The forgotten strand test..

What is it about the strand test, that dreaded little task, that seems to take up so much time. Who has the time to strand test? So here we are, so very busy in our day at the salon, and our clients ready to leave the moment they sit, and we are expected to perform a strand test. What the hell exactly is a strand test? And why on earth would I bother? Simply put, a strand test is taking a small slice of your client's hair, placing it in a foil with your desired product, waiting 15-20 minutes to "preview" the results, and see how the hair is going to interact with the product you plan to use on the clients hair. You may be wondering, why? Why bother with this? And do you really do this??

No, I do not usually do a strand test, but here are situations where I would:

• I do not know what is on my clients hair, and for various reasons (length, condition, previous color) I need to know how my decolorizer will work as far as even lift I will apply a strand test. I may also question which lightner will work best in this situation, so I may do 2 or 3 strand test. (No, not all lightners are created equal or work the same).


• I would like to know which of 2 or more shades will be appropriate for my desired end result. Example: I have a highly sensitized hair that needs to be lowlighted, which formula will look the best. I might strand test while my color processes at the root to save some time.

Now here is the ultimate strand test and one that can be a real life saver:

This is the I want to change my clients color from color treated black to a much lighter shade and she has and inch of her own Level 5 haircolor, and colortreated Level 3 and wants to be a Level 6 haircolor with little warmth. Here is how to proceed:

• Take a very fine slice of hair in an inconspcious area of the clients head (perhaps nape, but of course assuring that whereever this strand is taken from is a represenation of the what is going on all over the head.


• Mix a small amount of your lightner, color, various colors etc. and apply from roots to end. Allow to process for 20 minutes or so. Wipe strands off very well, and dry. You should have a fairly good represenation of how the lowlight, color, lightner etc is going to work. Now here is where the strand test really comes in handy, when trying to decolorize. In the example above, you want to look at the lightening action that has occured along that strand. If after 20 minutes or so your colortreated level 3 haircolor has not budged, or produced any warmth, or underlying pigement, you SHOULD NOT PROCEED. You are not going to get this hair anywhere near a a level 6 undertones of Orange/yellow.

Contributing Pigment

A few years ago, I did a segment for Clairol Professional at HairColor U.S.A., and my portion of the presentation concerned contributing pigment in haircolor. In particular I was talking about highlighting hair and how contributing pigment was important in your final result when applying a toner. After the class a student came up to me and said: your "show" was good, but it was extremely basic. I felt slightly dejected. But at this very show, someone had raised their hand and asked, why her client, who was a gorgeous level 7 Red Copper, and she had highlighted and glazed, ended up with very flat and pinky highlights. To someone in this class this information had not been too basic or simple.

At Cutler (the salon I work in in nyc) I recently did a double process on a guy. I wanted the final result to be very cool and steely. I lightened my client to a level 10, very pale yellow, and toned with a very delicate Shades E.Q. of 1 3/4 ounces of Clear and 1/4 of 9T. I applied this at the root for 10 minutes and then pulled through for an additional 5. While I was doing this, my mind wondered off to thinking of the Haircolor USA class, and the importance of contributing pigment in haircolor. It is important when producing beautiful color, when highlighting and particularly when doing a double process. If I had taken my male client to a level 8, with any yellow-orange in the hair, I would never have achieved my pale, very cool end result. The student at Haircolor U.S.A., needed to stop over lightening her client, and leaving some of that orange found at levels 6/7/8 to support the copper glaze that she was applying.

As I described it in that class, lightening hair is like traveling down a highway to visit your best friend. If your friend lives off of exit 7, traveling to exit 10 is not in your best interest. And so, lightening hair to level 6, and applying a level 7 copper toner will yield beautiful results. Applying a level 7 toner on lightened to level 10 hair, not as much.

Yes, it is basic, but always worth repeating: contributing pigment&artificial pigment=final result.

Happy coloring!

Low Lights

After years of doing blondes (mostly in the form of highlighting, but surely the following ideas can apply to double process blondes as well), I have come to embrace a couple of factors that are necessary for great looking blondes. One of the more important ones in my experience is dimension. After all, most woman start getting highlighted for exactly that reason: to get that been in the sun, dimensional look. However, after the client has been repeatedly highlighted she will start to lose that dimension, and look more like an overall blonde. Sure the placement of a couple of shades of blonde can help with this, but nothing helps put that punch back into an overly highlighted blonde more than lowlights. My work at a lab in a major color company allows me to play with many different brands. This last year I have had the opportunity to experiement with several demi permanent colors in several brands for lowlighting. Let me make it clear that I very rarely will lowlight with permanent color; the exceptions to this will have to wait for a whole other blog. Some of the demi permanents that I have been playing around with with various degrees of success are: Clairol Compliments semi; Richessse by L'oreal; Wella Color Touch; Clairol Second Nature; L'oreal Color Gems; Redken Shades E.Q. and to some degree I have been using Redken Shimmer one. My favorite at the moment is Wella Color Touch. I don't believe in flimsy, sheer lowlights. I prefer to put in a lowlight that has enough contrast to the blonde I have placed (though usually 1/2 to 1 level lighter than the clients base color). Wella ColorTouch tends to be more opaque and longer lasting. Others like Shades E.Q. are sheer and tend to be more temporary. As with everything I write about here, it is important to keep basic color theory in mind. Therefore, if the hair is extremely fine, damaged etc, even a sheer color like Shades E.Q. may turn "muddy, drab and dark". Here is a typical lowlight scenario: My client is a natural level 7 Medium Blonde and has level 55 highlights (just kidding). She has spent the summer in the Hamptons, been to the beach often and her hair is overly lightened. I have done a bleach highlight retouch that will be roughly a level 9, when shampooed and dryed. My lowlight formula will be a be roughtly 7.5 - 8 level demi. Unless the client hates any sort of warmth, I will usually add about 1/2 ounce of a Gold, or for a cooler lowlight an N on its own. In formulating with ColorTouch I use combinations of 7/0; 7/3; 8/0; 9/3; 9/03 and 10/03. In this particular example I will use 1/2 8/0 and 1/2 7/3. Because this hair is highly sensitized I want to replace some of the missing pigment in this hair at a level 7/8 and that would be gold. The deeper shade of gold will also dominant the lighter level 8. When lowlighting I prefer to wait until I have highlighted the entire head, then go in and place slices and weaves of the lowlight in a different color foil. This allows me to go in and remove those lowlights if I feel they are going to be there longer than I would like. I can also judge the "population" of lowlights by looking at the different color foil.  When applying the lowlight formula I apply the color to  about 3/4 of the way down the strand and leave out the ends. When I am going to rinse the lowlight I will take each one and work the color to the ends as I remove them. This helps to blend in the color on the ends without allowing the ends to go too deep or drab (of particular importance if the hair is sensitized or below the shoulder.) Placement of the lowlight is also very important, I place most of my lowlights further away from the top in the back and on lower part of the head on the sides. As I work my way to the top I will place less aggressive slices and weaves, and stay away from the area where the lady parts her hair. In the part area and along the face, I will take very delicate strands. So the key here is balance. Put back some of the dark, so that a blonde looks like a beautiful deminsional blonde and not like a flat single process blonde. Happy lowlighting. PS Please share some of your favorite lowlight formulas with us and let me know what type of topics would be of interest in exploring. Happy coloring!!!

Why this blog??

I love haircolor. It is what I do 5 sometimes 6 or 7 days a week. I have worked for several major color companies over the years. I currently divide my time between Cutler Salon in Soho, NYC and do color testing and development for a large color company here in NYC. Several times a year I teach for Product Club, a product supply company who's foils I have used and loved, long before I started teaching for them. What I would like to do with this blog is to open a flow of conversation about haircolor. I hope that with this I can start a forum where I can share with others how I do color, and have others share what they do that works and establish a community of professional haircolorist.

Early on when I started my career, I was assisting a very talented haircolorist on Madison Avenue in NYC. After she had finished a client she turned to me and said something to the effect "I just learned something very interesting about that color line". I don't remember exactly what she learned, or what the color line was, but I do remember her saying: "There is always something new to learn when you love what you do". I have found that to be very true, there is always something new to learn about haircolor, about my craft, and about clients. And so I would like to embark on a journey of learning and exploring and sharing about the art of coloring hair...