Bad hair color. It can happen to anyone—and it’s upsetting. Perhaps your highlights look like tiger stripes, or your hair looks too red, orange, yellow, or ashy. Sometimes it’s a gradual change. Other times you know the minute you walk out of the salon. Luckily, Vakkar Salon has color experts who can fix hair color.
Better yet, Vakkar color specialists can use their expertise to achieve your hair color goals in the first place. Great color looks natural and effortless. But if yours needs help, here’s everything you need to know.
How Did You End Up With Bad Color?
Many clients who come to us for corrective hair color have tried an at-home coloring method that didn’t work. Others have gone to an inexperienced stylist who did not use the appropriate techniques or products.
A master colorist knows that hair color is both an art and a science. Color experts understand how specific colors work—or don’t—from one client’s hair to another’s. And the right approach considers the things that happen to hair during and after the process.
- As hair grows, the roots will naturally begin to show. Color choice and highlight/lowlight techniques will determine how well they blend.
- Things like sun, chlorine, and even the minerals in the water at home can have an effect on hair. Do you swim regularly? Work outside? These things can help a stylist choose products to help maintain the desired shade.
- Some people have more porous hair than others, and this makes a difference. A trained color specialist will be able to tell when hair is porous and will therefore absorb more color.
- Bleaching strips the nutrients from hair while it’s lifting out its pigments. Not only will a bad color job look bad, but it will also damage the hair. Often extra products are necessary to condition and heal the hair before a stylist can fix the color.
- Over- or under-processing and choosing the wrong shades or products for a particular head of hair can lead to unexpected hues. Hair can look too dark, too light, or with blotches of either. Redoing the color and using toning products to cut brassiness can help.
- Sometimes, a stylist simply makes the wrong color choice for the client. Color experts know what will look best with the individual’s skin tone and complexion.
Achieving Lived-in Color
Great hair color can be hard to describe, but you know it when you see it. A buzzword in the industry right now is “lived-in color”. We want people to notice that our hair is vibrant and healthy—not necessarily that it has been colored!
Getting lived-in color involves a method of blending highlights or lowlights with color to achieve that effortless, natural look. Color experts need to use the right products and have the necessary skills to do this.
What to Ask Your Color Specialist
Whether your hair is in need of some emergency color TLC, or if you want to make sure you get it right the first time, there are some things you should know first. Knowing what to expect from the process will help you have a more positive experience and get the best results. Here are some tips and questions to ask:
- Always expect to have an in-depth conversation and consultation with a color expert before they do anything. The stylist will want to examine your hair, discuss your goals, come up with a plan, and give you a chance to ask all of your questions.
- An appointment for color—and especially to repair bad color—takes time. It will take the color specialist time to mix the appropriate colors, apply them, and then wait for the color to process. With additional time for conditioning treatments and styling, you could be at the salon for several hours. Be prepared to spend whatever amount of time the stylist needs to get your hair looking great again. Better yet, make a day of it to be pampered!
- Understand that the worse the problem, the longer it will take to repair. A stylist might not fix hair color right away. If the hair is badly damaged, it is sometimes safest to do rehydrating treatments and get the hair healthy before doing any recoloring. And it might also mean spreading the process over more than one visit.
- It takes more time and skill to fix mistakes than it does to apply color the first time. This also means that corrective hair color will likely cost more.
- Make sure your color specialist also plans to blow out and style your hair. This is the best way for them to check their work and see if they have achieved the lived-in look.
- Ask about all of these issues, as well as anything else you are wondering about. A reputable stylist will be happy to answer all of your questions.
If you’ve been disappointed with your color in the past, or you’re currently experiencing a color crisis, Vakkar Salon is here to help. Our master colorists have the skills necessary to give you the color of your dreams. We can help you achieve whatever you’re going for, whether it is a bold, major change or a very specific look that is soft and subtle.
Book a consultation today. You can call or text us at (314) 648-3121, or book online by clicking here.
