COLOUR ME BEAUTIFUL Reflections Hair and Nails
The best hair colour for your skin tone should not be selected on a whim or as the result of following a trend, instead the focus should be on skin tone, colour theory and even science. This month Jonathan sheds a little light on the most common colouring pitfalls - the mistakes we don't even know we're making.
Technically speaking I have just nicked that name. Anyone who worked in the 80’s in the fashion industry will know what I am talking about. Colour Me Beautiful was a company that everybody's mum, sister, auntie or cousin worked for at some point. New recruits would be sent off on a three day training course and once completed they would return home a ‘colour analyst.’ Within days all the neighbours, friends, basically any acquaintance would be MADE to have a colour assessment to personally prescribe the said clients colouring type. Your Colour Me Beautiful consultant would spend hours upon hours holding up swatches of colour against your face to pinpoint your very best hues and determine which season you were, Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter. At the end of the session you would be given your own selection of swatches to take with you on any future shopping trips for clothes, makeup and even hair colour. The companies motto was ‘We can literally transform lives.’ I think that may be going a little far but believe it or not it did actually work and is still relevant to this very day.
We all know the colours that suit us - bring out the colour of our eyes, or brighten our skin. BUT, sometimes we just THINK we do! You can easily get stuck in a rut with your colours, especially when it comes to your hair.
As a hairdresser, I pick up clues from your head or you face which help me gauge what hues would look best on you. A client may come in and tell me they hate their plain mousey brown, yet to me it is anything but. I can see threads of different hues running through it, such as copper. This helps point me in the direction we could go with colour if we wanted to.
How many times have you had your colour done and found you’ve had to plaster on the makeup to stop you looking like an extra from the walking dead? This is when a mistake has been made in the consultation with your hair stylist or you need to get a new hairdresser, as they should have steered you away from any colours which drain you. If something drags you down, then the colour is wearing you. It should be the other way around.
A classic example is the yellow blonde, which no amount of toners or silver shampoos are going to shift. The only way to tone down those brassy hues is to go darker, and you know what? I promise you will be pleasantly surprised at just much more alive you look by going darker.
To all you wannabe Kim Kardasians, there is a reason why we can’t get your black base up to that in vogue platinum blonde. It’s because it won’t suit you. When changing your hair colour, please bear in mind that it has to suit your skin tone or it will drain you and make you look like a crack whore.
Now on the subject of silver, on the right skin tones it can look fabulous. However, on the wrong ones, it will simply wash you out and make you look quite sad. Just because it’s all over Instagram, it doesn't mean it’s going to suit you. This mantra will get you a lot further in life, ‘looks fab on her, looks a cow on me.’
If you get it right you can apply the power of colour to clothes as well as hair. You with me? If someone has a warm skin tone like me, they shouldn’t wear black, (yes the Reflections uniform does me no favours at all.) My test is, can you wear black or should you wear chocolate brown? If I think brown on a client then I know where to go with their hair colour.
As I have been doing this since God was a boy, I now get a feeling about clients and their colours. A client will sit down for a consultation and I will think, nah too cold. It’s also important to be able to see the depth, as it might be the right depth but simply the wrong tone for the client. This comes from 100 years of slogging in a salon and not something that can be taught overnight.
Now I couldn't finish this article without talking about Britain's current golden girl Ms. Holly Willoughby. I do absolutely adore her, but would someone please please PLEASE pass her team our salons contact details, as someone needs to get their hands on that sunflower blonde, like yesterday.
Looking at Holly on my screen every night in the jungle, I was reminded of a friends reply when discussing the best way to correct a mutual friends hair tone. His reply...use a hat. Don’t get me wrong I love Holly, I love her style and I used to love her hair. What she currently has is a classic example of a totally incorrect blonde for that particular skin tone. Check back to when she used to have highlights, bleach and tint, a combo which was much softer and flattering on her cool skin tone.
My guess is that some wise guy got fed up with putting a zillion foils on her head and stuck on a tint instead. MISTAKE! To remove Hollys brassy tones and lighten the hair it needs bleach, but this require a lot more time and patience and a hell of a lot more foil. It seems I am constantly being reminded that there seems to be a general aversion to using foil in this industry nowadays.
If its Holly that is struggling with time and not the hair stylist, (a full head of highlights takes at least 90 mins,) then she really needs to have a rethink because love your current full head tint does nothing for you.
Ta-Ra!
Love
Jonathan
www.reflectionsmarbella.com