"I don't know how my hair ended up this blonde," says Beth, 38. "My highlights have taken over my base color -- I'm supposed to be a brunette." Add to that daily heat styling and you end up with dry, bleached-out frizz. "I just want to cut it all off and start over -- new cut, new color," she says. "Something that looks healthy and rich."
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The cut
With very thick hair -- and a lot of it -- Beth's hair shouldn't be cut too short, says hairstylist Whitney Olson. Otherwise, it ends up standing out from the head in a triangle shape. So instead, Beth's hair was given a fairly blunt chop to shoulder length -- five inches shorter, with a wispy side bang to break up her hairline.
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The color
Beth's blonde is getting re-booted to a darker shade -- brown with a pinch of red. "I want to bring out her Irish coloring," says colorist Jherra Moreno. "But I want to keep it within the realm of her natural hair color too -- nothing too crazy." Color was applied first to her roots with a 20-minute process time. After, the color was then applied to her damaged ends, which soak up color more quickly. When the dye is done cooking, the color allows Beth's highlights to show through for subtle dimension. Now the trick is, how can Beth keep her new, rich color intact? Damaged hair doesn't like holding on to color, says Moreno, so you have to be diligent about using a color-protecting shampoo and conditioner.
Olson applies a bit of shine spray to Beth's damp hair before blowing it dry in sections. The slightest bend to her ends adds to the polished look, which Olson achieved with a round brush and blow dryer. To keep the bangs swept to the side, a spritz of light-hold hairspray was used. It's an easy-to-do style that takes away the necessity of the flat iron from Beth's daily routine, which will save her loads of further damage.
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The brows
Beth's brows were good shape-wise, Hollier says -- not over-tweezed, and with a good arch (see the eyebrow mistakes you might be making). So it just took some light trimming to get them ready for prime time.
With a demanding work life, and an even more demanding 2-year-old at home, Beth needed a cut and color that would help her look more polished and put-together -- without taking a ton of time. So we called in our team of experts at the Warren-Tricomi salon in Los Angeles, Calif., which includes hairstylists Whitney Olson and Reanna Garcia, colorists Jherra Moreno and Ashleigh Childers, and celebrity makeup artists and co-founders of the Luxe Beauty Team Sarah Uslan and Amy Hollier. Let's see what they did to turn back the clock for Beth.
