Broken and Banded To Hot Blonde

“I call this one my OMG transformation,” says Janel Latessa (@hairbyjanellatessa) of JL Hair Artistry, Mayfield Heights, Ohio. “She lives in West Virginia and called a few months ago for help with bad breakage and a horrible color experience. She found me on Pinterest and was willing to take the three-hour drive for a blonde specialist. That was so cool- a first because most say Instagram.” 

Latessa points out that this was a clear color correction. “She was a bleach and tone for 20 year, had dark underneath and lowlights at one point. Now we are on our way to a bright blonde foilayage.” In this case Latessa needed to take small sections in what she points out was tedious to prevent overlapping and leaving out broken sections. “Small sections are essential because you need extreme lift and saturation to achieve a white blonde. If the sections are too large, brass and uneven saturation is possible.”

Here Latessa shares the details for the makeover:

STEP 1: Start in lower back hairline by taking baby fine weaves in small sections. Color used: Fanola No Yellow lightener with 20 volume, with N1 bond builder added. 

STEP 2:  Save the face frame for last to prevent over-processing and breakage. A power highlight, or glam highlight is placed at the front in three back to back foils. Foils: Product Club foil roller. “It’s essential so you can cut different lengths.” For this application, Latessa says, “I mainly wanted to touch up her root and open-air paint lightener to open the cuticle for the last 5 minutes. This helps for toner to be applied and colored evenly since she had old lightener.”

STEP 3: At the shampoo bowl, remove each foil separately and blend up lightener between your pointer and middle finger to lift some old yellow banding. 

STEP 4: Pre-tone with the Fanola No Orange shampoo for five minutes. Towel dry the hair.

STEP 5: Tone with Lakmé Pearl/0/00 for 5 minutes. Finished with the bond perfecter mask. Lots of keratin and bond builder was used in these 4 hours!

“We pre-booked her and she was so happy. I said one more color session she will be to my blonde perfection!"