Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. In today's video, I wanted to give you
a brief explanation of color levels and color tones and go over
a little bit of color theory in hair so that you can determine
what color is both right for you and whether that color is achievable
with your hair type and hair color. So I did a video similar to this years ago
but it was very technical and very long and I still get a lot of questions, so I figured, I wanted to really give
you more even in-depth information but really keeping it simple and basic, so that even if you're not a hair dresser,
you still understand this a little bit more. So I just wanna start off
with a very basic color level chart. So this is the darkest,
which is basically a Black and this is a blonde. Now some coloring brands work
on a 1 to 10 level. Some companies go from
like 2 to 12, it doesn't matter because the range of colors
is still the same, obviously. So the first thing that you really need
to understand about hair, if you're even thinking about
changing your hair color is the level and the level
is the most important thing. And a lot of people will say tone
when they mean level and a lot of people will say color
or hue or darkness or any of that. But level just means how light
or how dark the hair is. This doesn't mean what kind of tone whether it's gold, whether it's ashy,
whether it's blue, whether it's purple, whether it's red,
level doesn't say any of that. So basically, if you imagine
the darkest level of hair color, if I were to put say a green color over that,
is that gonna show? No. It's not. And that answers a lot of question
of a lot of girls that come in with dark hair and want, you know, pastels
or, you know, just like really bright colors and when I tell them you have to bleach
your hair first, they don't understand. They're like, "Why, why can't you
just put the pastel color on?" Because if I were to take a blue marker and, you know, color over that
you're not gonna see that because it's a dark canvas. We need to bleach it and brighten the
canvas up, so that, that color can actually show. So that's one of the most asked questions. Now we're jumping into tone. And a lot of people will say like "I hate
the tone of my hair, I wanna be lighter." Then that means you don't like the level
of your hair not the tone of your hair. Because like I said all of our hair
is one of these levels. Everyone on earth, their hair
is one of these levels. So basically, my hair down here
is about a level 10 and the darkest pieces are about the level 6. So the other thing is when people say like, "My hair is brown and I want it to be ashy." Again, ash is like imagine like
a violety almost greenish tint, again, if I were to put a green marker
over that is that going to show? Not really. So that's another thing that I explained
to clients when they want this color, super gorgeous and really ashy color. But this color actually is,
is you have to bleach to about here and then put in that super ashy color and it almost deepens you up,
so you're kind of back at that level but you're much ashier
because you have that light base that we can add that ash to. The way I like to imagine this
color chart is again, this is the levels and then on the top and the bottom
for each color, there is tone. So let's just imagine
that the whole top section is gold, the whole bottom section is ashy. And then what you see here
is the neutral form of each level. But the main thing
that I want you guys to understand is, in order to really get ash into the hair, you kind of have to be in this range here. You have to be like a level 7 or lighter
for us to really add Ash into that color. Because naturally, these colors on-- if
you look at them, like on the color wheel, these colors, their main color to make up
this rich intense dark colors, is red. So if you're stripping the dark out,
what's first going to be exposed is the reddish and orangish kind of tones. So a lot of times when people like "My hair just
like always fades to this really orangy tone." Not if you go to here because if
you're blonde and the hair is bright that hair can't-- it's not gonna go back ever. But it will go back to its original tone and technically there should be a gold,
a neutral and an ash for each level. But again on something as dark as this,
there's not gonna be a cool version of this and a dark version of this, it's just so dark. And the same thing goes all the way
kind of up until about a level 5ish. So from then on, then you have
a little bit more range and you can, you know, be a 7 gold
or a 7 ash or an 8 gold or an 8 ash. And the point of this video is hopefully, not to bore you
with all of this color theory; and if you're not a hairdresser, this
probably sounds like a different language but I'm really trying to simplify it
as much as I absolutely can, not that you need to learn this
but it makes it so much more helpful, when there's a color that you want
and you can't seem to get there. Hopefully, this will answer
a lot of those questions and you yourself can determine,
"Yes, I can actually get there" or "No, that's that is what I thought,
I wanted that, doesn't exist." And now probably for the last and most crucial part as me being
a blonde specialist. Obviously, I lighten a lot of hair
that's in this range, that want to be here. So normally, color specialists will
lift you 1 to 2 colors maybe and either again change the tone,
maybe make you extra gold, maybe make you extra ashy. That's what a color specialist is,
is really creating these sort of colors but not necessarily jumping from here
to here or here to here. The blonde specialist, we take you from the beginning
part of this color chart to the end. And that is the trickiest thing
you can do with hair because obviously it involves a lot of science and it involves a lot of risk,
which is obviously the scary part. So if someone comes in
with say, level 5 hair, technically, I don't care
how amazing that bleach is, normally, you can only lift 3
to 4 levels in one session and that's with the most amazing bleach, the most amazing add-on such as Olaplex
or Redken's pH-Bonder and most of all the hair needs
to be healthy from the start. This is in the best possible situation. So you're coming with healthy hair and we're using a pH bonder in the hair, meaning that we can go
a lot stronger with the bleach and your hair is still going to be healthy. So even doing all of that, like I said,
we can still only jump 3 maybe 4 levels. So this is why if you come in with say, this
level hair, you can't get there in one day. No, I mean, unless the hairdresser does
multiple bonding sessions in one day, which is really not advisable and can completely damage your hair
to like its melting point. Say you are coming in with hair
that's already pretty fatigued, you've already had a few
bleaching sessions and say you're about here, if your hair
is dry, damaged and brittle, we really have to go lower on the developer, which means you're going to get even less lift, which means less range on this color chart. So maybe we can only do
10 volume or 20 volume, which is only going to give you 1 level
of lift, maybe two levels of lift. Doing 2 levels of lift and then with a toner you're not going to notice much difference and this is where it becomes really frustrating, with clients that don't have necessarily
healthy hair but do want to become blonde. Now that is not to say
that you can't ever get there, it just means that before
you go on with the coloring sessions, you really need to heal your hair. So obviously, if your hair is already
a little bit compromised, absolutely don't get your hair bleached
without Olaplex, without a pH-Bonder, it really is the insurance for your hair. Because I can't stress enough how amazing and beautiful
blonde hair will look on healthy hair. Because you can get someone
from here maybe to here in one day and get them really blonde but if their hair is straw and dry and damaged like, it is not going to look pretty and it's not even going to look
like it's the level it actually is. So in order to really have
that bright gorgeous buttery blonde hair, the hair needs to be healthy first. And now aside from what
you can get done in the salon, there's definitely homework
you can be doing at home before even going into a color appointment. And that starts with using
good healing hair products at home. You guys have heard me talk
about this countless times but I can't stress how important
it is to really heal your hair. And as you guys know, until today,
as a hairdresser for all the products I have ever tried, nothing has ever
healed hair as well as the Monat system. I can't tell you how many clients
have come in with dry damaged hair that I wasn't even able to work on, I send them home, I ask them
to get on a Monat regimen and 4 to 6 weeks later, they come back and we are able to get their
hair finally to their dream color. Even when I have one of those days
that I have to turn away a client because there's nothing
I can do on their hair, trust me, it's just as sad for me as it is for you guys, A: I'm not making money
and B: I'm not doing my duty, I'm not giving you your dream hair and that's obviously, a terrible, terrible feeling. But I promise you that
when your hair is healthy, you're gonna love your hair and
that new color so much more. So guys do your homework. I hope that this little color chart and
this little explanation has helped. I love you all so so much. Thank you so much for watching
and I'll see you in the next video, bye.
