What Exactly Is A Hair Color Booster & Why Do You Need Them ?

Color Boosters are designed to create custom, signature color shades. Every single line of hair color comes with Boosters . . . they all call them a different name it seems. Some call them MIXERS....some BOOSTERS.....some call the m Special MIXERS, the names are as vast as the amount of hair color lines their are..etc.....
 
They can be used in any Color formulation for increased color vibrancy or as a stand alone
shade for special effect coloring on pre-lightened hair. Some companies have 2-3 BOOSTERS, some have 20. Within the Wella Lines of color in both the Permanent Line of color which is Koleston Perfect and the Demi-Permanent Line of color which is Color Touch ..... they both have their own BOOSTERS as you can see.

Here is a chart showing the boosters at the bottom of the chart, so you may see for reference

 See, them at the bottom? 
They always seem like odd colors, but they are usually tones that are difficult to achieve in normal hair colors.
here is the list....

 But, the funny part is, with SILVER being such a hot color now.......look at 0/11 and the above swatch chart of it! 
It really does turn out to be a fantastic Silver . . . . just by using the Booster Alone + a Low Volume Developer....like "Pastel Developer" or 13Volume Developer ( which prior to all the crazy colors being popular was used to add "ash" a silvery ash to a formula.) 

Which btw, the new BOOST & BURST color that I came up with Chrome Chocolate has become super-duper Popular, which is a very silvery Dark Brunette, could be achieved by adding 0/11 PLUS 5/7 Plus 20 Volume .
All of these colors may be used alone, but the initial reason they were developed was to add a richer tone to colors that cannot be achieved by one hair color tube.

 















One of the most popular that has been used over the last 20 years was : 0/45, which gives  RED/Violet  formula a deeper richer Red-Violet.....one of the most difficult colors to achieve RG for those with Copper hair. Both of those Colors Fade easily .....and the reason is the RED pigment has not been as mastered as well as the rest of the pigments have.
Wella has been known for many years and remains the number 1 hair color line with the best / richest REDS. Which is known world-wide to be the most difficult color pigment to achieve and for it to remain bright for a long time, it truly does help extend the richness of the color if you add 1/4 of the formula as a booster.

 
These MIXERS are each formulated with specifically balanced color dyes to make it easy
to create signature hair-color or special effects. For increased color vibrancy, color boosters can be added into any of your Permanent formulations 'normally' up to ¼ of your color portion is what is suggested. 

For special effects, or a stand alone shade, our standard mixing ratio and processing time is one part Permanent Color Booster plus one part Developer (1:1) for 65 minutes in a warm room.
Booster Shades
Gold
Blue
Violet
Copper
Red.............these are the normal ones that most every line has......then you see Wella adding:
Ash,
Pearl 
and Violet.

I have personally used boosters my entire career. NO they are absolutely necessary. .. . BUT they do help in adding richness to formula's, plus coming up with unique and rare hair colors that cannot be achieved with out them.