Hair by Torao

The email title was “Mistakes Were Made”😂😂😂 This is definitely one of my favorite emails of all time 🩷🩷🩷 Don’t worry, we blonded this queen up tonight 🤩🤩🤩 Ma’am, you can always change your mind 🩷

Platinum! The key when wanting to get as truly light as possible is managing the chemicals and the temperature properly. Body heat is going to affect how quickly the Hair lightens along the strand of hair. You need more power away from the root area to get the hair to lighten evenly. Lightening evenly is the key to a crisp clear overall blonde.  You cannot tone your way out of trouble. 👱🏻‍♀️

This lovely lady has been a guest for a few years. She moved back to DC with her family, and at that time her hair was over lightened and somewhat sensitized. In the ensuing years, we’ve gotten her hair healthy by being very judicious with lightener use, using appropriate coloring at the ideal interval, as well as regular trims. At home, she avoids too much heat. They’re headed out of the area again, and I’ll miss our visits, but she’s leaving with great hair, and maybe we’ll cross paths again 🩷

The “right” haircut is subjective. But there are some basic guiding principles. One is that thicker or more dense hair can support a longer length, and that’s true in this case. This lovely human has absolutely tons of beautiful hair. She wears it very well long, with some strategically placed face framing, texturizing and layers. Want to talk about your “perfect” cut? DM or email me 🩷

Colored? Or natural? This lovely human had hand painted French balayage and no toner and no shadow root. Traditional balayage is perfect for people that don’t need a ton of lift, and want a low maintenance, high impact, lit from within lightning service. If you really only want your hair done once or twice a year this is the way to go. ❤️

What is balayage? Well, the most consumers it’s an outcome. But to us as stylists it’s a technique or method of highlighting the hair. It involves painting the hair by hand and usually encapsulating in cling film. Balayage works really well if you want a seamless outcome with no lines. It also lends itself to warmer colors that require less lift. The reason is the hair is not encapsulated in foil and that metal encased incubation and heat gather doesn’t happen. In this case, my lovely long time guest wanted something in the mocha or chocolate family. This is easily achieved, even on beautifully rich, thick, very dark hair with hand painted balayage. We lightened her hair and followed with a toner/glaze that imparted richness shine, and these beautiful mocha tones. At home maintenance means low surfactant shampoo, hydrating, masques, with the potential for a re-toning in a couple months. She won’t need highlights for months to a year. That is the beauty of true hand painted balayage. ❤️