Color services like toning, blonding, neutralizing and going from light to dark happen every day at the salon. So, what are the most common mistakes colorists run into while doing these color applications? We have asked our experts at GK hair for their take on the mistakes being made and how to fix them. Here are 4 common toning & lightening mistakes and tips for avoiding them. Scroll down for the deets!
Toning Lighter Than Client’s Current Level
It normally happens when you are cautious about a client’s hair to get too dark and you end up formulating a toner for a level that’s lighter than the actual tone the client’s hair is lifted to.
How To Fix:
The simple way to fix this problem is to always tone on tone. This means that whatever level the hair is lifted should always be toned at the same level. One should never go for the higher level of tone. This will also help you avoid any unbalanced warmth in hair color.
Too Cool For Your Hair
For achieving cool silver-like end results you try to eliminate all the gold and warm tones and believe that you will get the desired results. The reality can be a rude awakening when it happens otherwise. By eliminating all warm pigment, you end up wiping out any brightness the hair will have.
How To Fix:
You should always balance the warmth rather than completely eliminating it.
You Forget to Fill Hair When Taking a Blonde Back to Brunette
Normally people at the salon think filling the hair doesn’t apply to every client who is going to dark from lighter tone. But, in actual filling the hair applies to every client and it has to be this way.
What actually happens here is by adding dark color over a client’s blonde hair without filling it first would make it muddy, gray mess rather than a pretty brown you want to achieve.
How To Fix:
It is recommended to fill the hair first. Let say for instance your client is at level 9/10, you need to fill them with gold at 7/8 level before starting anything else. This is done to balance out the tones because when a darker color is applied your strands would not completely absorb all the dark color. This way the end result wouldn’t look muddy.
Lightening Schedule
What happens here is it normally takes multiple sessions for a client to get their hair where they want it to be. Salon artists being nervous about the fact that clients can scare away so they are reluctant to tell them how many appointments it would take.
How To Fix:
As a hair artist you always have to explain the process to your clients. Clients should know that they have to visit every 4-6 weeks until they reach the desired lightness. It gets simpler when the desired color is achieved and the client has to come less often for maintenance.
For instance, a client having a Level 3/4 color and wants to go to a multidimensional Level 7/8, would need to come in every 4 to 6 weeks for 3 to 4 sessions.
Apart from this here is a special advice from our GK Hair expert, Nicole Rubino,
“Not knowing the color wheel and then using the wrong colors to try to cancel out unwanted tones. I studied the color wheel and theory and will also reference the color wheel in our swatch book if I am not sure.” “Not leaving the toner on long enough. Knowing how your product works is key. Mixing properly and timing can make or break the results.”
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