Photo Gallery 1 | Photo Gallery 2
     More than 450 colorists made the trip to downtown Chicago in October for the debut of Color America with Beth Minardi, a two-day interactive professional seminar co-hosted by Chicago Cosmetologists and MODERN SALON Media.
   The conversation was color, and everyone had something to say. "You are strangers today, but you'll get to know one another-you're the people who color America," predicted Minardi, whose intimate, no-nonsense communication style has made her the Oprah of hair color.
    Along with her salon team headed by husband Carmine and a select set of guest artists, Minardi demonstrated color makeovers on more than 40 live models. Each makeover featured a detailed analysis of formulas used, application techniques and trouble-shooting tips.
    Throughout the two-day session, audience members peppered platform artists with questions ranging from "How do I color relaxed hair?" to "How can I raise my prices?" A manufacturers' panel featuring CAm sponsors Farouk Systems, Keune and Redken 5th Avenue sparked an especially lively give-and-take, with audience members quizzing the manufacturers on everything from their pricing policies to product safety.
    The event kicked off with Team Minardi's makeovers, a series of looks created with every color line in the professional portfolio.
    The team-Shannon Briggs, Thomas Elrnlund, Tammy Lairnos, Mark Miletti, Paula Murray, Myrian Touma and Stephen Wang-devoted special attention to dimensional color, with Minardi's signature "color crossing," "railroad track" and "over the top" application techniques.
    The Color America Dream Team followed the same formula-and-application format. Each team member-Nancy Braun of Bhava Salon in Los Angeles; Chris Capasso of Salon 5 and Spa in New York; Charles Dudley of the Charles David Salon in Boston; Gary Harlan of Ncolor in Naples, Florida; Ronnie Sullivan of True Colors Hair Colour Studio in Boston and Kim Whitehurst of Strands in Washington, D.C.-shared a particular color specialty.
    Braun concentrated on baliage, showing how a disciplined technique yields great results on challenging hair textures. Capasso created dramatic reds by layering shade on shade through depositing tint, glazing and toning, while Dudley used dimensional coloring techniques, including lightener highlights and demipermanent lowlights, to correct flat, grown-out tones.
    Whitehurst also explored corrective color, breaking the base on relaxed hair to remove toobright shades and injecting golden highlights.
    Harlan went for pure tones in red, caramel and gold. Sullivan's approach was to build pigment back into overly highlighted and porous hair with hue-balanced formulas.
    On the second day, individual guest artists offered live-model presentations of their salons' color philosophies. DJ Freed of Atlanta's Key Lime Pie used the color variations she observed in bantam chickens as a stepping-off point for inspirational color combinations. In one design, a Plymouth Rock hen inspired a "barred hair color" technique.
    Carolyn Newman, color director of the Charles Worthington salon in London, outlined Worthington?s consultation system and presented the salon's fall trend. She demonstrated the trend?s key technique,