Double Process Blonding and What it Is.

Double Process Blonding is a very popular topic in our Group lately, so I thought one more Post would be helpful to them in coming up with their game plan for their new formula.

Level 12 color or High-lift Blonde is made by every company and they are sold as colors that lift 5 levels....which is an outright and complete lie. I challenge all companies to tell me which line they feel does that and I would be happy to run a test and eat my words.....and take a photo of me eating my words !! ! ! "take-my-words" back ! It just isn't so, so what happens and gets...........so many of you, in pickles is... these Stylists that are "guessing" how hair color works, listen to you being emphatic over the words , "please don't use Bleach". So they use the high-lift that claims it lifts 3-5 levels and you end up with BLORANGE roots and or hair.

Apparently that damn Sally's has come out with their own version of my Oil Bleach Kit, nice to see my preaching is reaching large corporations - Sally's is the largest beauty supply in the world and it single-handedly ruins more women's hair than any other company. L'Oreal runs a very close 2nd btw. The Kit has only been out a short time and I already have countless women asking me why their oil bleach didn't work.......AND THE REASON IS ...THEY USED SALLY'S - - NOT MINE. SALLY'S HAS POWDERED BLEACH IN AN ENVELOPE.  The whole kit is $5.00 - come on women you get what you pay for.......... How many times have I said this. NO-DAMN- SHORT CUTS.

My Kit has Creme Lightener with Gleam added in the container so more oil seeps in the creme lightener as it sits to be sold.....then you add even more oil (glammor) and we use a special Violet tinted Developer - the amount of lipids and oils in my Kit is simply OFF THE CHART !!!!!!!!!!!  Plus I have been using it for over 10 years with Amazing results.

 High-lifts on their very best day lift 3 levels "3"  and that is rare, therefore the question to you is one of REALITY.

So if you are anything darker than a VIRGIN Level 8-9....which is pretty much every single one of you, well you will end up with either brass, blorange or Gold hair at the end of a very expensive Coloring session. 

Now I am here to teach you how to avoid that. 
HOW?
By listening to this Post and learning how things work and what you must do to have the beautiful blonde that is possible on every single one of you. You might not like the rules, but I promise you, but I didn't make them up.


Every color company states that high-lift lifts 4-5 Levels when they do not. 
Beyond that the next in a great Colorists' arsenal is what we refer to as  "Double-Process-Blonding" .  
That is how you obtain this hair color:

The one and only way to do this and end up with healthy shiny hair when you are finished is by purchasing our OIL BLEACH KIT, I do not mean to sound like a used car salesman, what I do get tired of hearing and doing is .....listening to so many sad stories of how you were led awry - its not your fault and I thought after I wrote this Blog and a few years went by that the problem would be solved. But to the contrary......... it seems to have grown for some reason. Maybe because having platinum hair has grown so much - especially this year........I have so very many email and consultation requests for platinum hair.

This is a double Step of a BLEACH and Tone........which is necessary..... when you do this for so many years on every color from Level 1 to Albino hair, you completely understand hair color ! 
This double process Step is called: Bleach & tone.
First you bleach and ONLY with our OIL Bleach Kit....in our Oil Bleach Kit Unlike the crappy Sally's ones (Please I beg you to not use those or you will be knocking on my door tomorrow)
The mistakes I hear the public & Hair Stylists making all the time in trying to achieve platinum hair are the following :

• They do not remove the "old" hair color first.....bleach is a lightening agent....NOT a color remover. - Remove old hair color with our VANISH KIT - first. 1 box is enough on most people unless you have Black hair color in that case you realize the change you are trying to make and they do not call platinum hair the epitome of the term "high maintenance" that is actually where the term was derived - back in the Marilyn Monroe days !
• Do Not use powder lightener, that was designed only for small pieces of hair such as highlights ( I never use powder lightener - rarely do you need it with cream and oil lightener in existence).
• the lightener  must be applied multiple times and it depends on the color Level you are beginning with as to how many applications of Oil bleach you will need. In the future you will only be using 1 application to re-touch your roots.
•  All bleaches only process for 55-75 minutes - period, so at that time ity is time to remove it and apply another application.
•  At that point you take the lightener OFF, rinse in luke cool water for 5 minutes
• Apply INTENSIVE for minimum 30 min. rinse dry hair and Apply 1 more time. You don't stop when the hair is Gold or Blorange, that means you need another application to achieve the platinum hair. You do this until your hair reaches the color of frozen butter or the inside of banana.
• Then when the lightness is achieved........ go through the process with the INTENSIVE and rinse, then apply THRIVEN OVERNIGHT.......that is a pure miracle worker I promise you. Tone the hair the next day. Its always best if you can wait 24 hours before that, if you can't then proceed that way.
• Be sure you are using a Toner so that means a demi-permanent color line ONLY - and never more that a 13Volume developer for a toner on platinum hair I prefer 6 Volume Color Touch and 10/6.

Most Misunderstood Fact About Hair Color

Some readers continue to not understand an important concept in hair color and don't fret, I

remember to this day how long it took me to have the light bulb turn on and for me to completely understand it as well. I expect to never be finished writing about this subject - E-I-T-H-E-R .... as the more ways you present an idea the higher likely hood you have of people understanding your point.

There are hundreds of hair stylists that read this Blog & I invite anyone to "Guest-Author" a Post on this subject, on secondhand . . . I invite any Hair Stylist to write a Post on a subject of your choice - too! That is a great idea, please consider it. 

NOw, back to the subject that is difficult to understand.....many of you continue to get yourselves in some bad situations by not getting it. Please if you think you understand everything about hair color, read this........... be sure you understand this one concept before you do anything further to your hair- color wise. It is and always has been the single most misunderstood fact about Hair Color.

Hair Color does NOT Lift Hair Color

So, if you have one hair color on your hair and want to go LIGHTER, you cannot apply a lighter color on top of a darker one and have it work. We simply do not have that technology, but if I know the cosmetic chemists around the world, they are rap[idly working on this fact as I speak!

 If you have a Level 6 (Brunette) hair color by any company whatsoever on and then want to put a Level 10 (light blonde) on top of it, NOTHING WILL HAPPEN. You can use any developer you want to, but the technology just doesn't exist yet in today's world. 

In the world we live in today, you can do anything pretty much any more it seems. But Hair Color hasn't really changed a whole lot since being discovered 100 years ago.
People get hung up the terms Demi.......& Semi-permanent..........I find it fascinating. My assistant got her hair colored over the weekend by her niece and went from brown to red which is all the rage here right now.

I was astonished at how great it looked on her, but she said,  'oh my niece only used semi permanent on me' - which I had to break the bad news to her, no - she did not, as you cannot turn brown hair.... red, without using a color WITH developer most likely it was .. 20Volume developer, which makes it permanent. She was upset (which is why I decided to write this Post !).....but......some of the brown MUST come out of the hair in order for the red pigment to go in. 
Its a science to me.

To the public they listen to certain words and think that somehow if it is semi permanent or demi permanent, they will be able to shampoo it out and their own virgin hair will return.That simply, is just not the case I'm afraid, and is another of the biggest misconceptions in the hair color industry. It is the sole reason my web site & store has remained busy for nearly 8 years! I continue to explain this to people so they will understand and don't get themselves in trouble over and over

THERE ARE VERY FEW LAWS IN OUR COUNTRY 

THAT GOVERN THE HAIR INDUSTRY ! 

The FDA is too busy trying to keep drugs off our streets than to care about hair color I guess. So any company can put any name on any product, if its permanent color many times they print 'demi' on the box - because they know how the public thinks. Don't listen to them.
I'm afraid to report that many hair stylists don't take the education of hair color seriously, so they begin their color career 'guessing'. Not all of them, but many. They tell their clients the wrong thing and it upsets me because they are misleading you.





If you had used hair color that would only coat your hair with no line of demarcation...........it would HAVE to be a true Semi-permanent hair color, which means (technical and truthfully) hair color that comes straight from the bottle or tube & is NOT MIXED WITH DEVELOPER. Today's world is now calling it "Direct Color" which is a good name for that category of hair color, because it is indicative of how that color is used. . . . . DIRECTLY FROM THE TUBE ! Now the problem of Direct Color is, you cannot "lighten hair. Lightening hair only comes from the combination of hair color and H2O2 or Developer.

  When Direct color is used and if you were to apply red on top of brown, you would barely see it. Its as if you took a brown crayon and colored a circle on a piece of paper, now pick up a red crayon, color on top of the brown.....what do you think you will see? Maybe a teeny tiny tint of red, but truthfully it will still look brown, hardly any color will be apparent. Use the same theory with crayons. Its an analogy I came up with a long time ago in trying to explain this theory, so all my Crib Colorists will understand.
As long as developer is mixed with color -- even DEMI & permanent - your own hair color will change because developer alters Virgin hair color....no matter what volume it is. Even 5 Volume and 3 Volume will change virgin hair. So, remember that fact and the only way to get to true Virgin untouched hair is to stop coloring, begin getting your hair trimmed every 6 weeks, until it GROWS OUT! Depending on the length of your hair, your health and your genetics your hair grows an average of 1/2inch per month....it will take quite a while to get it back to VIRGIN. 

Its funny the estimates range from 70-90 % of all women color their hair nowadays, hair color is truly considered an accessory or at least here in L.A. it is! I can't tell you the last time I ran into someone with virgin hair color, but its a noble goal for some of you!

So to go lighter, one MUST remove the darker hair color - - first.
Which is why the Shampoo Train and Vanish exist and are one of the top selling items in our store at all times ! 

Make sense?zs?I hope someone will take me up on writing a Post.....
Thank You,
KC

Wella Introduces the Very First Demi-Permanent Pastel Hair Color - Instamatics Are Here and are Gorgeous

To keep up on what is coming up and what is new and cool, I watch the European markets for what is coming down the pipeline as far hair and hair color. I have been creating pastels from hair color my entire career but to finally have the actual product here, I am just thrilled to no end. I know this won't be a lot of yours "thing" .....BUT, think of this.. . . .

Do you have some Blonde pieces, chunks, ribbons, slices with Ash brown hair or any of the many techniques going on now-a-days? Consider applying on top of the blonde pieces or having your Colorist apply.......... some mint green over the blonde and by the next time you go in for a Re-touch the mint green will be washed out. USE the pastels as an accessory which is what they are designed for. For Fun, to be used as an accessory to your clothes and outfit for a few weeks.. I have Copper hair and I plan on applying some of the pink to some of my blonde slices and I'm old ! I think it will be cool for a few weeks and I don't really care what anyone thinks.

In conjunction the FREELIGHTS line has come out, which is merely a white bleach to be used for Balayage .... a technique I don't find much use for but a lot of Colorists do. I was highly trained in foils and can do anything in foils they can do Freehand but we carry the Balayage Painting paddle so if that is your cup of tea you are welcome to the products you need to perform it with. The reason I like foils? I was trained on them and they do generate warmth and natural warmth like that helps the color develop better than when just hanging out in the air. (My personal sentiments are going to cause a giant hub-bub in the Comments section, but please just relax everyone!)  I get so much flak for my feelings in this area, I actually took a Post down I was so tired of responding to -- from the people that feel the opposite. 

When it comes down to it....it really is:.."different strokes for different folks" its not a competition, which is why I have ALWAYS sold Balayage paddles - 2 of them even - you can't find these anywhere else, so relax !

But Anyway lets look at what Wella is calling Color Touch INSTAMATICS

Create natural-looking highlights with Wella's new foil-free Blondor Freelights.

Use it for Ombre or Balayage hair

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see by these photos 3 colors have been weaved through the blonde hair, see how beautiful it looks?

Pink

Mauve + Amethyst

Now here are the 6 colors:

 

Ocean Storm

Muted Mauve

Pink Dream

 
Smokey Amethyst

Jaded Mint

Clear Dust

 These are Color Touch Colors so you would be using 6 & 13 Volume Developer and processing for 35-45 minutes. They quote 25 minutes as they do with all Color Touch colors but I have always found processing 40-50 minutes makes the color last longer

Here are the 2 balayage spatula's 

 

 you apply the spatula underneath the hair, then use the tint brush and paint on lightener in little strips that look like this:

 that work something like above, again...my choice is foils but I am going to try this for fun next time the chance arises itself !

We have a kit that has a complete photo tutorial that shows you how to do this with foils. I call it the Ribbons of light Kit or the Victoria's Secret model hair !!!!  ha ha

Once you lighten the little strips to blond, you then can apply any of the new and very cool Instamatics by Wella 's Color Touch line.

 The hair above has slices of  blonde first then Pink Dream and Mauve applied to them, see how subtle it can be, I just think it is beautiful, how about you?

New Color Spring 2015

They are showing this photo on the Wella professional page as the newest color for Spring......

you like?

Brunette to Platinum + PASTELS - Photo Journal DEMO

 I purchased a mannequin a few months back, because I wanted to show you how everyone can achieve blond hair WITHOUT a trace of brass or BLORANGE and the hair remains on the head and is healthy - beautiful and shiny. There simply is no reason for any magic potion to add to hair color, IF.............IT....................IS..................FORMULATED..................AND
..............APPLIED................CORRECTLY! ! ! ! !

I took photos of every single stage. Now a human head of hair is 100 times stronger than a doll made in china. This is Zoe, and Zoe has REAL VIRGIN  HUMAN  HAIR in a Level 6. It's truly between a 5.5 and a Level 6...........which we are going to bleach white. Or the proper terminology is: we will perform a BLEACH & TONE on her.................

So we begin by applying the Cream Lightener and 40Volume Violet Developer and I apply it ''in foils" for speed, as this project was going to take forever as it is.  YOU WOULD NOT APPLY IT IN FOILS - EVER, nor would you use 40 volume - again I did that for speed and using 20 volume is the proper way to go - - ALWAYS! ! !. There is no need for a mad rush, but I wanted to show you with just cream lightener and Violet developer  what happens to true - virgin - Level 6 hair.

Now here is what it looks like after 1 application - brassy and this is where most people stop. They are afraid if they continue it will begin to break off and you will have nothing left. If your hair is damaged is a whole other cup of tea. This hair was in average condition. It was not shiny, or soft, but the cream lightener gave those 2 properties to otherwise boring dull hair in my opinion!

 

Now, after the first bleaching, see the hairs that shed? On the comb up above? That is completely normal which is why I took the photo. Do NOT panic. Why does that happen? 

Every single day we shed between 150 and 200 hairs per day.........EVERY-SINGLE-DAY ! ! ! 

So the shedding comes from the fact that by applying the bleach you have accelerated the growth of the hair on your head and those hairs are simply the hairs you would have shed over the next couple days. They came out all at once instead of a little at a time. You can look further down and see how much hairs are lost after bleaching #3!

 These photos are after the bleaching and me applying INTENSIVE, which yes, I even did to a fake dolls hair because I know how much of a difference this stuff makes, and how important it is to the process!

INTENSIVE returns the hair's pH to normal, which also eliminates any trace of chemical's and locks in the color. The product was a pleasant and successful accident and everyone LOVES IT !

 I decided to leave the side piece on the bottom one bleach BEHIND the rest of the hair for comparison for everyone to see.


See photo # 14, that is the piece that is one bleach behind the piece on top. I bleached the top piece 3 complete times, in retrospect, I probably should have only bleached it twice....but I wanted to show you that even on a dead doll which is much harder to work on than a real person's hair ( because it doesn't react exactly the same to the products - not nearly as easy).

#15 is an application of THRIVEN - yep left it on a doll-head overnight with a cap on it !! Nutty aren't I ? ?

 Now, check to the right. . . . see the beautiful results? 

You can do this too #16 is the hair right after rinsing Thriven out with ZERO Toner on it !

 

See in photo # 17 the front piece has been bleached and rinse/INTENSIVE/THRIVEN.......... 3 times and the piece underneath has only been done twice! See, in # 18 the difference, you are constantly battling that brass. It just makes life beautiful and easy if you bleach till the color of frozen butter, I call it. See the difference?

 

 Photo #21 is the brush after the 3rd time and how much hair came out ( remember its a doll!) and how little I did not panic! Hair Loss is normal when going blonde. WHY? Going Blonde accelerates the natural growth pattern of your head of a hair. You will not lose this much but just do not panic, its normal and yes this is a tiny bit heavy.....

Always follow a bleaching with INTENSIVE!


ALWAYS FOLLOW BLEACHING with THRIVEN for strength.....we have some brand new conditioners coming next week.

So the result looks like this below......this is 3 bleachings with OIL BLEACH - look at the condition of the hair, no breakage and I'm telling you the condition of the hair is better than when we started. 
JUST OIL BLEACH KIT &  JUST THRIVEN

 So there she is the snow white beauty, I just love platinum hair. It was the first major project I did many years ago and since that very first day I have loved it the absolute most. It is a very warm feeling of being a true artist within the world of hair color. Because you have taken dark and turned it to white, which as we all know............is not an easy road to hoe!

Then I took Icey Mint Green BURST ( the conditioner) poured some in a bowl and began my next little art project. I could have made it all mint green but I decided to give Zoe some Mint Green Highlights!

You just take the end of tail comb (#28 - every Colorists best friend) and weave some little strips of hair, use a foil apply the ICEY MINT GREEN BURST conditioner with a tint brush as if it was a hair color. Close the foils up. Let them process for 30-40 minutes. When rinsing you want to do it in the sink and be very very careful not to let the green rinse out on top of the very white hair, for fear of staining it!

Its a bit difficult to see, but the Mint Green was just gorge .. . . .I love the color. Plus you can layer the color and make it darker....

Here we go with Angel.Rose.Angel - basically a rosey Pink. You purchase BURST ( the color tinted conditioner) - but you treat it as though it is a hair color..........by using foils.....or only applying BURST to the tips.....for that look!

Now see the section in photo #40 underneath that is only lightened 2 times as opposed to the braid, or top part which was lightened 3 times ! See the difference??

Now to completely remove the color, you are required to email our inquiry email, it takes great care and careful measuring to do it the proper way.


SO .........LETS SAY............YOU ARE DONE WITH THE PINK YOU WANT TO WIPE THE PINK OUT GENTLY AND START OVER WITH PLATINUM HAIR

Malibu 2000 now has a treatment pack called DDL or DIrect Dye Lifter that removes Crazy colors faster than just shampoo!

Rinse WELL....................apply INTENSIVE

.....................................Apply THRIVEN, then rinse

here is the last application we went with straight blue on the entire blond section and the hair is till healthy, when its not even on a real person ! ! !

You - TOO! ! Can accomplish this

When having platinum hair it is extremely important to not only keep it well conditioned, but also have at least a 1/4"- 1/2"  trim every 6-7 weeks is very important as well !

Any Questions?