Blonde Stylist Tips

Going to the salon for a blonding service used to be simple, right?

You would go into the salon, sit down, and discuss three things: tone, dimension, and how light you would like to be. The stylist would gather this information, map out a plan, and perform their art. This is no longer the case. Now, clients are requesting specific techniques, like balayage, ombre, sombre, foil, teasy light, baby light, air touch, etc. The technique is not a decision the client needs to worry about. A proper consultation, and a few inspiration photos can be shared, to ensure that the stylist can fully understand the image that the client sees in their mind. How the stylist decides to achieve your goal, should be solely up to the stylist. When a client demands a specific technique, it can make the stylist anxious, or uncomfortable, and results can no longer be guaranteed. That is why, at Autumn Markley Salon, we offer only three highlighting services: accent highlight, partial highlight, and a full highlight. An accent highlight is just a few lighter pieces around your face or through the top, a partial highlight is the top and sides of your head, and a full highlight is through you entire head. All of the highlighting techniques listed above are one thing: HIGHLIGHTS. You do not need to feel the pressure of booking a specific technique, or asking for a specific technique. All you need to have is your hair goal, and discuss that with your stylist, and allow them to determine how they will get you there.

Consultations

The most important part of a blonding or highlighting service consultation is knowing what tone of blonde you would like to achieve. A lot of people only use the terms warm and ashy, but there is a lot more to that. Also, in recent years, warmth has become something that people are afraid of, and ashy has become everyone’s goal. And contrary to popular belief, brightness is achieved with warmth and gold tones; and ashy tones create a much more dreary and muted blonde. Warmth can be achieved with out “brassiness,” and an ash blonde, will not achieve “platinum.” Tone of blonde should be determined by your natural base color, and what complements that, your skin tone, and eye color. We believe tone can be separated into these categories: Golden Blonde, Strawberry Blonde, Neutral Blonde, Bronde, Platinum Blonde, Icy Blonde, and Mushroom Blonde.

Dimension is an extremely useful tool in making your blonde pop! During a consultation, you should discuss how much dimension you would like to see. Dimension is the contrast between light hair and dark hair, or differences in tone throughout the hair. Dimension usually comes from your natural base color, or what is not highlighted. In some cases, it would be recommended to  lighten your base color, using hair color, not lightener. This is usually referred to as a base break, or root breaker. Lightening your base color, is usually for people who want very little dimension, and want to be very bright. We would only ever recommend lifting your base color if you already have naturally light hair. If someone has been over highlighted, and looses some dimension, we can put some of that back in, by adding lowlights. Sometimes, blonde clients can be fearful of dimension, as they think leaving anything unhighlighted will make their hair appear dark. However leaving some natural hair unhighlighted in the right areas, will make the highlights around it appear much brighter and lighter!

How Blonde?

Determining how light you want your blonde to be can sometimes be the hardest thing to consider during a consultation. Your natural hair color, your skin tone, your eyebrow color, and most importantly, the health and integrity of your hair, should all be taken into consideration when making this decision. Shifting your hair color any lighter than three shades, can be challenging, but not impossible. However, we always recommend staying within those three shades. When pushing the hair beyond those three shades, it requires more powerful products, longer processing time, and more frequent appointments. If this is your goal, it becomes very high maintenance, and it is very easy to become “overprocessed” when you enter this range.

Before booking any blonding service, we always recommend a consultation first. The staff at Autumn Markley Salon are all highly trained when it comes to blonding services, and you can put your trust in us to help you achieve your goals. Check out our stylist’s bio’s to find your best fit!