Some people ask me what’s next. What will the stars do with their hair next season? Its always great to see Nicole Kidman on the red carpet. You can have fantastic blonde on the way in and during the movie that was filmed up to 12 months earlier a lovely chocolate brown. How do we keep up with the trends? They seem to change so fast these days.
As a hairdresser I make it my business to see what’s coming out of Hollywood and Europe. My clients expect me to know what’s hot and what’s not and more importantly they want me to know how to achieve this. The truth is to make sure your colour looks good. Get a good colour, see an expert. Most of my apprenticeship was spent learning the fundamentals of colouring. The in the box colours you can take home from the salon don’t take into account your underlying pigment, your past colour history, the porosity or your cuticle, only a hairdresser can do this.
It’s a sad fact but not all hairdressers are created equal and not all colour companies either. Ask your stylist what colour they use? Ask them why they choose that colour company? Was it the price? Was it the fact that its low ammonia? Was it the same company they have been using for 20 years and didn’t think to change? The answers you should be listening for are condition and education.
Education, I hear you say, surely my hairdresser is qualified? What difference does it make what colour brand she uses on my hair? Some of the better colour companies offer training and support for hairdressers. These training sessions make sure that your stylist knows what the new shades are and how to use them. Have you asked your hairdresser when the last time they did some training to brush up some skills? The beautiful honey blonde we see Jennifer Aniston wearing is not an accident. It’s created by a skilled professional who has the right tools, training and the knowledge to replicate the colour over and over again.
Salons that are slashing prices are, I feel doing their clients a disservice as they are not reinvesting in training for there staff and therefore letting the customer down with out of date colour techniques and poor performing colour. Like I said I cant predict the future but what I can predict is that if you choose your colorist carefully and ask the right questions you will get more from your salon experience.
We all have our colour nightmares. But do we learn from them? Are we asking the right questions when we visit the salons? Are we visiting the right salons?