My Secret Ingredient

My one weekly client was in yesterday, for her color. She is a very sweet, elegant lady who occasionally swears like a truck driver (which is pretty funny, sometimes). The swearing mostly has to do with her boyfriend's kids. Did I mention this wonderful lady is 78 years old?? Any way...She's on the last leg of the 5 year after cancer treatment plan. All medications, in case I didn't say this before, come out in your hair. Because of this, she can't have perms. I tried...her hair looked and felt like wet cotton candy. So, I've only been doing her color and her weekly wash & blow out for the last year or so. And, I've been tinkering with her formula, because she wants to be a platinum color. Let's start at the beginning. She has pretty, medium blue eyes, and clear pink toned skin. (which she covers up with make up) She has plenty of sparkle in her hair, but she still has plenty of pigment, too, which puts her at a level 6. An ashy level 6. I started using just Tigi 10/0 (natural pale blonde) and 9/0 (natural lightest blonde) with 20 volume...not light enough. So, I switched her to TiGi ultra lift...started out really ashy...100/27, then switched to 100/0 (ultra light natural pale blonde) and 100/07 (ultra light ash). Yesterday, I put in a secret ingredient, just to see what it would do. Radiant Gloss, 0/07 Oyster...a pale tan in the demi line, which is a translucent color. What's funny (and my mentor, Maeve, would be rolling her eyes at this)is that fooling around with color, taking chances with it, mixing what they tell you NOT to mix together, is what I love to do. This is where I'm most comfortable breaking the rules. Haircuts, not at all. Updo's? Nope, they're Up-don'ts. Perms?? Boring as all get out. Color?? Just give me a bunch of stuff and I'll make something happen. The end result after I pulled the color through her hair?? (Yes, I know...I committed the cardinal sin...thankfully, I don't run the color through every time I do it. So the integrity of her hair is intact) A beautiful, slightly ashy, but more platinum looking color. I did "pad" it a bit by washing with So Silver (a bluing shampoo), and using Ultra White Minx by Roux Fanciful (temporary color) just as an insurance policy, but I'm betting I didn't need it. We'll see next week when she comes in. She LOVED IT!!! On a different note. Evelyn did a color on one of her clients the other day...Margaret's hair is WHITE with the slightest titch of natural pigment...she was a blonde, a long time ago...a pale one. She's 72 (bless her heart) and wanted some color put back into her hair. Now, all the education I have so far, says the same thing. On white hair, if you put a natural/neutral tone on the hair, it will look ashy. White hair, by it's very nature, is ashy. So, when Evelyn dried her hair, it didn't look any different, other than more dull in color. (she used TiGi 8/0...natural blonde). Margaret even commented, in the salon, about how it didn't look much different. Evelyn tried to convince her that people would ask her, in a positive way, what did she do to her hair. In the end, that's not what happened. Margaret was back in yesterday, wanting something done to the color, because it looked dull (which it did, no doubt about that). So, Evelyn, with Ginger's guidance, put half 7/0 + half 6/0 and darkened it a bit. However, she used permanent color, so it's going to fade, big time. (she used permanent color, both times, pulled through a cap). When I asked "why not use demi??" the answer I got was "I want that little bit of lift"..."So, why not put some gold in the formula??" "Because she turns tweety yellow". Sigh... Sometimes, I think they purposefully mess with the hair so they'll come back to get it fixed, every time. I would much rather they be pleased to death with what I've done than come back and complain about it. Especially when I see the stylist still screw up the color. So, I'll just continue doing my "thing" and watch them do theirs. And report on both. Stay tuned!!