At the recent Professional Beauty World online event, South African salon owner and stylist, Candice McKay, presented an in-depth tutorial on how to treat regrowth on post lockdown hair.
McKay, who is the founder/ owner of Wyatt Hairdressing & Barbering in Milpark, Johannesburg, said: “We all have similar kinds of clients now who have come in after lockdown with masses of regrowth and they want to change their hair. I’m going to explain how I worked on a client who had very typically grown out roots from a full bleach, and turned the hair colour into a more natural look.
“So, how do we phase our clients from a full bleach with massive regrowth into something that looks more natural? I first started by doing a global application of Davines Century of Light, Tolerance and Progress, mixed together with a 20 balm. After doing a virgin application, I did the roots. Everything was timed for a full 25 minutes.
“From there, I did a really specific kind of toning technique, as the universal bleach leaves you with a very warm result and I wanted to tone it down to make the colour more natural. I divided up the hair into sections. First the hair line – about one to two fingers of space through the sides just to the tip of the ear on either side. And from the top point of the recession line, I did zig-zag sections through the back. The highest point of the zig-zags is what will give the colour depth. ”
McKay used a mix of Davines Demi-Permanent colours in order to get a cool result, working at an 8-base to achieve ‘that beautiful German or Nordic looking blonde that is in between ash and natural’. She used 20 grams of 732, 20 grams of a 721 and 40 grams of developer.
“I painted this mixture onto the hair in broad sections as the product distributes very evenly and easily,” she said. “What I love about this technique is that it allows me to do what looks like a far more complicated service in a very short amount of time, because while it is processing, I can do the balayage (i.e. free hand painting) through the top. So it limits the amount of time you have to spend with the client and also reduces the amount of time of potential exposure to the coronavirus. Some clients are still a little more hesitant to come into the salon, so this way they will feel far more comfortable. It is also great at this time to have a quick service that we can offer our clients with maximum efficiency.
“We’ve all been under lockdown for quite a while so we need to come up with really smart, innovative ways to create interesting colours that aren’t going to take up a lot of time. I’ve noticed that some clients have been retrenched due to the pandemic, while others now have reduced incomes. So this technique is a great way to create a really beautiful colour effect that is affordable.”
To apply the Davines Demi-Permanent colours, McKay moved the brush backwards and forwards over the sectioned strands of hair to get really good saturation, and also massaged it in with her fingers. To do the balayage treatment, she used Davines Liberty, which is a hand painting clay.
“While the toner will turn the hair into a natural ash, the balayage sections at the top will tone into a slightly warmer colour. The contrast between the two makes the whole head of hair incredibly natural looking,” noted McKay.
To view Candice McKay’s full colour correction after lockdown tutorial click here.