Salon: The Hair you HAVE

Hair changes, people change, and so do circumstances. That is why it is so important for you to do a consultation each and every time your client sits in your chair. Keep really well written client cards and make sure each time that you touch and analyze their hair. This clicked with me when one of my long time clients asked me why I had changed her formula and what I was doing different. The weird part was, I had not changed her formula at all, that was the problem. You have to formulate for the hair you currently have. I know some of you are thinking, well duh! I preach that all of the time but I was not practicing it. We all have a few clients that do not want to change. You have been doing their hair for years and you have not changed the haircut or the color. Every time you attempt to ask they usually just say, "do the same thing we always do." More often than not I get to do something different which make me have to do an entirely new formulation of color, but for the times that there was no change, I was dropping the ball. No one is perfect and living and learning is why we are all here.

As we age our hair can get darker, more grey and even more course. Sometimes hair starts thinning, curling more or straightening out. This is what we call the result of our bodies oxidizing better known as aging. Let's face it, our hair changes just like everything else! Our hair and skin change every 7 years, which can be hard to keep up with. For my client I mentioned earlier, her hair was getting darker. She couldn't understand why her hair was darker and that her high lights were so much brighter the last few years. I guess we had both dropped the ball on communicating. Lucky for me she never left me, she was happy enough with her color but could not put her finger on what I was doing differently. Well turns out, it was because she was the same high light and low light that we had originally formulated to a natural level 8 and now that client was teetering on a natural level 6. Of course her high lights would look brighter, the darker her hair got. In 8 years her hair had darkened naturally almost 2 levels not to mention when she first started coming to me she was from California... Yes you got it! More sun exposure! I am in Washington where we see a lot of rain exposure. I put the puzzle pieces together, explained to her what was going on, I reformulated. Being open and honest with your client is the best policy.  

The same thing goes for your all over colors. When you start to see things not covering as well or when you start to see it fading faster make sure you are covering all of the bases. Has their been a change in hormones? That question goes for both male and female clients. Has their been a change in medication or a start of a new medication? Have you noticed anything different about your hair since we last saw each other?  The more information you can get, the more you know and the more comfortable your client will be with you in the drivers seat.  You will feel a lot better about formulating the correct color for your client and happier with the results you achieve.