In a special shoot – produced in partnership with Wella Professionals – Creative HEAD and colourist Robert Eaton reveal how you can elevate grey, textured hair with careful colour placement.
“I’ve been grey for about 14 years now. When I turned 50, I decided I wanted to learn to swim and at the time, I was perming and dying my hair. I just couldn’t continue to do it and so I went to a barbers and asked them to chop the lot off!“I didn’t realise how grey I was – it was a bit of a shock to begin with. But I got used to it and as time went on, I grew to really, truly love it. A lot of my friends said to me at the time: ‘Going grey will make you look old!’ But I just thought, I am getting older and I actually don’t care. I’m absolutely empowered by it!
“Now, I get compliments all the time. In fact, a few weeks ago a couple of school girls came up to me and said ‘We really like your look and we really love your hair!’ It’s so nice to hear and it makes such a difference. So yeah, it’s here to stay and I’m rocking it!”
Look closely, and you’ll soon discover that there’s also no real ‘perfect’ natural grey, no blank canvas. Patchiness, brassy areas and yellow-tinged ends often intersect and need your helping hand to be harmonised, conditioned, blended and beautified.“Gloria is a perfect example of the type of client True Grey is designed for,” Robert explains. “With her hair, it’s all about condition because of the the natural dryness of the Afro hair texture combined with the coarser nature of grey strands.
“Clients that match Gloria’s hair profile have probably always been a bit nervous about hair colour,” adds Robert.
“Gloria had grown her hair out and she was very apprehensive about whether she’d enter the colour market again, so this treatment was perfect for her.
“As well as enhancing the grey shades, it’s built the substance of the hair back up again, made it feel stronger, thicker and healthier.
But it’s also brightened the hair at the same time; natural textured hair is often very difficult to create shine on, so a treatment like this that tones and conditions is perfect for achieving that.
“During the consultation with Gloria, it was very much about understanding the pattern of greys in her hair. She had got this great halo of brighter, lighter colour that surrounded her face and what we wanted to do was enhance that, but also add depth back to the rest of the hair as well.
“A salt and pepper look can sometimes look a bit washed out and a bit too uniform due to the reduced pigment levels throughout the hair. What this True Grey blending service did was to make sure we put some pigment back into the remainder of the hair and helped to strengthen it structurally. Then we brightened that natural face-frame with a shimmering, brighter colour around the hairline.
“I think it’s worked brilliantly because it’s definitely given her look much more substance and more strength.”
