With the most guest friendly hair in years, the stars at the Grammys looked soft with volumes of beautiful, sexy, believable hair color that would make any guest happy. Red, brown or blonde, it was the subtle tone on tone whispers throughout the hair surrounded in glass like shine that left many dresses competing for the spot light. This year, haircolor didn't say, “Hello” before the stars did and highlights weren’t waving at us. Instead, it was simple elegance that captured our eye, the same beautiful hair color that inspires our guests everyday. Lets take a look at four of my favorites.

Florence Welch

I love Florence's red because it’s just about perfect for everyone that can be red - it’s red, but not too red or unnaturally red. You could use a demi like Colorance or permanents like Topchic MaxReds or Nectaya, or even a direct dye color like Elumen. As a colorist, I like having multiple ways to create success, and depending on the guest’s natural color and percentage of gray, there are so many options today. That’s why Florence gets my favorite red.

Faith Hill

Faith is class, elegance and beauty. In the past, she has veered from her signature “country” blonde to something edgier and it just didn't seem to work. This year was different. Instead of a bleach blonde choppy bob, faith went to the dark-side and it worked. It wasn’t lowlights, it was some highlights and a glaze on everything else and it was perfect. Not too light, not too dark, and next to Katy Perry she was still blonde, but at a distance she could be a very sexy brunette.  What’s great is it works either way and is beautiful everyday, just like it would be on many guests. If you have a guest that is unsure and doesn't have faith the color would look good, give them Faith and show them how good some depth can make them look.

Katy Perry

I loved how Renato Campora styled Katy Perry’s hair with KMS California products for the Grammys. Her hair shined like glass, yet had texture at the same time, something very hard to do. As a colorist, one way I love to do this is with chemistry, using color to close the cuticle and increase depth, richness and shine.  Here’s what you need - a 3.5 pH and ionically charged direct dye in natural tones. It closes the cuticle (3.5pH), deposits further into the cortex (ionic charge) and is available in 25+ intermixable colors from black, browns, blondes and reds to pink, blue, green, even turquoise and clear, and it’s called ELUMEN. When you have the right chemistry, magic happens.

Natalie La Rose

The look of the night goes to Natalie La Rose. When she showed up on the red carpet she owned everything, including Flo Rida.  Her hair was reminiscent of Chaka Khan, but the difference is, she wore this hair. It was a subtle color with strong undertones that spoke softly until the light hit her curls just right and then it was fire that just captivated your eye. This again, is where I would go with new technology - first add some Topchic MaxReds balayage highlights to illustrate the curls and then an Elumen RR@all overlay.

This year, the Grammys set the stage by asking the artists to hold themselves to a level of appropriateness. Now I am not a prude, but it was nice to be able to see a variety of artists in a context that the whole family could enjoy. This year, I felt the same about the hair color, there were no extremes or stripy looks (though Kelly Clarkson was a little blorandish), instead there were hair colors everyone in the family loved and wanted, and ultimately that’s how most of us make money, keeping the families in our communities looking beautiful. Let me know whose hair you loved!

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