Here's my recent corrective color from hell she was a mixture of orange and yellow when I got her. The 16 year old wanted her blonde hair darker. The original salon did a good job. Retouch turned red faded to orange. Salon 2 highlighted the crap out of it. So it's yellow and orange, salon 3 did a bleach cap. Now lighter orange and yellow. I foiled level 8 neutral through her thick hair on as many orange bits as was possible. Explaining to her mother (the problem) I couldn't turn the clock back and she would still find orange if she looked for it. Here's the long story of our texts!
Mom:
xxxxxx hair still has a lot of orange in it and there are a few strands that are completely bleached out where it was highlighted before. Is there something you can do for this?
Me:
As we discussed you will still find some orange in xxxxxx hair if u look for it. Let it settle for at least a week and let everyone's eyes adjust to the new color. She looks great and I'm confident it will continue to soften. Her hair has been through a lot and needs to rest. She should continue to use the Joico k-pak products, be sure and leave the regular conditioner on for 3-5 min every time it's washed. Again we can't completely turn the clock back but I'm sure she's getting lots of compliments on her new look. Let's wait at least 2-3 weeks and go from there. I wouldn't recommend any further services until after that.
Mom:
Okay. She hasn't washed it yet and it is a little oily and the Orange shows up worse when it is oily. There is quite a bit of orange still yet just below the crown in the back. That was where most of it was to begin with.
Me:
That makes sense. I remember when my hair was the color of paprika I saw orange after it was all cut out! Lol. It was so nice to see her so happy. Keep me posted.
Next day mom sent pic:
Me: Looks great!
Mom:
This is xxxxxxx hair after one shampoo. There is still too much orange and the highlights are too bleached out. It is even worse in person than the picture. Something different needs to be done. It looked okay at first. I don't know what happened. The beige blond color has already went away. I can't tell any difference in it.
Me:
Can she come by 1:30 Wednesday? We'll have to go a lot darker. Repeated bleaching is why color lightened.
Mom:
Ok, we don't want to go much darker. I love a beige blonde color, but we will come by Wednesday at 1:30.
Me:
We'll have to talk about it then. If it's not staying we may have to go darker and let it fade.
Mom:
Ok, we will see you Wednesday.
Me:
I've shown the picture to two of my colleagues at the shop who saw xxxxxx before. They're amazed at how much I was able to correct considering the 3 previous services and damage. They agree that further treatments may result in the hair grabbing a drab, dark color. Again we can't turn back time. And as I explained, you will see some orange in her hair if you look for it. The only choice is to live with it and let her natural hair grow out or risk having an undesired result with another color service. The next color would have to be all over and as darker or darker than the lowlights. I believe your daughter will hate it. We can only do so much with previously ruined hair. It's definitely an improvement over what it was when she came in. My recommendation is to leave it alone and focus on something else.
Mom:
I never saw your colleagues even looking at her. One definitely didn't and the other one came in there after you were already working on her. They didn't look toward us and if they did a glance wouldn't have given them enough info about her hair. I'm her mother and I am around her all the time and I know what it looked like. No, I am not only focusing on her hair. I have a lot of other things to focus on right now. I just had an abnormal mammogram and have to go for further testing and that had gotten me worried to death and when you tell me your colleagues know more about what' my daughter's hair looked lile Than I do, that makes me sick because they don't.
Me:
My colleagues knew that I had a corrective color coming in. Although no one said anything to you, we all could see the yellow highlights with the orange bits. If anything they might not have seen how orange it was. But it was still a mess. The bottom line is after further consideration it would go against my professional experience and knowledge of over 35 years to risk damage and an undesired result to do anything further to xxxxxxx hair. I wish you all the very best.
Mom:
Well her hair is like it was when I brought her in there and I know because I am her mother. Like I said how is a little glance going to tell them anything about someone's hair. They were both working on someone else's hair and talking constantly. She was sitting by the door where they couldn't even see her. You just don't want to correct it and using this as an excuse.
Me:
Again:
The bottom line is after further consideration it would go against my professional experience and knowledge of over 35 years to risk damage and an undesired result to do anything further to xxxxxxx hair. I wish you all the very best.
Mom:
Ok, you need to give us a refund then so I can afford to take her to someone else who does know how to fix it. Maybe you are not as professional as you think . A professional would not charge someone that much money to fix their hair and then come up with all these excuses to not correct their mistake.
Me:
As I explained before there are no guarantees with corrective color. Her hair was chemically treated 3 times, twice by bleach before I got to it. I worked on her hair for over three hours. My service was excellent, evident by how you all liked it. We can't turn back time as I explained over the phone and in person. I don't recommend further treatment. It still looks 100% better.
Mom:
I thought you were a color correction specialist and that you would be able to correct it. Like I said you can't tell much about someone's hair by just a glance. It did look good in your salon but as soon as we left, I noticed there was still quite a bit of orange and several streaks that were completely bleached out. You said yourself you may have to put a toner on the blonde streaks and you didn't, but you should have. You contradict yourself. You said if it faded too much after 2 weeks, you would do it over. You also said the color you used was gentle and wouldn't damage hair. Now, you are saying totally opposite of everything you told us. I don't understand. I know you worked a long time. You knew she had a lot of hair.
Me: (if I choose to send this one. )
I am very concerned for your daughter's hair. If the color faded after one shampooing like you said, it's an indication that her hair is so over processed from being double bleached (from the previous excessive highlighting and bleach cap) that her hair will either not hold color at all or could easily grab unwanted tones like green and grey, as you were told by one of the 3 previous hair stylist that worked on xxxxxx hair. Since the lowlight formula is stronger than a toner, toning would have not changed any of the result. Had her color lasted for at least a week, recoloring might have been an option. Which is why I said if it fades AFTER 1-2 weeks rather than after the first shampoo. Although the color is gentle it's still a chemical. Further chemical treatments are not likely to be anymore successful. She's received the best color result her hair is capable of achieving. Again the clock can't be turned back. I understand your frustration but doing anything else to her hair could be disastrous. Only time and patience will permanently fix this. Shampooing with pigmented shampoos could be an option but that would depend on the product. Ulta carries several products of this type. They would have to make a recommendation on whether that type of product should be used or not. It may not be what you're hoping for but it's the reality of damaged hair. There are some things that simply can't be corrected.
Keep in mind: (From xxxxxx)
Your client has created a mess! You can help, but keep in mind that once a steak is well-done, you can’t make it medium rare. Also remember that you are not a magician. Start by explaining to your client that this situation is not going to simply go away after one appointment. Let her know that too much chemical exposure will cause breakage and hair loss.
