Toning Down Gray on Men

At the PA class I did a few weeks ago I had a question about toning down (not elimanating) gray on men. I told the class about the articles in the NY Times Style section that appeared a while ago. Here is the link: NY Times Style Section

A beautiful brunette with highlights

Gosh, it seems like every colorist these days has a story of a client who decided to save money by doing her hair at home--most often, unsuccessfully. I had such a client recently. She had literally been pouring boxed medium brown haircolor over her entire head. As you can imagine, her ends were quite dark, with the rest of the hair slightly lighter. She wanted highlights with minimal warmth. I was very honest with her and told her that I was not sure that would be attainable in this visit. I proceeded by applying her new formula at the root to match the midshaft 1oz 5nn color fusion and 1oz 5T/20 v, and then when I was done, I applied lightner in a discreet area in the back with 20v from roots to end. 35 minutes later, when her color was shampooed out, I looked at the strand. It actually decolorized fairly evenly from roots to end. I proceeded to dry this hair, and highlight it in my usual manner. Decolorized to orange/yellow, I shampooed and towel dried very well and then glazed with Shades EQ 07G =09N, for a full 15. The results were stunning. Normally I might highlight and apply a single at once, but because I didn't know how the hair would decolorize I broke it up into 2 steps. What if the hair had decolorized to maroon, as so often dark haircolor can??? What then??? Big mess. Sometimes, taking the longer route, saves you time in the long run.

The Importance of continuing ed

I was so impressed over the weekend with the great turn out for the Schoeneman Show in PA. I was there doing 3 highlighting classes for Product Club. I sincerely do love Product Clubs foils and I use always use them at Cutler Salon. Alot of the students wanted to know the exact foils that I used during the classes and those were the precut light weight in various colors. Early on when I first started doing color I used similiar light weight foils and have just become very used to them. However, I do on occasion when the job calls for it, use longer pop up foils.

Before I started the classes I asked the students how far they had traveled to get to these classes and many traveled anywhere from 2 -5 hours. That was the degreee of thirst for knowledge they had--great. I met a group from a salon where the team of 4 each attended different classes and then were going to get together today at the salon and share all the information they had learned--very smart.

When I first started coloring hair I tried to get my hands on any bit of education that I could--videos, seminars, books. I still look for any educational opportunity that comes my way--there is always something new to learn--not only in haircoloring but in life.

Highlighting Class

I am doing a highlighting class this coming weekend for Schoeneman distributer in Valley Forge, PA. There is a Sunday class that is 10am-4pm and on Monday there will be several 1 hour short presentations. During this class I am going to be giving all sorts of tips and tricks for highlighting hair for todays modern looks (think Julia Roberts in Duplicity--lots of lightness on ends of hair, depth at the root).