Going Grey: tips for helping guests embrace their natural grey hair
Not every guest is looking to completely obliterate their greys. There is a growing trend of clients looking to blend in or bring out their grey for a unique, natural look. There are two roads you can take to transition greying guests towards embracing their transition: Blending & enhancing.
Grey Blending with Smoothies
This is a great option for guests that are approaching 50% grey and aren’t looking for the long-term upkeep required with typical grey coverage. When covering greys with a permanent color line, there can be a hard line of demarcation in the regrowth area. This requires more frequent touch-ups. Some guests don’t mind the slow fade out of a semi-permanent solution, which allows them to go a little longer between touch-ups.
FOR GREY BLENDING CHOOSE SMOOTHIES: Perfect for blending without harsh lines of demarcation during grow-out. For optimal grey blending, use Activating Emulsion (8 vol) on clients with 50% or more grey and Intense Activating Emulsion (18 vol) for guests with up to 75 %.
Enhancing Greys
A growing number of guests are more interested in celebrating and enhancing their greys as opposed to covering them. Depending on the percentage of grey (and of course, the desired end result) you could reach for Smoothies, The Gloss or even a combination of the two.
The easiest method to use is a highlighting technique of fine sections. The goal is to lift out the darker color, diffuse the line of demarcation and then tone the sections with a silvery grey toner to match the client’s own grey tone.
LIFT: Starting where the grey regrowth is most prevalent, begin taking fine weave sections and apply your lightener. Make sure to work with the client’s natural growth and keep the sections ultra fine to avoid striping or streaks. If lifting out a darker haircolor, make sure to take a lot of sections, leaving very little in between foils. Lift the color to as close to pale yellow as possible in order to get the cleanest grey / white results (think platinum!).
TONE: Choose a neutral to cool toner in order to match your client’s natural grey tones. To cancel out any remaining warm tones, use SMOOTHIES Demi permanent to tone and blend the highlighted sections naturally.
GLOSS: As a final touch, apply a final, translucent tone of color with THE GLOSS. This will bring everything together for a beautiful, natural-looking result. PRO TIP: Add a little 10.11, 10.1 or 10.77 in the Gloss (depending on your desired end result) to Neutral for a high-shine, slightly cool finish.
FOR THE ULTIMATE GREY ENHANCMENT, GRAB THE GLOSS: Grey hair tends to be coarse & dry. The GLOSS adds hydration and shine for a healthier, more vibrant look. Use Neutral with a cool, slivery tone of your choice to add sparkle, softness and manageability to your your gorgeous grey clients’ hair.
