The Ultimate Guide to Colour Correction: Strategies for Fixing Common Hair Colour Mishaps and Challenges. By Kristina Russell
Hairdressers are no strangers to the everevolving world of hair colour. While it’s true that colouring hair can be a transformative and confidence-boosting experience for your clients, it can sometimes lead to unexpected challenges. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting out in the world of hairdressing, you’re likely to encounter hair colour mishaps. Fear not! In this comprehensive article, we’ll explore various strategies to correct common hair colour issues and ensure your clients leave your salon with a smile.
UNDERSTANDING THE BASICS OF COLOUR CORRECTION: Before diving into specific techniques, it’s essential to have a solid grasp of the fundamentals of colour correction. Colour correction typically involves adjusting or neutralising undesired hair colour tones. These unwanted tones can manifest as too warm, too cool, too dark, or too light shades. Understanding the colour wheel, colour theory, and how hair colour pigments interact is crucial. Here’s a quick overview: 1. The Colour Wheel: Hairdressers should always refer to the Colour Wheel when formulating. The colour wheel is divided into warm and cool tones. Warm tones (reds, oranges, yellows) are opposite cool tones (greens, blues, violets) on the wheel. Understanding this can help you identify and neutralise unwanted undertones or better understand how to layer colour when wanting to enhance accompanying undertones. Tonal families on the colour wheel are colours that are adjacent to each other. For example, in the red-orange-yellow section of the wheel, you’ll find a range of warm tones. Toning with colours from the same tonal family can help enhance and intensify the existing hair colour, especially when formulating for Redheads. 2. Levels: Hair colour is often classified by levels from 1 (black) to 10 (lightest blonde). Understanding levels is crucial for correcting hair colour issues and achieving the desired shade. It’s important to develop a deep understanding of the underlying pigment and undertones for every level when you’re lightening hair, toning, or filling when taking hair darker. 3. Complementary Colours: To neutralise unwanted undertones, you can use complementary colours on the colour wheel, which are situated opposite each other. If your client’s hair has warm undertones (e.g., orange, or yellow), you should use a toner with cool or complementary colours (violet or blue) to counteract them. If the hair has cool undertones (e.g., green, or blue), use a toner with warm or complementary colours (orange or yellow) to balance the tones. 76
Hair Biz Year 17 Issue 6
Here are some situations that would require you to lighten in colour corrections: - Correct bands or banding - Remove direct dyes - Remove unwanted dark packet dye or build up of salon colours - Warm base breakers that look spotty or dark in areas - Removing the wrong (or miscalculated) toner - Stripy foils that need softening - Boosting blonde ends with extreme lightening that happens in one day - Green hair that needs to return to blonde - HOT ROOTS that are brighter, warmer, or lighter than the rest of the hair - The client requests to start growing out their solid colour and turn grey Here are some situations that would require you to go darker in a colour correction: - Go darker or tone-on-tone if your client has breakage or extremely damaged hair. It’s just not worth attempting to take this type of client lighter regardless of what their existing colour is - Correct or cover banding by going darker - If a client has attempted to bleach their hair at home, you will probably need to dye their roots darker to blend with mid-lengths and ends if the undesirable hot roots has occurred - Going darker can cover poorly covered greys or translucent bands from home hair dyes or miscalculations when attempting grey coverage in the salon chair - Low-lighting or downlighting can add depth when darker tones are painted into foil techniques - Blonde hair can lighten too much over time with colour being overlapped in a salon or due to sun exposure and can benefit from darker glosses or toners and lowlights - Redheads may need to go darker every few visits to the salon if their base colours lighten to a new hue, for example, an Auburn Red that fades to a Ginger would need to be darkened back down to a Level 6 Red
COMMON HAIR COLOUR MISHAPS AND HOW TO CORRECT THEM Let’s explore some common hair colour mishaps and the strategies to rectify them: 1. Brassy or Too Warm Tones Brassy tones, often appearing as unwanted yellow or orange hues, can be a result of fading or improper application. To correct this issue, you can: - Use a purple or blue toning shampoo to neutralize yellow and orange tones. - Apply a toner with cool undertones to balance the warmth. - Advise your clients to use sulfate-free, colorsafe shampoos to maintain the corrected color.
