HOW Is YOUR Hair Color Formula & A Review of Gray Hair Coverage?

We've had a barrage of Questions about Hair Color Formula's this week and they are Questions that have been reviewed in this Blog in the past ...... but am happy to review some of the Key points to getting YOUR hair color formula correct.

Lets go over a few points that I have received the most questions about. Many of you are new to Killerstrands and have just discovered our little corner of hair color education and online store supplies.

Link to the #1 Blog Post in :

 Killerstrands - 10 Year Old Blog

Start there and then read forward until you get to here. I can promise you that everyone that has done that has been happy as Hell !
One of my very 1st recommendations for those who would like to truly understand hair color and want to take control over your own hairs' hair color path and honestly learn how to color hair correctly - & how to achieve HEALTHY HAIR while coloring ( which IS 100% POSSIBLE ! ! ). . . . is to take this blog and begin 10 years ago (it doesn't take nearly as long as it sounds) - - - click on this link and you will begin at the beginning of the Blog. Take a weekend - take a month - take a week -- or take a day and read the entire BLOG to receive a quick/fun/easy to understand education on how to properly care for their hair and come up with their own hair color formula -- PROPERLY ! 

That's my number 1 recommendation to all of you NEW to Killerstrands Hair Clinic, I was the first person to bring professional hair color to the public, which just recently I found out it is ILLEGAL to prevent 1 company from selling another hair product online once it is put into the stream of 'products for sale.' AS that is called Price fixing I have learned. Of course a company has the right to not to do business with us, but the INTERNET is here and it is not going anywhere....so why not do business with someone who will represent you well.

Now the first solution to many of the emails I received lately if you want a "quick-fix"  ( which I don't really believe in - there are simply too many things to understand to have a quick fix answer in hair color formulating but I am going to try to help some of you out with this one solution.

Many of you are making the switch from BOXED Hair Color ( or Crap-in-a-Box as I call it) to professional hair color, because through one way or another you have heard if you use professional hair color your results will be more dimensional and basically more beautiful and "natural looking" . When boxed hair color is used over a period of time, it begins to look like shoe polish. 

I understand how people fall into the trap.

Their first Grays appear and they SHOCK-THE-HELL out of the person because it happens so young. . . .or it happens to dark haired people. . . . so the contrast to you is shocking and all you want to do is get rid of it. 
Cover it up. 
We are a QUICK-FIX Society now-a-days. 
So there are a million and 1 little sticks and sprays and bars and powders to temporarily cover the gray......which I don't really sell because if you are going to do anything purchase your formula from us, mix up a small batch of it and apply it to the areas that show only.....THAT WAY, when you go to do your Re-Touch, you don't have some Cock-A-May-Me product on the hair that affects the next time you do your proper monthly Re-Touch . If you need a little help, send the answers to the Killer 18 questions and I will give you your formula. FREE! But, you must answer the questions in  8 words or less  ( that is all I need I've been doing this for 10 years and have it down now)

Many of you don't even want to admit that you go to a hair stylist to get your gray covered as many times it will happen in high school or college and you're embarrassed.......but listen to me..............WHO CARES ! ? ! ? 
NO one cares, getting your hair colored is cool now.
So, you run to Target and purchase a box of Crap-In-A-Box Hair Color and if you have very dark Brown to Black hair, (which is the #1 hair color in the world) the contrast from Gray to Black is horrendous, so using the Boxed Color colors it immediately and your problem and anxiety is gone.  Most of you will just apply it to your new growth ,or roots ( or BASE) and so you cannot tell what it does to the texture of the hair until your hair has GROWN OUT with this Crappy low quality hair color, because at the beginning that lousy color is only on the first inch or 2 of hair. 


It is not until your hair grows out until you can truly tell what this lousy quality, horrible product does to your hair. It starts to make your hair look like shoe polish and it feels like straw. I receive so many different descriptions of how horrific their hair feels, so if its not there now, it soon will be ............the best thing you can do is :
STOP USING it immediately. 

I'm Serious 
stop using it.
Put the words in the SEARCH BAR here on the Blog " Shampoo Train". Do everything that says in regards to removing all 
"OLD" hair color 
OUT
OF
YOUR 
HAIR .

Why?
Because many of you try to go from using Boxed hair color directly to using a wonderful Professional hair color and you cannot understand 'why' the transition did not solve all of your problems. 
Think about going from SHOE POLISH to Velvet.
That is what you are doing.
YOU
MUST..............REMOVE...........THE............SHOE..............POLISH...............1st ! 
Start over and use the quality hair color like Wella . . . .like Schwarzkopf . . . .like Framesi.

But the old lousy Color ( which includes Sally's color, and all lower quality hair colors) has to be removed before you will ever benefit.

Some of you refer to the roots you see in the transition from Box color to professional color................."HOT ROOTS". That is not what that Term means.

So your very first goal is to remove all of the old color.

What is the closest color to GRAY?
BLONDE!

So what you want to do is either get your hair as light as possible........or maybe even put some highlights in ( as much as I absolutely hate them and their look) which will make the line of demarcation less noticeable. Judy Dench's hair is Blonde it is not gray.....it looks gray because of her age, but she has a great colorist and I feel it looks beautiful.

 Here is a very quick fix method for double checking your formula that you have come up with after reading the entire BLOG. The first POST is above.


For the most simple method of reviewing your gray coverage formula.

What Level is your VIRGIN hair color?

Lets use the above photo.............................on the left is the BEFORE photo!
Her virgin level hair color is Level 8

She has 40% Gray
For Good gray coverage use the Level of the virgin hair
So Choose a NEUTRAL , which means a color that has both the letter N and the Number "0"

So her first color is: 8/0Neutral.........use the percentage of gray in the neutral ......so 
8/0N : 40% of formula
8/3G : 30%
8/1A :  30%.................................................always use 20 Volume with Gray coverage.


Remember this is a quick assesement, and alter it for the level of your own hair color.
The most important factor?
REMOVE ALL THE OLD HAIR COLOR

KC
 

50 Shades of Grey ... How to Get Silver Hair & More Importantly How to Keep It !

Nope its not about the book but what a great title for the post ...huh ?
OK maybe 10 Tips of (for)Grey Hair
We have many readers/customers from the UK, Australia & Canada - therefore in this post I have included both spellings of the word grey/gray - FYI
I've had quite a few of you ask for the 10 tips I have to help grey hair lately.
 Let me address that here so everyone can benefit from it.

There is nothing one can do to eliminate grey hair, so I do not want anyone to think that. If anyone promises that...quickly change the channel/page ! What grey hair is : hair that has no pigment 'within the individual strands of hair'  ......if you were to look at the hair through a microscope you would see it actually is colorless hair and it simply "appears gray" due to the color the other hairs that do have pigment. Grey hair takes years to switch all the way to solid Silver. ( we were taught to only call grey "silver" - a Sassoon trick).

Now I have had many people come to me over the years and ask for hair color that lasted 4-6 weeks on hair that is 80- 199% gray. They had never found anyone that could do that. That knowledge comes from knowing the proper way to color hair, that we teach on the Blog. If the proper 2-4 colors are used no matter who you are it will stick the whole time and then if you follow these 10 Rules, you should be able to make it to 5- 6 weeks . Which means that you only need to re-touch your color 7-8 times a year. That is not that often if you have grey - is it?

Lets start before you touch up your base every 6 weeks.

1. Before you color your hair you want to be sure to use one of the Malibu2000 packs, I would suggest a packet of Color Prep. Cleaning the gunk off before you color helps the color 'stick'. Use this the day before or the day 'of' your re-touch. Using the Crystal Gel packet is probably the best one for this particular reason. We provide a plastic cap with every packet from us.
2. But on the opposite end once you have your hair 'newly' touched-up, you then want to go for the opposite type and become "gentle" on the color. Using a for Color-only Shampoo - Sulfate-Free Shampoo - exclusively.
3. Going out in the sun, you must use a sun-screen, there are spray sunscreens for the hair exclusively...the sun wrecks havoc on hair color and keeping the hair color on your hair, is the way to keep it covered.
4. Gray hair, lacking pigment, lacks both the depth and the obnoxious DURP of pigmented hair. Think about that ....what needs to be done? You MUST replace what is missing from it, in order for it to look like the rest of your hair. Gray hair lacks depth and warmth . We make this silver color tinted shampoo that works KILLER ...its called BOOST and we're the only one that has SILVER colored shampoo which adds tone and shine to the hair. When you are in effect replacing the missing DURP {dominant-remaining-underlying-pigment}.  
5.  Depending on the color of your hair, the biggest category of growth in the hair Biz is colored-tinted Shampoo's. We carry one that I personally mix its called BURST in SILVER BULLET !  The advantage to getting a ''Brown Burst" is, it will deposit little bits of color on your hair, every time you shampoo. So using this at 3-4 weeks after the Re-Touch, will help cover those pesky roots without having to deal with all those other silly gadgets out there!.  We have a great selection of colors. Shampoo the hair, leave the shampoo on the hair...for 3-4-5 - even up to 10 minutes while you do other things. Then rinse. These really work I learned to make them in Academy - 20 years ago ! So the concept has been around. We made them for actors in the first 18 years now people have figured out that actors have beautifully toned hair and they want it too!  
6. I feel gray hair needs to have a fresh hair cut - at least > every 2 months. Having raggedy ends really makes the hair look frazzled and old. Always make the extra effort to keep those ends and the shape of your haircut fresh. 
7. Redheads and Grey? Red Tint on over-porous hair looks browner, BUT- - red tint on grey hair looks brighter and needs to be fixed or even better - prevented. How? Red formulas for grey hair benefit from adding a Gold or a Neutral. I most often add Neutral which means any color from the "N" Series.
8. Some of you look smashing with silver hair - like the lady above.  But that is not the norm, most of us age with the signs of grey. It always dulls the appearance and when it creeps into all of our body's hair we begin getting furious. Just as make-up improves almost anyone's appearance - so does covering the grey, think of it as the make-up for hair ! Don't you wish your make-up lasted as long as hair color? I sure do !
9. Be careful of going too dark when choosing the color you begin coloring your grey hair with if you are a brunette.  A good rule of thumb is... to begin to go lighter and lighter and lighter the goal should be to get as close to the tonal factor of grey.
10. What is the closest color to gray hair?? BLONDE ! ! So the closest you can get to Blonde the better (I'm talking as we age in the 50-60-70's)- you won't have to Re-touch as often ...  when the grey hair grows in after a couple weeks...you will have lots more time to goof around in without having to worry about having to Retouch the old haircolor ! 

• Ash does not cover gray fully, and it may create off tones. Please Avoid.
• Colors containing some warmth cover gray best such as  (LANZA) lanza is a great line for gray hair just join the group for a month I will help you with the formula the first time and then you can quit if you want. 
• If you don't want total coverage, thats great too, use Demi /Translucent /or 10Volume Developer - with the above formula gives more of a "blended" look rather than a completely Covered one..
• Maximum timing = maximum coverage. In this Blog I preach the advantages of processing the color in the more appropriate time - which is 1 hour - - not 20 minutes. They preach that for busy Colorists who have to sandwich in 25 people daily, but not letting the hair color process for the full amount of time.
• Watch for up coming new products for you to solve Covering Gray for those who do not want to learn how to cover gray, but just want a kit I have prepackaged for you. 

Hi-Ho Silver! Covering Gray Hair on Blondes...#3

#3 in the:  Blonde, James Blonde series. This is a little talked about subject but an important one. Some people choose to go 100% gray and they look nice in it, but as a general rule I never recommend someone try it. Just as make-up improves almost anyone's appearance, so does coloring the gray. Gray hair lacks depth and warmth, which is what needs to be replaced in order for the hair to look perfect.

Now, remember that it is the percentage of gray that dictates the exact formula one uses on gray hair. One must get past the resistant outer layer of Gray hair in order o deposit which ever color one chooses. 

There are 2 ways to go with Blonding and Gray hair.....one is probably less popular than the other... not many's choice. 

1. You CAN cover gray by going platinum and using an Oil-Bleach Kit  http://killerstrands.myshopify.com/products/killerstrands-oil-bleach-kits-on-the-scalp-application method, which will get you the Gwen Stefani/Marilyn Monroe look, but be sure of your coloring and the commitent that comes with this choice ... OR
2. Using Medium color blond's say Level 8 are actually the best for covering gray than the lighter choices. 

Anything Lighter than a Level 8 is made to "LIFT" and what you are looking for is "deposit" when covering gray. Make Sense?  Pale blonde's just don't have the pigment necessary to replace missing depth and really apply coverage. Those lighter blond's can be used when you first begin noticing grays for blending but that is about all.

Something I tell Every One Who Has Gray & Is Navigating Through Their Options?  The Closest Color To Gray is Blonde so Going Blonde is an Excellent Option

What you won't want to use any higher than 20Volume, because again....you are looking for coverage - the higher Volumes create LIFT more than deposit....so always stick to 20.

A couple of Blond formulas from our permanent line of Color  that both cover well, you might want to try or run Strand Tests on are as follows:

> 8.0 + 8.3

> 8.0 + 8.10

http://killerstrands.myshopify.com/products/x-factor-hair-color

If you would like the exact percentages of each, please write in the percentage of gray - when you place your order. There is a "Notes" section and we welcome input about your order.


KillerChemist