Reverse balayage didn't turn out how I thought-help

[Hair help!]

Hi,
I am a qualified hairdresser with little experience, and lack the confidence in colour choice. I'm using Wella.

I recently was asked to do a reverse balayage on my mother in law. She has resistant grey about 90% and brassy base 9 colour with warm high/low lights through.

I decided to use 10/16 to rid the brassiness of the blonde using 6% and the darker colour I wanted to run through her hair and root area to be a warm brown. I'd previously used 6/73 before so thought I'd use this. As she has resistant grey roots I knew I would need to use 66/0 to cover. Last minute I decided 66/0 would be too dark and bought 77/0 for the roots. I was worried about the roots not looking as warm as the mid shaft so thought I'd mix a little 6/73 to my root formula. The mid shaft area I used half and half 77/0 and 6/73. Both using 6%

The blonde colours to the ends looked fabulous, really came out nice. The roots on the other hand came out darker and warmer than the mid shaft. The midshaft looked maybe one shade darker, and really shocked me! Don't understand why it didn't take as well as the roots. I wish I'd left the warmth out of the roots completely too.

Any advice on where I went wrong? Also how would you go about rectifying? Thanks

 

[SalonInfoNeeded]

So my understanding is that you did a base, melted the roots and toned the ends, using all permanent color. You didn't state how much of her natural was grown out.

You stated these end results:
Dark & warm base even though you chose to use mostly a level 7 which is a fairly light brunette.
Mid shaft was not as dark as base.
Ends turned out ashy and favorable.

Note: Ashy bases look better with ashy ends. A warm base and mids and a 10/16 on the ends...the contrast of warm to cool will make the warmth stand out even more.

These are possible reasons for your end result:

Base: The first inch or so of hair is exposed to much more warmth from the body than the following few inches. This was probably applied first and stayed on longer and heated up more than the mids and ends. You also used a double pigment (77/0) versus a single pigment (7/0) and those tend to turn out inkier than a single pigment. I see your concern about adding warmth however the pigment in the 77/0 should give enough gold already so you don't need to add more. So you should try 77/0+20vol next time if you are happy keeping her at a level 7.

Midshaft: For the mid did it have gray too? Im assuming so because you chose to use permanent colors and a 20vol. Once again the extra pigment in the 77/0 is going to overpower the 6/73. The lightness of the level 7 is going to make the end result a very soft level 6. Did it cover or blend the grays at least? This is the hardest one to understand because I don't know what you covered over.

The ends: I would be careful about using 20vol on porous, prelightened ends. It is very shocking to the hair and can really drive unnecessary pigment into the cuticle and lead to color corrections in the future. Next time I would recommend that if you have no choice but to use permanent color (ie 10/16) then I would use Pastel developer which drops the ammonia content of the permanent dye and turns it into a toner. So for example your formula would be 10/16(1 part)+pastel developer (2 parts). What would be an even better option than that is to tone with Wella Color Touch gloss 9/16(10gram)+10/6(10g)+10/81(10g)+1.9% color touch developer.