Felice’s Client POV on Transitioning Hair Color

In the past, I’ve had some pretty bad hair color experiences.  When I was a teenager, I went to a hairdresser who used permanent red hair dye on me.  Yes, I wanted to go red, but not FOREVER!  Needless to say, it was not easy to transition out of that color.  He ended up coloring my hair a dark black to cover the red, but it just kept popping through.  I ultimately just had to wait for the color to grow out to be completely gone.  So fast-forward to working with Jeffrey on my hair color journey and its a totally different experience.  He has taught me the value in planning ahead when it comes to hair color.  You have to PLAN!  You can’t expect to go from brown to bleach blonde in one service and you can’t expect to go from blue to pink in one service either.  Everyone’s hair is different and every type of hair takes on color differently, but for drastic color changes, you have to be prepared to need a few services to get to your end goal.

Jeffrey’s Pro Tips for Transitioning Hair Color

When it comes to transitioning your hair throughout the seasons, it’s important to talk to your stylist about the ideas and goals you may have.  If you know that you want to be a platinum blonde for the upcoming summer, this might potentially change how we approach the application of your darker color for the previous winter.  Planning out or gradually transitioning your look is beneficial for various reasons including cost efficiency, time spent in the salon and most importantly, the integrity of the hair. 

It’s always important to share your hair goals going forward with your stylist.  Having photos to show them is a simple yet effective way to communicate visually and understand what goes into creating and maintaining each look. It may be necessary to change your at-home haircare routine in preparation for the upcoming chemical services so always be open to new products and recommendations from your stylist to best suit your current hair situation.     

With the rise in popularity of unicorn and rainbow hair, switching between tones can sometimes be a pain.  While permanent color removers have been on the market for years, thankfully new chemical “erasers” have become available to stylists that will remove most if not all of the vivid color in one application. Depending on the integrity of your hair, a more natural fade-out may be the right option for you before overlapping chemicals.

We have a game plan for Felice’s hair the majority of 2019 and how we plan to proceed with our transitions. Because a major goal of ours was to be as bleach-free as possible this year while still making bold changes, we wanted to color with intention and set ourselves up for success when it came to any color removal.

Clients will often switch to heavy shampooing root to ends in attempts to remove color between appointments, but this can definitely be detrimental to the hair if the proper conditioning isn’t done afterward.  In our quest for healthy, happy coils, we have continued to evolve Felice’s hair care both in-salon and at home depending on what our next move is. Since Felice is no longer a solid lightener retouch, we wanted to keep any chemicals off of her natural regrowth during the removal process. For the last 3 months, we’ve used the amika Reset Pink Charcoal Scalp Cleansing Oil and Reset Exfoliating Jelly Shampoo just at the root to not only reset and detoxify her scalp but also to help softly remove buildup from our deeper blue toned root shadow. 

When it comes to more stubborn or vibrant colors that just won’t fade, the alternative is to use an eraser or remover product. Deposit-only pigments don’t necessarily budge with lightener as most people think, applying bleach can often intensify the pigment and push it further into the hair shaft so a proper remover is necessary. We used an eraser with the lowest volume developer combined with Olaplex on Felice’s mid to ends to push out any remaining tone and clean the canvas for our new look. 

Post color service I would always recommend following up with a treatment, our go-to has been The Kure Intense Repair Mask from amika. We place Felice under the dryer for 20 minutes followed by a cold rinse and it’s been amazing!  

Watch our accompanying video (above) for more on this first part of Felice’s hair color transformation!  And stay tuned for more in this series on our hair color transformation journey.