Master Hair Colorist Michael Joseph provides on the phone consultation and delivers color kits.
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Includes a link to a video tutorial
Recently I got a call from a young actress looking to color her hair. I love this kind of work since it’s what I do best. As a hair color specialist, I take my job very seriously! When your hair color could mean the difference between landing or losing the role, it becomes an even more challenging experience and super fun for me. When coloring long hair, one must be very careful not to do too much.
Virginia is a versatile young actress whose work includes a lead in the film Wicked Mom’s Club (Lifetime) and a supporting role in the sports movie Last Champion (In-House Media Film Partners). She also recently played various TV roles in the series Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders (CBS), Miss 2059 (New Form Digital), General Hospital (ABC), and Code Black (CBS).
Virginia came in asking for something different but wasn’t completely sure of what to do. She was ready for some good hair coloring advice. She and her team were ready to take her career to a new place. Not being sure where to go, Virginia was ready to get some good long hair coloring advice, … that’s where I stepped in. Stepping up her career meant bringing some life back to her hair. Making sure not be too obvious with her color and pigeonholing her was the difference between detracting from her face and limiting her options for future roles as an actress. It’s a balancing act. I knew the work I had to do could be the difference between landing her the role and not.
When coloring long hair, I always advise not to do too much that you become a slave to your roots and a victim to the reason why you may not be getting the role.
I used a technique I developed called, “the crolayage“.
Coloring long hair requires precise control, foresight, and a lot of experience.
With Virginia, I first crocheted some highlights into her hair in a face frame manner. I used three different shades on her long strands. A shadow color close to her roots, the real color on the mid shaft, and a more gentle color on her ends.This is to make sure it looks seamless from the roots, colorful on the shaft, and blend and preserve the integrity of the hair at the ends. (The ends on long hair are always more vulnerable to color since they’ve been with you for a longer time… they require special care).
Coloring long hair truly requires a lot of experience. Not something to be taken lightly. It could be with you for a long time, and fixing it could take forever.
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is a nonprofit organization that fights for animal rights. In fact, with over 3 million members and supporters, they are the largest animal rights organization in the world. The animal activist group is a widely accepted source in the vegan and cruelty free community, and I’m happy to reassure our customers through this certification that we are a cruelty free hair coloring salon.
Oway, or Organic Way, is a professional organic salon brand with a complete lineup of biodynamic, fair trade, eco-friendly and cruelty-free hair products. They’re the world’s first organic hair coloring system. The products begin with their family-owned biodynamic farmland, nestled away amongst the rolling green hills of Bologna, Italy.
Insiders call these farms OrtOfficina.
This is where Oway grows, picks, and distills over 12 medicinal plants without the uses of chemicals, machinery or animal cruelty. After the purest organic ingredients are hand picked, Oway’s Green Chemistry Team selects the highest quality formulations to achieve professional salon products without common toxins.
But there’s more to know about biodynamic ingredients and animal wellness.
Biodynamic farming is what puts Oway above the rest. This method focuses not only on potent and pure organic ingredients, but also on unity and ethical growing standards for plants and animals.
Oway does not rely on Earth’s resources, but rather contributes to them. They create harmony and respect between land, animals, and people. Free range donkeys roam OrtOfficina during the warm months, where they graze on farmland that hasn’t seen a drop of chemicals in over 100 years.
Diane is suited best as a strawberry blonde with some featherlike balayage highlights. She has very frizzy coarse hair, and quite a bit of gray.
I began by giving Diane an Uberliss formaldehyde free keratin treatment to pull the frizz and smooth out her hair.
Diane has flawless Irish skin and copper base on her skin is perfect to brighten her up with a strawberry blonde glow.
After changing Diane’s base, I threw in some blonde highlights making sure to graduate them heaver closer to her face for that natural effect. This helps break up the color and make her new strawberry blonde haircoloring look like her own.
Pulp Riot. The dare to be yourself hair coloring. Have you ever wanted to try something avant garde?
This young lady was very special, sweet, self assured and as daringly positive. That’s all I needed to know to get to work.
First I sectioned her hair in two sections. The bottom half and the top half. Based on how she was going to wear her hair, I made sure when she wore it up, she would still see some of the purple highlights she was ready to show off. And when she wanted to wear it down, it would be all a glow. She also wanted to hide the lights and show the lights depending on her mood. That would require me to strategically place them for the mood.
Rather than throwing the color all over her beautiful hair and compromising the integrity of the soft beautiful curl she had, I made sure to be selective about how much to pre lighten. While lightening, I used the keratin bonder, Ultim8. An important step of pulling the color out of her hair not to blow the cuticle apart. Once I reached the desired color blonde to serve as the canvas, I then put the desired shade of Velvet by Pulp Riot.
Both she and I were very excited and pleased to see her new school fashionable princess color.
Be your own princess and treat yourself to YOU and Pulp Riot.
Hair that is bleached loses a substantial amount of keratin. As a result, a great fix is a keratin treatment. Keratin treatments bring back the life and condition by injecting keratin back into the hair where there’s a loss. Keratin treatments and bleach work very well together.
I was impressed with the idea that Maureen knew that a keratin treatment would help and not further hurt or damage her hair.
In my experience, the benefits of a keratin treatment for colored hair exceed the expectations of the client almost every single time. It brings back the sheen, the luster, and the elasticity it had before the bleached hair.
Keratin treatments and bleached hair are synergistically the best combination because they both work together to bring back the condition at the nano level.
The fact that colored or bleached hair is more porous is precisely the reason why a keratin treatment can help more effectively.
Recently I got a call from a long time client and now friend requesting for her hair to be colored and styled. She was attending a work holiday party with an old Hollywood theme. One process in hair coloring was very high fashion in old Hollywood. Marylyn Monroe, Jean Harlow, Jeanne Carmen, Grace Kelly and many more. All were one process color girls.
One process color in hair coloring is the best way to cover gray and change your over all color and look.
Although my client Paula doesn’t have gray hair, the dark blonde shade she naturally has could use a little zing. Paula’s natural hair color is about a level 7.
Using OWAY, the PPD free, Resorcinol free and ammonia organic color, I colored Paula’s hair with a formula using two different shades of blonde.
After coloring Paula, I curled and set her. I then used a finger wave technique with clamps and cutout boards to create the old Hollywood crescent shaped waves. What a blast!
MJ Hair Designs
Sherman Oaks
(818) 783-0084
Recently I came up with a new technique in hair coloring I call CROLAYAGE.
Crolayage – Crocheting hight-lights into the hair to achieve the balayage and ombre effect by using one color at the root, one in the middle and one on the ends.
With Samantha, I colored her hair first with a gold concentrate to fill in the missing pigment from the previous color job. At that point I use the final color to achieve the base.
After the right base was achieved, I then used my new CROLAYAGE technique to face frame her hair crocheting some blonde lights into middle to lower parts of her hair for an ombre effect.
Samantha and I were very pleased with the final product. She was now ready for her boss and big power meet.
Hair coloring crolayage is my new friend.
MJ Hair Designs
Sherman Oaks
(818) 783-0084
Highlighting dark hair can be tricky in the hair coloring world. But if it’s done right, it can be a really cool effect.
With Elaine, she came in with severely damaged hair after being colored time and again to try and get it right. No luck with her last colorist.
Sometimes when your dealing with dark fine hair, you don’t want to highlight to much of the hair.
Hair coloring and highlighting dark hair should be done very conservatively. I took Elaine to a level 6 double ask and then add a few panels of highlights in the front of her hair without doing to much.
Elaine may need a few more visits to get all her hair to the right place. Cautioning on more damage, Elaine will come in a few more times till we get it perfect.
At times when highlighting hair at the salon, I like to highlight parts of the hair on a person’s head. The reason why is I might want my client to look as though she’s been overexposed with overhead sunlight which is the most way hair get’s highlighted by nature. On Michel I covered her base with a level seven ash. Most blondes have an ash base to begin with by birth. Michel came into the salon and with mostly gray hair.
Coloring her hair with an ash base will help help her color graduate from the deeper base to the natural shades of a lighter blonde. With fewer golden tones and more shades of winter wheat we can ad some sterling light highlights. With a base of 7.0, Michel at the hair salon will notice a backdrop to her beautiful rosy skin .
Coloring Michel’s base will help break it a few shades so that she doesn’t have too dark a base that stands out next to her gorgeous new highlights. Both taking away from each other.
So remember, when you’re in the hair salon and your hair is in need of some good coloring, but you don’t know what. Coloring your base and highlights can brighten up your look immediately and make you feel like a million bucks! Try it and see.