Chameleon Color: Fashion Colors Fade to Natural Color Melt for Two Looks in One

Keeping fashion colors vibrant is an ongoing battle – but what if instead of fighting it, we embraced the fade?

Alix Maya Clymer (@thereal_omgiloveyourhair), an artist at Shear Image Salon, Woodbridge, VA, caught our eye with two haircolor looks side-by-side, shared on Instagram. One look featured vivid shades of red and yellow, and the other presented a heavily highlighted look. The shock came when we read her caption: “First I lay out a sick foundation and then I lay down some fresh color…when the fashion color fades the first image emerges!”

Clymer calls the technique the Organic Mathematics Method. First she lays down the natural color melt look as the foundation. 

HOW-TO:

1. Using J Beverly Hills Colour, deepen the base with 4.8 with 10 vol, working your way down the hair shaft

2. Next, jump to a 6.22 with 20 vol

3. Then, 11.22 with 30 vol

4. Finally, apply 12.222 with 40 vol to complete her "OM" foundation color melt

Next, she created the fashion color fusion on top of the foundation. She used Pravana Neon Green, J Beverly Hills Sangria, and Manic Panic Pretty Flamingo. 

With this method, as the fashion color fades it reverts back to the "OM" and beautifully blended, natural-looking hair emerges. 

“This double process leaves my guests with a fluid transitional color that allows them to stay out of the salon for a couple months and only come back because they want to, NOT because they have to,” says Clymer. “I love this process I've developed because it keeps my guests’ hair healthy, they are genuinely happier and they feel as though the final product allows them the freedom to enjoy their hair as they should.”

And the best thing about this technique? It does not require bleach to achieve vivid fashion colors, so the client’s hair remains healthy and undamaged.

“Everyone that knows my work, knows I'm NOT a fan of using bleach,” says Clymer, “so I set out to find a way to get around it when possible and presto – the "Organic Mathematics Method" was born! This method is now being used by members of The Unicorn Tribe (which I am the founder of) across the country with ease and excitement!”

Clymer’s Unicorn Tribe is “a collective of likeminded artists including colorists, cutters, barbers, graffiti artists, painters, dancers and spoken word artists who are coming together to usher in a new way of being in the ARTS. The collective is comprised of an extraordinarily talented and communicative group of artists, willing and ready to teach my new methods and their own to the world.”