MORPHIC Mugshot: N's Beachy Ombre

BEACHY SURFER BABES?

Here in San Francisco, I have a whole crew of beachy surfer babes! After all that wind and salt water, they usually come in with some fairly thrashed hair that needs serious care. But with Morphic's fabulous help, N. is enjoying the best hair that she has had in a long time! The ombre is working perfectly! She loves being darker but feels that she needs the light as well. It gives her some blond, without needing too frequent touch-ups, so her hair stays protected. It's the ying and yang of hair care!

This session, we did a tint touch up, toner/glossing, my deep conditioning L’oreal Professionel Power Dose, along with a healthy cut.  Voila! 

MORPHIC Mugshot: LA's Sunkissed Strands

It takes years and years to fully understand the product I work with.  And just when that happens, everything changes! The technology changes! 

I'm adjusting to new bleach! Again! These new hair coloring products have completely different consistency, application, and rinsing times. In just the last 2 years, my entire line of L’Oreal Professional hair color has been relaunched and upgraded. In my biased opinion, my clients are getting the best hair color and skill available!

Here’s an example of one of my recent morphings. L came in with a recent cut (done somewhere else). To lighten things up, I did a nice ‘n natural, subtle, sunkissed, ombre, balayage highlight. It really adds movement to the pre-existing cut! Lovely! 

MORPHIC Mugshot: J's Mila Kunis inspired look

Clients often come in looking for a subtle highlight. After a bad experience with standard foiled highlights (a stripy unnatural look), they are attracted to the natural and subtle look of balayage highlights. I get a lot of scared, nervous clients, afraid of the change being too drastic. 

Not to worry! I have a look that will give you a boost without the shock!

J's hair is inspired by Mila Kunis, our token brunette balayage ombre babe. It looks great! 

MORPHIC Mugshot: L's Lavender Ombre

When L first emailed about the hair color she was looking, for I knew it would end up being the most epic hair coloring job I had ever done! In the end, it took more then double the longest amount of time I had ever spent on one person- topping out at 18 hours of hard hair! 

L is stoked on her new purple locks, and I’m so proud of them too! Check out our process! 

L had epic, beautiful, long, thick, and virgin hair in the first place. I started out doing a virgin tint to achieve the plum/eggplant color using 4.20 L’Oreal Iona color  I pulled the color through about half way down her hair, since I wanted to go back in and balayage highlight her hair into an ombre with more ease. 

After that it was bleach time!

I used my L’Oreal Platinum Plus lightener and took thin sections to balayage. Then it was heat time.  We rinsed and got the highlights to a level 8/7.  It was still pretty brassy, so we did some test strands with the finial Pervana ChromaSilk color and concluded that it was not light enough and would need a second round of ombre balayage. The results after this were much better, but L's hair was definitely pushed to the limits!

I used my Fiberceutic emergency hair conditioning treatment to stop any breakage from occurring, and  gave her hair a quick trim. L's hair was still in good condition, but it needed a rest  At this point we had been doing her hair for 11 hours straight! We rescheduled a second appointment to do the magenta/lavender/lilac part of the ombre.

For the follow up appointment, I did a straight tint over the highlighted parts of L's hair, starting with the magenta. Then, I blended the color into the lavender/ lilac color.  I spent so much time taking small sections and being sure to saturate the hair as well as I could, blending the color on her hair to create a nice transitional ombre.  We rinsed and dried to discover that her mid shaft was still not where it needed to be.  It looked a little mauve.  Argh...

The lesson learned was this: the more I rubbed to saturate the highlight, the less it stuck.  So, we set another appointment to specifically address the mid section of L's hair.  This time we used another mid toned shade of magenta and lavender.  And, it worked.  One of the ironic things about L's hair was that in the rinsing, the ends of her hair became more lavender/ lilac.  So I think that the darker color at the top rinsing through the ends will fade better because it refreshes the ends a little.  Cool.

The brighter color I used to get the medium magenta purple is 1/2 Wild Orchid + 1/2 Lavender.  The lighter color I used is 7/8 Lavender + 1/8 Wild Orchid (without the orchid it looked a little grey).  All product used to create the cool color is Pervana ChromaSilk.

And...

Isn't it fabulous! So much work, but definitely worth it for something so dramatic!

I can't believe it! 

MORPHIC Mugshot: Tuesday Braid Model

I always love a change to practice braiding! 

I have been developing my hair braiding skills for more then a few years.  That's how I met Brenda the Braider! In a hair braiding class! I used to get in touch with her every couple years just to get another one-on-one lesson and refresh my braiding skills, but since Park(ing) Day 2012, Brenda has been here in the Morphic studio a couple times a month braiding it up and teaching me on the side! 

I've learned that it's one of those skills where if I don’t use it, I lose it.  It really didn't sink in until this past year, when I opened up my schedule for a weekly braiding model. Currently, I practice braiding every Tuesday morning at 10:00. When I get my model in the chair, I usually look up some inspiration from a quick Google search and get to work. My clients love getting a hip style that can hold up in this windy, foggy city!

We will be hosting more braiding classes—get in touch us at mishi@morphicbeauty.com if you are interested!