Read an Excerpt
The Hair Color Mix Book
More Than 150 Recipes for Salon-Perfect Color at Home
Chapter One
Reality Check
Thinking Outside the Box
The beautiful models on the cover of the boxes of at-home color dyes have amazing hair, don't they? Absolutely! Despite that fact, have you ever been disappointed with your hair color after using an off-the-shelf dye? Do you ask yourself, "Why doesn't my hair turn out like the model's mane?" There are three simple reasons for the difference between the promise (what's on the box) and the outcome (what's on your head).
1. First, and most important, the model's natural color is most likely not the same as yours, so your results will be different from what's shown.
2. Second, the hair color shown on the cover of the box is achieved with more than just one single-process tint.
3. And finally, if the photo itself is highly manipulated, it rarely corresponds with what is realistically possible.
The Drugstore Color Dilemma
Let's examine reason number one because it is the premise on which this book is based. Every hair color responds in a unique way to the formula in a box color. For example, you are dark blonde, and your girlfriend is dark brown. If you both use the same brand of light golden blonde, each of you will achieve a different result. Your hair will have a lighter effect than your friend's. So the first step in creating the beautiful color you want is to identify your natural color using a simplified version of a professional hair-color tab system. Only then can you choose the right single color or mix up a tint recipethat corresponds to your natural shade to achieve what I call a target color, to achieve a specific effect. I have chosen a series of target colors in this book, and a version of almost every one of them is available to you, no matter your ethnicity or age.
There are so many great at-home hair-color products on the shelves of your favorite drugstores. In fact, there has never been a better time to be an at-home hair colorist! However, in terms of reason two, at-home hair-color kits do not tell you one vital fact: It is often necessary to use more than one color to get the most beautiful, natural look. In some instances, a carefully chosen single color can work. However, you may need to choose two, three, or maybe more boxes to achieve your objective. I have colored the hair of Milla Jovovich, Charlize Theron, and Elaine Irwin Mellencamp for major print and television-advertising campaigns for at-home hair color. A day or two before the shoot, the executives bring a photograph of a particular color and say, "Lorri, give us this color." I can't achieve the color they ask for with the ingredients in the boxes their pictures will end up on. I have to give the model an all-over dye (or what I like to call a "global color"), lowlights, and highlights.
Take a look around. Does Mother Nature work with only one shade? Colors in nature are not flat. Many shades and tones come together to create the depth, sheen, and glimmer we see in flora and fauna, animal fur, and human eyes and hair. The more variation you have in your hair, the more natural it looks. Keeping it real keeps hair gorgeous.
Hair-color professionals have a large cabinet full of shades that enable us to create the richest hair colors. These bottles contain the butter and lemon that give blonde hair light and sparkle, cinnamon and coffee tones that give brunettes sultry depth, and the merlot and apricot that give redheads the passion for which they're famous. The hair colorist's spice rack and pantry have the ingredients that add many levels of flavor and warmth to hair. And that richness, in turn, punches up eye colors and makes skin tones vibrant. A box of color from the store, no matter how good it is, usually needs a little help.
Applying multiple shades reacts with the natural variations of your hair to show off its "grain" in the same way polishing a wood surface with Pledge brings out its beauty and richness: different textures, ribbons of light—depth, warmth, and coolness. It's all about the placement of light and dark. A single, inappropriate color takes away natural variations and leaves you with a one-dimensional look.
Unreality Check
How about reason three? The final factor at play is the perfection required by advertising that necessitates giving a false impression of reality. So even after all the professional color work is done on the model's hair, the resulting professionally lighted photograph is retouched, airbrushed, and digitally enhanced. You can't digitally alter your hair, of course (not yet, anyway). But the good news is that this book reveals recipes and application techniques so you too can turn off-the-rack color into your own personal couture creation!
The Big Pay Off!
The information in this book saves you money and time. The initial investment for setting up your personal salon is a bit more than the cost of one box of drugstore hair color, but in the long run, the cost of creating colors at home saves you money compared to what it would cost you to produce the same color in a salon. And you may already have many of the required items in your kitchen pantry or bathroom cabinet (Chapter 2). As I am sure you know, the price of coloring or highlighting hair, whether you are in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Biloxi, or Kansas City, is high. Correcting color mistakes is even more expensive! My recipes take the guesswork out of at-home color and will reveal how you can make professional custom formulas at home—with products available at drugstores and supermarkets! I can't be with all of you in person, but with this book, I hope you feel I am alongside you, cheering you on and supplying you with information that until now has not been available to the general public.
The recipes are cost-effective and effect-effective! They allow you to achieve the best possible results at home. And the salon techniques I share make application as easy, accurate, and highly efficient as possible.
The Hair Color Mix Book
More Than 150 Recipes for Salon-Perfect Color at Home. Copyright © by Lorri Goddard-Clark. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
