she had no color on her hair except some brown near her ends that she’d done a few years ago. I thought it would be just a simple, standard color deposit. An hour later, when her long hair was a reverse ombre (much before ombre was cool) with her roots the exact color we were going for and the rest of her hair was a harsh black with absolutely no red, I had no idea what happened. She was hysterical and I was confused, so I called my manager over. Huge lesson learned as a stylist to PRY any previous color applications out of a guest. My manager could look at her hair right away and tell that her hair had been colored from a box several times with the last time being about 2 months ago based on the amount of color that turned black. My manager reasoned that my guest’s hair had been colored out of a box so many times over and over that she had absolutely no porosity to her hair, so it just soaked up the color I put on and grabbed really dark where there had been over-processed color. And her roots were so perfect because I had formulated for uncolored hair, which her roots were. It was a complete disaster and my manager wouldn’t give her a full refund back because it was largely her fault for not answering honestly when I asked about previous colors. It was only after she tried to blame me and my manager called her out that she fessed up to regular box coloring. Of course I fixed it, but a lot of time and unnecessary stress could have been saved if she would have just been honest when I asked her the first time. Bottom line, I’m not going to judge you. I used box color for many years through high school and college when I couldn’t afford going to a hairdresser. I get it. But lying about it only messes both of us up, so it’s just not worth it. Trust me when I say that I need to know everything about your color history. it’s not because I’m going to lecture you on using bad color. It’s truly because it affects how this color application turns out and I like to know what I’m working with to make you look the best you can! Now for number 2: I know she’s really, really convincing in the commercials, but guys, it’s just not true. Beyoncé does not put a box color on her hair… it would be orange if she did. Every level of hair has an undertone. True black has a blue undertone, the darkest brown has an undertone of mahogany or red-violet, medium brown has a red undertone, light brown has an orange-red undertone, medium blonde has an orange undertone, light blonde has a yellow undertone, and platinum blonde hair has a pale yellow, almost white undertone. As you lighten hair (whether through permanent color or bleach), you will go through the natural undertones depending on where you want your color to be. If I put bleach on natural dark brown hair and she wants to be a medium blonde, I have to watch that hair go through the stages of undertones until I get to the level I need. So I have to let that bleach sit on and take her hair through red, red-orange, and orange, which I can literally see as it processes. When I check someone’s foils while they are processing, I’m literally looking to see what stage their hair is at and since every person’s hair pulls more or less of that specific tone, I’m also checking to see how pigmented my complementary color I’m toning with has to be. And then, once I get to that level of undertone I want, I have to put a demi-permanent color on top of it and let that balance out the natural undertone of the hair. So, for our example client who will end up with a very orange undertone, I have to use a blue demi-permanent color to tone out the orange, but still leave her at a level 8, which is a pretty medium blonde. There is a very complicated process to lightening hair and it really can’t be done well with a box color. Beyonce’s hair is a beautiful blonde color, but in order for her to get that color, we’d have to go through the same steps as I listed out above. That kind of care, attention, and knowledge can only come from a real, certified, professional hairdresser who can formulate for exactly what you have on your head since every single person’s color history, hair texture, and desired result is different. And one last thing: The fact that red color has the largest molecules, so it fades very quickly. It looks beautiful and vibrant on the first few days after you are at the salon because it’s clinging on to the cuticle for dear life. But those molecules will leave your hair strand quickly because a lot of them never fully penetrated the cortex. Such a love/hate relationship we all have with red.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 01:46:49 +0000
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