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How To: Blah Brunette to Radiant Red Before and After

Colorist Megan Allen takes her client from a box color brunette to a beautiful, radiant red.

Alison Alhamed
Alison AlhamedEditor in Chief, MODERN SALON
Read Alison's Posts
October 14, 2013
2 min to read


Thanks to MODERN Facebook fan Megan Allen, a colorist from Smithfield, North Carolina, who works in a "small-town salon" Salon 29:11.

"This is my client Emily--she needed some professional hair rescue and wanted to get away from box!" Allen says. "With some great color and a good hair cut that's just what I gave her!"

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Her client's hair had variations of reds with dark browns on the bottom so Allen created one shade of gorgeous red and with brown on the bottom and a few honey highlights underneath her part.

Step 1:

To create the red, she used 2 oz. of Joico 5RM and 2 oz. of 10-volume developer.

For the bottom, she used 2 oz. of Joico 5B and 2 oz. of 10-volume developer.

"I separated the two colors and applied the red first on the new growth and the applied the brown on the bottom to the new growth," she says.

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Time processed: 25 minutes

"Next, I pulled the color through the ends starting with the red and then the brown. I processed the ends for 15 minutes. I then shampooed and conditioned the hair very well using Joico K-PAK.

Step 2:

For the blonde, she used 1 scoop of Joico Vero Blue lightener with 20-volume developer.

"I then parted the hair in a horseshoe parting so that the highlights would stay underneath her natural hair parting. I did two foils on each side and three down the back. I processed without heat for about 20 minutes then shampooed and conditioned the hair."

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Step 3:

I styled her hair using a 1" curling iron to give it soft waves and to show off her highlights!

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