Fixing It Up

Color corrections. Aka what happens when you use box dye or when your hair becomes so overly highlighted, it looks like one solid color and is on the verge of breaking off. Not a good look. My client came into me today in desperate need for some TLC on her hair. After she sat in my chair and I took one look at what she had going on, I knew it wouldn't be an easy task to take her to a healthy blonde. For about three years, she has had heavy highlights constantly being pulled through, which eventually gave her the illusion of a double process blonde. The previous time her roots were touched up, she used box color at home and tried to touch up her roots herself. Now, I know we all think we can play hair at home and get salon quality results in our own bathroom without stepping foot in a salon. It's not realistic. I get countless amounts of color corrections from women using box dye at home. When they realize they have an issue, they finally come to the professionals to fix their situation. When my client tried to lighten her roots herself, she was left with a brassy-orange band around her hair. So all together, I was looking at a head of hair with about an inch and a half of level 5 (medium brown) regrowth, a brassy-orange band, and bleach blonde ends. 

Her request was to stay as blonde as she can, while having some of her natural base color coming through. I'm a colorist who likes to work with my clients requests instead of shutting them down and saying "that won't work so I'm going to do something else". If I think something would suit my client better, I simply suggest something different in a polite way. I explained to my client that bringing her natural base color down through her white blonde highlights would be to much contrast due to her base color being as dark as it was. Then, she requested if I could give her a heavy highlight just to touch up the roots. I again explained that just heavy highlighting her hair wouldn't cover up the band and she wouldn't get to the more natural look she was trying to achieve. We finally came to an agreement on what was realistic for her and her hair. 

My approach for this client was to take low lights a few levels lighter then her base color and alternate them with highlights. To cover the majority of the band, I brought the highlight product down through the brassy orange to break it up. The band was broken up even more when I alternated with the low light product, deepening to the hair to one even tone. 

After my client was done processing, she was brought to the sink to be washed out. In some cases, when hair is dry and porous, it will soak up anything in its path. During the rinsing out process, the blonde ends that were previously over processed caught the deep low light color so quick, it had turned it to a mucky ash grey. Luckily, I knew how to give this a quick fix. Using a special clarifying wash, I simply ran it through the ends of her hair for one minute and it took them to a beautiful golden blonde. It came up as the perfect shade I needed. All that was left to do was tone her roots and any orange that was leftover. The results were fabulous.

My client walked in today as an over processed blonde and walked out as a golden blonde with just the right amount of dimension. Remember, box color is never a good idea.