Hair Color Guidance: Know the Basics

Hair Color Guidance: Know the Basics

For hair color guidance you really need to know the basics. Choosing the right hair color formula is more than just selecting a likeable shade. The hair professional needs to know how to formulate the correct mixture as today’s Q&A with Ask the Pro Stylist tells us.

It’s Hump Day, whoop, whoop, welcome to Ask the Pro Stylist’s beauty question of the week. This Wednesday I offer a bit of hair color guidance. So, let’s get back to basics.

A former student was texting me with questions to formulate for one of her guests. Her client is a natural level 2/3. He wanted to be a 6/7, no red. She understood what developer to use, but didn’t understand why I suggested a blue-base formula of ash, 7A. Instead, her eyes preferred a 7G. Although a dark golden blonde is the end result, using straight 7G will only enhance the gold at a level 7, creating a very warm blonde hair color.

To neutralize and eliminate as much orange as possible requires a blue base, the opposite of the wheel. Enhancing adds more of what lives to the right or left of the target. In this instance, level 7 has a dominant pigment of orange, gold (yellow-orange lives next door). And to intensify, we add more of the dominant pigment, orange.

This is why it is so important to listen in color class, get off your phones and pay attention. This is why people who have never trained in the profession should stay off You Tube with their crazy color videos, offering their askew hair color guidance. This is why box colors should be banned.

To conclude, you need to know where you are at, where you are going, and how to get there when formulating color. If you don’t understand the color wheel, the dominant pigment at the target level (not the desired level), and how to neutralize, intensify or enhance the result, then you need to relearn the basics and practice, study, and practice. If you don’t believe me, experiment for yourself.

If you have a question similar to today’s quest for hair color guidance, please email me at DeirdreAHaggerty@gmail.com. Until then, happy styling!

©Deirdre Haggerty, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. It is unlawful to reproduce this article or any part therein without prior written permission and consent from the author.