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Colour me …

By Milly Nolan

Mana Dave, co-owner of Blaze hair salon, talks about the most covetable hair colours for summer, on MiNDFOOD.

What’s hot for blondes this summer?

The bold or the beautiful.

For high-impact colour, you definitely can’t go past the “lighten and tone” solid blonde trend of Gwen Stefani or Pixie Geldof – the ‘bold’ blonde.

If maintenance is an issue, then play with the idea of slicing different tones of both cool and warm blonde shades through your hair to capture the soft and variated trend of the ‘beautiful’ blonde.

How about brunettes and redheads?

Even for these deeper, richer bases, there’s a trend to have some kind of ‘blonde’ or ‘lightness’ reference to the colour. Brunettes should be looking at lighter and richer shades like auburn, chocolate and hazelnut.

To add variation, add more neutral panels of cool mocha browns or deep champagne tones that add dimension but blend seamlessly.

Redheads will follow suit with lighter softer coppers and strawberry blondes that can be highlighted with apricot and golden accents. For a more edgy vibe, redheads should look at contrast with pieces of pastel champagnes or even papaya.

How should we best care for our hair to prolong the vibrancy of the colour?

The New Zealand climate is notoriously bad for colour fade, so you’ll want all the help you can get. The only way to remedy this is a two pronged attack with both at home care products and in salon treatments.

The new Redken Color Extend range has both UVA and UVB sun filters to give you maximum anti-fade protection on a daily basis. For a salon top up, you can request the intense Redken Chemistry System Colour Extend service which basically gives you a concentrated dose of all the key colour protection ingredients. And never underestimate the value of a sunhat at the beach either.

How often should you colour your hair?

There are a couple of key factors – how quickly your ‘regrowth’ comes through, the condition of your hair, and the result you’re wanting to achieve. A really good colour specialist will ensure that the look they create for you will consider all of these factors and that it will suit your lifestyle and your ability to maintain the colour.

A good rule of thumb to keep in mind when you’re considering upkeep – the further away from your natural hair colour that your desired result is, the greater the amount of maintenance that will be required. And if you’re trying to get coverage over grey or white hair, then 4-6 weeks is probably the longest you want to leave between your salon touch up visits.

What about those of us with highlights?

Breaking from tradition, the trend is to play with the idea of minimising or maximising your ‘regrowth’. With clever strategic placement of highlights, you can minimise regrowth with lighter colours within the body of the colour and more natural tones sitting on partings and around the hairline.

To maximise regrowth, talk with your colourist about the idea of ‘backcombing’ your highlights – this will create quite a grown out look with a lot more lightness towards the ends.

Are highlights out of style?

In the hands of a great colour specialist, the technique of ‘highlighting’ or ‘foiling’ can create some amazing results. The key is to get the right balance between the colour that is added through the highlighting while ensuring that there’s still enough of your natural colour in there as well. This creates a much more believable and natural look to your final colour result. Balliage, a freehand colour technique favoured by French hairstylists is gaining popularity for this very reason as it creates a diffused and seamless look.

Do you adjust colour on clients during the summer months?

Definitely. Hair colour and skin colour have to work together in harmony. Generally we all tend to tan up slightly during summer and just as you would adjust your make-up to suit, your hair colour should adjust to complement this also. Hence this is why we can generally wear either a lighter hair colour or a lighter version of your hair colour during the summer months.

Can anyone be a blonde?

There are definite rules about suitability of colour and skin toning, but depending on the commitment you are willing to make to maintain your haircolour, those rules can always be slightly broken.

Redken recently launched their Blonde Glam collection with shades to suit both dark and light heads of hair to achieve varying blonde results while still maintaining fantastic condition and shine. In the hands of a trained colour specialist, these products can help you to achieve a blonde reference in your hair colour whether it’s the creamiest vanillas on fair hair or cool mocha caramels on dark hair.

What do you find to be the most common mistakes women make with hair colour?

So many women want to be the exact shade of hair colour that they were when they were in their early 20s. That’s not always the best option. Hair colour, like skin complexion changes with age.

It’s just like make-up, you need to make sure that the colour that you wear now works for you wherever you’re at. Are you still wearing the same make-up that you wore in your early 20s?

A much better comparison is to create a lighter richer version of your natural hair colour when you were a kid. As a general rule it tends to create a far more softer natural look that complements your skintone.

Can you recommend products to keep wild hair smooth in humidity and keep colour vibrant?

Redken’s new Colour Extend range has key ingredients that will help to retain your colour’s vibrancy. Use Total Recharge on damp hair when you jump out of the pool or at the beach after a quick dip. To buffer from humidity apply Forceful 23 hairspray to dry hair to retain your style and eliminate frizzy fly-aways.

COLOUR BREAKDOWN BY MANA DAVE

One of the most frequently asked questions from most clients, is whether or not they should colour their hair or when should they begin to colour their hair. Here are a few factors that you can keep in mind when making your decision.

Grey/white hair

In the salon we refer to those as your natural highlights, it just sounds better. If grey/white hair becomes an issue for you then the option of colouring can be dealt with by your maintenance routine.

Demi-permanent colours will give you the chance to blend away those nasties while bumping up the shine factor of your hair. Highlighting will also give you ‘blendability’ and like demi-permanent colours can help to reduce maintenance if done well. For total coverage, permanent colour then becomes your best option.

Aesthetics

Sometimes you can help Mother Nature just a little. By changing the shade and tone of your hair colour even slightly, you can definitely look more rested and refreshed. A really good colour specialist can select a hair colour that makes you look good even without make-up on.

Consider hair colour as a fashion accessory that you can change depending on fashion trends or just your mood and what it is that you want to say about yourself at a particular point in time.

Condition and styling

Find a colour specialist who takes the time to do a thorough consultation with you so they create a colour service that not only improves the condition of your hair, but also helps to make home styling easier.

Demi-permanent colours like Redken’s Shades EQ range really do amazing things to the condition and shine factor of your hair. Strategically placed highlights worked through your hair colour can add more body and bulk to your hair for volume and darker pieces placed closer to the hairline on longer shapes can add the illusion of length and narrowness around your face.

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