how to get DUSTY VIOLET hair

this week we’re here with our client montana. it’s been over a year since her last appointment and she’s ready to change up her look.

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as you can see her hair is very long, and her color has become pretty faded, so today is gonna be a day of big change for her.

we’re going to start by taking off some of the length. we are going for a slightly longer variation on the classic LOB hairstyle. after that we’re going to be coloring her hair a DUSTY VIOLET / SILVER.

this style is going to be a big job and will require at least a double process lightener, that’s 2 sets of foils, and 2 sets of treatments. at times, it can even require more.

DAY ONE:

preliminary BULK CUT

we’ve got montana's hair all rubber-banded and we’re going to start by cutting off a large portion of the length. this way we won’t waste product or time on the hair that we’re going to cut off anyways.

the amount of hair we are taking off is pretty long, so montana hopes to donate it to locks of love or some similar charity.

now that montana has said goodbye to her length, we’re ready to make the first cut.

next, were gonna give her a bit of a rough cut for the layers to take out some of the bulk of the hair. this will also give us a good idea of where the haircut lays when we go to do her color correction.

as we cut, we are making sure to point cut her hair with the scissors pointing in the same direction as her hair. this will create a textured look and remove more of the bulk.

FIRST LIGHTENING

we’ve sectioned her hair into four sections according to how montana parts her hair. we’re going to use two techniques to do the ombre foil: BACKCOMBING and BABYLIGHTS. we’re going to start at the bottom back section.

visually choose how much dark and light you want to see in each section. the backcombing will create a diffused line from dark to light.

apply the lightener to the hair making sure the ends are COMPLETELY saturated. gently feather the lightener into the backcombed section with the brush parallel to the hair. this will really allow us to really create a diffused fade pattern from dark to light.

we want to STAGGER the amount of dark in each section by about 2 inches (i.e. first section - 1” of dark, second section - 3” of dark, third section - 5” of dark).

rotate through these staggered sections until the entire quadrant is complete. this will allow us to create an even more diffused fade line by breaking up the color. this pattern will be mirrored on the opposite side to create balance on both sides of the head.

we’re going to follow this same pattern moving all the way up to her occipital or ‘O-BONE’

now that we are at the occipital bone, on the top of the head, we are going to incorporate some BABY-LIGHTS to even further break up and diffuse the fade from dark to light.

to accomplish this, we are going to make a baby fine weave at the very top of each backcomb section. this will break up the back combing foils even more and give a very natural color transition.

once we have the baby-light sectioned, we are going to clip it up out of the way.

next we will continue with our backcombing foil. continuing with the same staggering pattern and rotating how much dark to leave.

we’re going to pull the baby-light down and FEATHER the lightener on. the baby-light will act as a veil to further diffuse the line from dark to light.

you’ll want to paint the lightener slightly closer to the root than the previous backcombed section. we are going to continue this pattern all the way to the top of the head. the front quadrants will be foiled this way as well.

here is the first set of foils completed, we’re going to give it some time to process.

so far so good. we’re gonna let it sit for about one hour total, and then we’ll wash out the foils. processing time will vary from person to person based on a number of things - condition, texture, color, history, etc.

with step one done, montana’s hair is a nice yellowy-orange color. next we are going to do a second set of foils, this time from front to back. by doing this we will even out the processing time.

make sure to paint every section as precisely as possible. montana’s hair needs two lightening processes in order to achieve the light blonde color we need. this step is to lighten the blonde for a second time. any dark that gets lightened at this stage will not lighten enough and will sit at the yellow stage we have her hair at now.

SECOND LIGHTENER

next we are going to section the hair into four parts once again and begin our foil process.

we’re applying the lightener to the previously lightened sections of hair, being VERY CAREFUL not to get any lightener on the dark portions that we want to keep, once again using a feathering technique with the brush parallel to the hair.

we are also going to add baby-lights to the back combed sections (front panels and above the o-bone in the back) as we did before. this will break the color up even further and create an even more diffused transition.

you want to make sure that you are picking through any of the portions of hair that are already light enough and pulling them out from the rest of the hair. it is important not to over process the hair, as that is unnecessary and will damage it.

with the second set of foils in, we’ve almost hit the 6 hour mark and montana is overjoyed that she is almost out of the chair with fabulous new hair. overjoyed and tired.

the second set of foils has almost finished processing. it’s looking great. we’re gonna let it finish processing and then wash it out.

once this has been done, we will be ready to move onto the the TONER

TONING the HAIR

this is how it looks BEFORE the TONER

with the TONER APPLIED

AFTER the first TONER

SECOND toner applied

AFTER the SECOND TONER and a quick blow dry. montana is getting tired and so are we we’re going to come back tomorrow and finish it up.

DAY 2:

we’re back at it on day 2 of montana’s journey to DUSTY VIOLET HAIR. she had a few sections that weren’t quite light enough, so we’ve gone ahead and applied lightener a third time to those specific pieces.

there were also a few spots that were slightly too warm, so we pulled her natural color up onto those sections so that they don’t peek through her finished hairstyle. use a light hand to feather the color on to ensure a diffused fade line.

the SMOKEY VIOLET COLOR

we tested out a few different COLOR SWATCHES

with her hair washed once again we’re ready to apply the SILVER PURPLE COLOR to her hair.

with the COLOR APPLIED

we are finally all done and montana is IN LOVE with her new locks and so are we!

the end result is a beautiful DUSTY VIOLET. it’s fabulous! it was a long process (2 days - 11 hours)  and a lot of work, but if you want these kind of results, you should NEVER RUSH PERFECTION.

you can get a cheat sheet for this hairstyle on our website. just click the picture above!

leave us a comment below and let us know what other styles you would like to see in the future, and don’t forget to like and subscribe @nvennhairbeauty on youtube, facebook, and instagram.