Peachy Peach

Yesterday I ventured into the salon to refresh my clients (Mia) hair. Mia had previously been in to see me about 3 weeks prior to this appointment for a full revamp. Now Mia, who I hope will forgive me for saying this, is not a frequent visitor to the shop. In fact I have only done Mia’s hair 3 times in total over a time period I will not mention as I feel I wont wake up tomorrow if I do!…let me brake down the visits in detail for you:

First visit, Mia came to me on recommendation of her boyfriend who has been a good friend of mine for quite some time. She was very nervous to say the least as she had a hairdresser back home who she swore by. So why leave him and come to me? Well, the only thing was that home is back in Germany for Mia, pretty expensive all round trip to the hair salon that would be! So introduced to Swanky Malone she was. When I sat Mia down for the consultation she was amazing in knowing exactly what she wanted and had with her pictures of hair ideas. This always works well for me as the hairdresser as we get a much better understanding of what the client is asking for and can explain in detail how we are going to achieve the best outcome. It happens more than you think where we have to say no to clients, because they want something that their hair just wont handle. In this case, Mia’s hair was perfect for her desired look which was a Blonde Balayage (blonde introduced just to the mid lengths and ends). Now some pictures she showed me had darker roots that had obviously been artificially coloured. I advised Mia against this as she had very natural features that I did not want to overpower! Also her natural colour was perfect to create a stunning blend, working well with skin tone and eye colour. (I always factor into my clients consultation the skin tone and eye colour as this can really help determine the best tones for your desired look) I would like to say that deciding on this natural root also had a substantial advantage in creating a desired look on the second and third visit. So I can say I successfully created the look Mia was looking for and we were both extremely happy with the result.

'I am really sorry but I can't find the image of the first visit...it was that long ago haha'

Second visit, Mia, to be fair, had tried getting in to see me since the first time but I was swamped and communication was lagged! However, she eventually got booked in and had a whole new look she wanted to create. This look was a rose gold tone throughout the whole head. So looking at her hair which had been done by myself on the first visit and had not been touched since, this was more than achievable. I would like to take a minute and revert back to the Balayage. This is effectively leaving a root! That being said it (Laurence) is such a low maintenance style and lasts for a long time, especially if you leave a natural root as the only colour touch up you need would be bringing the colour on the ends higher (this can mean months before your next colour service). So when looking at Mia’s hair it still looked exceptionally good, it needed a cut like but still. So to achieve her look this time basically what I needed to do was get her as blonde as possible. The reason for this is that essentially what you are doing is creating a blank canvas, the cleaner the hair lifts light, the better the toner will take. For this I decided to go in with a full head of fine foils using a weaving technique (used on majority of foil applications) thus leaving fine strands of her natural hair of which is a mousy brown/dark blonde colour, which I forgot to mention before. Anyways, I completed the foils and rinsed off to prepare for our toner. The difference of bringing the foils back up to the root completely changed Mia’s look and the words she used upon seeing her hair bright blonde for the first time in a while was “oh wow I look like a barbie” haha. None the less the lift was exactly what we needed and after applying the toner the finished look was really great! 

So as you can see a huge changer (before/after)

Third visit, I asked Mia to come back into the shop as this time I wanted to try a new toner, Peachy Peach! She had informed me that the previous toner had now pretty much washed out (this is normal for toners and they do require more of a frequent refresh). So I mixed up my new toner and applied it to Mia’s hair leaving it to set for a good 20 minutes. Toners always look much darker during processing time and can be very scary and this was very much the case here. However when we come to wash it off the result was amazing! We were both thrilled to see the colour in all its glory. I would like to mention also that we applied this to previously washed hair and didn't use shampoo when rinsing the toner for maximum result! The toner did take over her natural hair but only slightly and this did add to the finish as it created a more multi-tonal effect. 

Ladies and Gents, Mia rocking the Peachy Peach! 

I hope you enjoyed the blog and I haven't rambled on too much! Please get in touch if you have any questions. All comments are much appreciated below :) 

The reasoning there is a random Laurence in the blog is that he wanted a mention!

Swanky Love x