You know you’re truly passionate about something when a scenario like this sits in your chair. A client came to me with immensely long, thick, strong and healthy hair. She wanted to go lighter overall but maintain her natural color blend so it would grow out nicely. With hair this long and thick, you can expect at LEAST a 3.5 hour+ appointment for proper application and processing. Some stylists would be like “oh $hit this is going to take forever”, and hey, it does, lol but I literally love doing hair color and couldn’t wait to get started. I gave her sun kissed, beige and golden toned blonde highlights through a technique of balayage and tipping. The result is so new and natural.
I love being able to create the ‘new and natural’ look on a client. Adding in dimension with blonde, honey toned tips brightens up her color but still looks natural and sunkissed. This is the type of color that you can easily go 3 or more months in between appointments if you like your new growth because the blend won’t have any harsh lines. 🙂
Just wanted to share that today I was recognized by the Professional Beauty Association for my submission to their Beacon program and received an honorable mention. This means I am invited to participate in the Professional Beauty Association’s annual conference in Las Vegas, which they call “PBA Beauty Week“. Events include the Cosmoprof trade show (which I am most excited about), the North American Hairstyling Awards, and about a bajillion opportunities to network and meet with any and all industry related companies and representatives. Attending a convention of this magnitude will be overwhelming for me in a good way – between education, product development, brand awareness, influencers, hair shows, I know I will need to go in there with a plan of action or I will literally lose myself LOL.
Anyways, excited for the event in July and appreciate the acknowledgement of my work by the Professional Beauty Association. Add that bullet point to the resume! You can watch the video announcement of all winners below to see my name, or just fast forward to the 2 minute mark haha (I’m under “Iowa”). A full list of 2017 winners is also available here.
Fun with hair color. No seriously, fun with actual hair color versus your classic bleach and tone to achieve natural looking, sunkissed highlights. Sometimes a client sits in your chair with unprocessed, virgin hair and you can use hair color to lift versus traditional bleach. Yes, I’ve posted about this before, so sorry to bore you if this feels too familiar. I just love the outcome of using hair color when you can – the lift and result is so natural and I do this process on clients whenever I can! Below is an example of lifting this client’s natural brunette shade one to two levels to get some sunkissed pops. Don’t you love the beige and caramel dimension?
A couple weeks ago I spent the weekend in Kansas City with a group of classmates to attend a hair show called the “Aveda Jam”. The “Jam” show concept/style is new to Aveda and Kansas City was their very first location to try it out. They held it at the Madrid Theatre in the Westport neighborhood and I was fortunate enough to be asked for the opportunity to do a cut or style on stage during the show, essentially “performing” with not only some extremely talented stylists in the midwest region but also with the Aveda Global Artistic Director of Hair Styling, Ricardo Dinis. The show also included Aveda’s Global Artistic Director for Hair Color, Ian Michael Black, and featured Van Council of Van Michael Salons. Who else can I name drop LOL? Oh yeah, they also invited stylist Jon Reyman (pictured w/ yes the Kenzo Tiger sweater).
My experience for the Aveda Jam was outstanding. I cannot believe the kind of talent that was on stage and frankly as a student I didn’t feel “qualified” at all to be up there. But hey, when someone asks you to do something like this, you just say “yes” and go with it. I had a little under two weeks to prepare for the show, getting a model and even coming up with a look that I could do on stage in 20 minutes, but didn’t let that stress me out because I knew I would have the support of so many people in the audience. Truly I am so grateful for the opportunity.
Me with Aveda Global Artistic Director of Hair Color Ian Michael Black
Even better than the Aveda Jam show was the “watch and learn” segment that just our group of students got to have with Ian Michael Black and Ricardo Dinis. Basically an “Inside the Actor’s Studio” for hair stylists, we got to watch Ricardo do a full cut and style and get industry insight from Ian Michael Black. This education was so good and “awakening” in terms of my career and passion that I started crying at the end. YES. You read that right. I started CRYING haha. I can’t say I’ve had a public or private cry in a long time so this surprised me. And of course this happened right before we took pictures as a group and with the Global Artists so my face looks swollen. Go figure, I’m an ugly crier but honestly, who cries pretty? One of my friends saw the picture I posted with Ian Michael Black (above) and told me that my face reminded her of Charlize Theron in the movie “Monster”. She meant it in the nicest way possible and we both laughed about it.
Anyways, this little Kansas City trip was such an incredible experience and I am so thankful I got to participate in it. I hope Aveda does another Jam here in Des Moines, and would suggest for anyone to attend this type of show since it is high energy, there’s a DJ and an open bar. It’s definitely a show not just for industry professionals!
In an era of balayage, ombre, color melt, stretched root madness, it’s nice to get a client who is ready to take their balayage to something else. Change. Is. Good! And with hair color, change doesn’t have to be permanent either. My client actually loved her balayage color but has had it for so long that she was wanting to see something different, but also kind of ‘scared’ she wouldn’t like it as much. I told her the fun thing about hair color is we can always change it back to where you started if it’s not your favorite. As long as you consider the integrity of your hair, go for change and try new things!
To change up this client’s sunkissed shade, we opted for a dark chocolate brunette color all over. What’s nice is the highlighted pieces capture the color a little lighter than her virgin (untreated) hair and so she already has dimension instead of being an all over solid shade. What do you think?
BEFORE
AFTER
“Bronde” and “Balayage” – ok spellcheck with tell you that neither is a real word in the English language but these are the terms you need to use if you want a hair color like the one below. Unless your hairstylist lives under a rock, they should know what you’re trying to achieve. And take this picture with you too.
Color by Lauren Caleb (yes I totally just referenced myself in the 3rd person).
