Working with Your Stylist – The Importance of Being Honest

Working with Your Stylist – The Importance of Being Honest

If you go to a new colorist of any reputation, you should expect a thorough consultation. A consultation is a guided interview that should help you both get to the best understanding of what you would like, and what is attainable.

So when you talk to your colorist, honesty is truly the best policy. We work with a variety of chemicals that create different reactions. Sometimes these chemicals have adverse reactions when mixed, and the only way your colorist will know if they are present is for you to tell them. The simplest way to talk about your “Hair History” is to work backward in months. Hair grows on the average one-half inch per month. If your hair is 6 inches long, the ends are 1 year old.  If it 12 inches long it is 2 years old. Everything that you do and live through exists in that hair. If you went blonde last year but put a box on it to go back to your natural, the blonde is still there, just hidden.  f you used any sort of box or shampoo that altered your color enough for you see “roots” growing out, it is chemically affected, and you must tell your colorist everything that has affected your hair.

A major shift has occurred where many clients want to use “natural” products. This is the worst type of hair color to combine with professional hair color, and must be removed from the hair if possible. Anything listed as a henna or vegetable dye will negatively react with professional salon color.

So what could happen if you do not tell your colorist everything? If there is artificial color on your ends, the new growth may lift perfectly to a blonde, but your ends may permanently stay orange. Your hair may experience an exothermic reaction, where the salon lightener interacts with a metallic salt and your hair can “melt” into cotton candy. The many applications of home color, performed roots to ends every month may have so much build-up it won’t’ budge past red without frying the hair.

Understanding the chemical actions of color and lightener are your colorist’s job, but you are the only witness to your hair’s history. If you share it with them, they will be able to get you to the best possible, healthiest result.