When Lindsay Lohan decided to go from a dark brown to a summery blonde, she contacted her favorite colorist Geroge Papanikolas, Joico Celebrity colorist and color star at the Andy Lecompte Salon of West Hollywood.

 I met with George at Smashbox Studios in Culver City this week for a photo shoot and he gave us an exclusive interview and behind the scenes insight into the 9 hour color journey.

"This is a major process," he says. "It's probably a colorists worst nightmare. A lot of things can go wrong. The client must know beforehand what is going to happen and have a realistic expectation.

"Whenever I do a drastic color change, I start with a color remover to gently remove as much of the pigment as possible," he says. "For Lindsay, I followed with a bleaching agent about three times to lift her to a yellow-y orange. I then covered with a demi perm Vero K-PAK color N8 for a nice butterscotch tone. For baliage highlights I used Vero Light Bleach with 40 volume in a heavy application focused around the crown and face." George points out that a colorist must condition throughout the process and finish with a conditioning treatment. He uses Joico's K PAK Deep Penetrating Reconstructor.

When asked several times about hair extensions, it was clear George was not willing to discuss whether they were or were not used….but let's face it.... they are in there somewhere.

Most importantly, no matter HOW they got there, the results are beautiful.

"She loved it!" says George. "We were all shocked with how pretty it came out. It stayed on her head!"

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