From Dark Brown to Bronde
My goal with all of my clients has always been to help them get hair they never have had before. Even before I started to offer extensions I work hard to ensure that my clients would end up with healthier hair and a hair color they were happier with while working with me. As a veteran hairstylist I know that the color formulation plays a big role on the health of each clients’ hair and that was my main focus.
For me, the role hair extensions play is that they allow me to give my clients longer, fuller hair immediately but that doesn’t change the way I approach their natural hair. I still talk through color formulation and products to use at home because I know that if their natural hair is in better condition then their overall experience with their hair extensions will be SO much better. Let’s take a closer look at what I mean.
My Clinet’s hair before we added 2 rows of extensions. We LOVE the color!
In the video you will see a BEAUTIFUL (if I do say so myself 😉) bronde hair color. However, this color did NOT happen overnight. This client actually came to me FOUR YEARS ago. When she first came to me, her goal was to have LONG, THICK, blonde hair. She is hispanic and her hair is very dark brown, almost black. She is a natural level 3. It is also very coarse and naturally curly. When she came in her hair was very unhealthy, broken, and thirsty. She needed to stop trying to lighten it, focus on at home maintenance and learn to love her hair a more natural color. I told her that but also told her what she could expect from following my recommendations and she agreed.
For about two years we did her hair darker, with a bit of dimension but not tons. We continued to do what her hair was happiest with. During that time she told me she wanted to start to go lighter so we actually stopped coloring and I started to use Kevin Murphy Clear to help pull some of her color out of her ends. The clear product will lift color and can take it up to one full level lighter.
Last year we finally took the plunge and started to actually lighten her hair. I told her it was going to be a process and to not expect it to get super light overnight. We actually only highlighted her hair one time and then just continued to tone her hair at each appointment. Since she wears extensions we were able to bring a bit more of that brightness to her hair by utilizing the extension hair. Below will show you where we got her to and where she lived for about a year.
Where her haii got to after our first lightenin session. Definitely lghte but room to get brighter!
This last appointment was the appointment I promised her we would transition her hair to something that would be far different than she has had before. I went through and gave her a full highlight being careful to not overlap the lightener over her already brighter pieces. The crazy thing is that she still had ends that had a lot of red from previous coloring through the years. However, knowing we were going to be adding 2 rows of extensions I was not worried about having the added colors. I was sure to prep hair that included all the colors I was anticipating to have in her hair.
We still wanted everything to look and feel as natural as possible. Once the highlights were rinsed I brought her back to the chair and applied a shadow root. I have been LOVING the Kevin Murphy Gloss for shadow rooting/root tapping. With this specific client I chose the tone 5.83 to tone down the bright yellow she lifted to and to blend it better with her natural level 3 hair. Then I went with the Kevin Murphy Color.Me 8.1 mixed with 3.5 volume developer to create the perfect toner for all the warm tones she had throughout. I knew some of her hair would look ashier while some of her hair would still be on the warmer side. As I said, we were sure to prep all the hair in many different tones so we had the perfect blend for her extensions.
We used a total of 9 wefts for her 2 row install
We use ISLA hand tied wefts at our salon. We decided to use 3 different colors in the beach wave texture. We used 3wb, 6gwb, and 5/9wbl. Bailey went through and rooted all the wefts with 4.0 and 10 volume Color.Me. I also had her lowlight 2 of the 6gwb wefts with 5.0 and 10 volume. When it was done I had her tone 2 of the 5/9wbl wefts and the 2 6gwb wefts she had not low lighted wit 7.1 and 3.5 volume developed in Color.Me. When she was all done you will see the perfect combination we were left with!
For placement, I used the toned 6gwb and half of the 5/9wbl that was not toned on each of the end beads of her bottom row. Then I placed one 3wb wefts over the row in the middle/back. It ended up going second bead to second bead of that row. For her main row I used the lowlight 6gwb and half of the 5/9wbl on each end bead. Then I used the toned 5/9wbl on each second bead for a total of 5 pieces on the main row.
Everything together left us with a beautiful, dimensional bronde that was natural looking, healthy and everything she could ever want!
This is the work I do with all of my clients and they are all in love with their hair. honestly, this turned out better than any of us anticipated but it is what I aim to do-under promise yet over deliver.
What do you think of what we did? Do you have questions about the process? Let me know! Be sure to join our mailing list so you can get more inside information on how I work in the salon that leads to more client loyalty and more money as a hairstylist!