Gray hair occurs because the production of the melanin pigment within the hair's cortex is no longer produced.
There are different approaches to coloring gray hair, depending on where the gray is located on the head as well as the percentage of gray present.
Remember it is possible to disguise the grays by low lighting, highlighting, painting or all over color. When deciding what formulation to use to cover gray hair, it is important to do the following:
1) Identify the natural hair color of the client's hair. Always use a natural base when re-pigmenting the gray hair. Another base (depending on desired shade) can be used along with the natural base.
For example, you may use medium brown with light drabber to counteract the warm tones. You must experiment with proportions of drabber hair color to the natural tones to determine how much drabber hair color to use. It is safe to begin with three parts natural tone to one part drabber and then go from there. If the hair is still too warm, the next time you color the hair try increasing your drabber one more part, making it equal parts drabber to natural tone. The light drabber hair color is a violet base and will not give as much red coverage as the dark drabber. We usually use dark drabber with dark brown or black.
2) As a general rule, always formulate one hair color shade darker than the natural hair color when there is predominately gray hair present.
3) Identify the amount of gray hair in proportion to their age.
4) Is the client comfortable with gray? If they are not, what kinds of commitment are they willing to make to maintain the color you would apply? This includes cost and frequency of color application.
5) Discuss what natural undertones would show up when covering the grays and which approach in coloring would best suit the client.
When using EcoColors hair colors on gray hair, we recommend using minimum 1 bottle for gray coverage application. After mixing the appropriate hair color formulation, apply the hair color by heavily saturating the gray hair shafts with hair color.
Apply cotton around the forehead; cap and heat for the first 5 minutes to further open the grays. Then process the hair, cover with a hair cap and leave the hair color to process for the remaining 30 minutes and with no heat. For resistant gray hair allow the hair color to process for 40 minutes.
To order EcoColors Professional Hair Colors, it is simple, register your account with your cosmetology license number, and then contact us to activate your wholesale professional account. It will be instantly activated.
