it’s also hard to charge for what looks like neglect
Summer can take once highlighted hair into an “all over colour” appearance.
Florida has unique seasons. Instead of what most people know as winter, spring, summer and fall… the balmy and buggy state has four distinctive extremes of continuous summer. HOT, kind of HOT, really HOT and dear God it’s HOT. So, without the traditional indications of when seasons change, we Florida natives need to know when to put away the flip flops and beach wear, when to dress season appropriate and in the hair world… when it is time to “BACK OFF ON THE BLONDE”
One of the hardest things to conquer in the heat is maintaining the color and condition of hair. Hannah loves her beautiful blond hair, however several highlights, an occasional flat iron, and some classic solar bleaching from the surf, sand and sun.. has left Hannah’s beautiful locks a little like they’ve been through combat. Being light blonde was fun but she was getting pretty conscious of how fake it looked in certain lights, the summer oxidation of color was making it very brassy (yellow/orange) and she was always aware of how damaging it was to her hair.
checkboard technique done saving some of the summer blond, and blocking off much darker panels
It began as a few highlights and suddenly it began to look like all over color. Yes, Hannah was ready to go darker but not so drastic that it would make her skin look like an extra on “The Walking Dead”. Originally we spoke about the Ombre technique – The French-termed hair trend that features darker, more natural hues at the roots with gradually dyed lightening at the ends, however we wanted to keep some blond around her face. My thoughts were that Ombre would darken 3/4 of the most important part of her hair and that was “the light” that what was framed around her face. What if we could create a color that would allow her natural hair color to just fade in, AND what if we could do it without adding any more permanent hair color. A dye-back with no peroxide or ammonia. It’s the perfect transition hair from summer to fall.
Using the preexisting blonde, darker shades were alternated throughout the hair – all without using peroxide or ammonia colors.
Instead we did a “panel blond” technique that turned her head into a giant sphere shaped checkerboard. Using the existing blond hair we painted those sections with reconstructive conditioner plus a small amount of ShadesEQ 9NB to tone the yellow, and then the darker sections were a combination of medium to dark blond with different translucent shades.
Checkerboard coloring! A great option to darken hair without sacrificing the lightness and variation of tones.
The result is a flawless “end of the season” blond for Hannah’s skin coloring – richer, darker and by all appearances… HEALTHY! Leaving with a bottle of Awapuhi Wild Ginger Keratin Intensive Treatment, this happy client promises to perform a weekly ritual of 30mins under a warm towel in order to rebuild and regrow.
Although tricky and sticky to do (each square couldn’t touch the adjacent square), the result is spectacular. Hannah’s favorite thing about this colour is that it’s so low-maintenance for her from this point on PLUS her hair feels amazing. The paneled reconstructive blond and the no peroxide, no ammonia demi-permanent darker panels actually filled the hair making it so much healthier and softer.
Beautiful panel blond with depth and a healthy glow. Client no longer fights the grow-out of a definite horizontal root.
