Read Online The New Rules for Blondes by Selena Coppock - Free Book Online
Authors: Selena Coppock
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NYC-based colorist and friend Michael Robinson with the Antonio Prieto Salon. Michael is a gorgeous blonde lady, despite the fact that she shares a first name with my brown-haired father. Most important, Michael is a talented and friendly colorist, so she didn’t mind answering my multitude of ridiculous hair questions. She gave me a crash course in color and taught me that hair color might seem like a nebulous world filled with buzzwords such as “champagne,” “ashy,” and, “hot roots,” but it’s actually grounded in empirical logic: numbers and the color wheel. I hadn’t thought about a color wheel since sixth-grade art class and I have a severe aversion to math, 36 so I threw myself at Michael’s feet and begged for enlightenment . . . and a root touch-up while we talked.
The hair color industry organizes natural hair shades on a continuum that goes from 1 to 10. The 1 ranking signifies dark black, usually Asian hair, and 10 is the lightest color that can occur in nature (think Scandinavian blonde beauties). Of course bright blonde is a “Perfect Ten,” natch. All natural hair colors can be found somewhere in this range of ten.
When thinking about this ten-pronged color continuum, something struck me. “Wouldn’t a Marilyn Monroe platinum blonde be more of a 10 than a random Scandinavian blonde? That is, isn’t an almost-white blonde considered blonder than a yellowish blonde?”
“Oh no, that platinum, almost-white color that you see on some celebrities—that is outside the 1-to-10 scale. It’s considered a 12, and those women are called Special Blondes,” Michael explained as she gave me autumnal highlights. She reminded me that the 1-to-10 range is for purely natural hair colors. That 1940s-style white blonde is certainly not a shade that occurs in nature, thus its categorization off the scale as Special Blondes or Special 12. This shade is the ashiest that you can go—it’s practically white. Modern-day examples of this include Gwen Stefani, Elisha Cuthbert, Christina Aguilera, and Michelle Williams.
“So if the range is 1 to 10, and you have Special Blondes that are 12, then what color is at 11? A blonde that is really light, but not quite ‘Special Blonde,’ but blonder than a natural blonde?” I inquired.
“There’s really no 11 on the official scale. Sure, you could make a color that I suppose is considered an 11, but it’s just not recognized in the system.” Huh. So this one doesn’t go to 11, unlike Spinal Tap’s amplifiers. 37
Special Blonde or 12 coloring often requires a double process, when the hair must be completely bleached to the scalp to remove all pigment. Oftentimes that process must be administered twice to achieve that platinum hue, thus the moniker “double process.” A single process is half of a double process (fun with fractions!), and it’s a way of achieving the wanted hair color with only one step. When a single process is done, all of the hair is painted with one solid color so the hair color becomes uniform and every piece of hair receives color. It’s mostly used with women who have red hair or dark hair, or are doing gray coverage. Technically, a single process can be done at home or in the salon, but the at-home application of one color all over is what I tend to think of when I think of single process. A double process, which is much more complex and dangerous, should not be done at home. Beware the double process because you might end up with a “chemical cut,” which is what happens when hair is so damaged and overprocessed that it simply breaks off because of the trauma. Sounds horrifying, huh? You go into the salon for some exciting color on your beautiful, long mane, and you emerge looking like G.I. Jane or buzz-cut-breakdown-era Britney Spears. I’ve definitely seen a few gals with chemical cuts, but I thought they just had exotic taste and fancied themselves Halle Berry look-alikes who could pull off such an unforgiving look. Turns
The hair color industry organizes natural hair shades on a continuum that goes from 1 to 10. The 1 ranking signifies dark black, usually Asian hair, and 10 is the lightest color that can occur in nature (think Scandinavian blonde beauties). Of course bright blonde is a “Perfect Ten,” natch. All natural hair colors can be found somewhere in this range of ten.
When thinking about this ten-pronged color continuum, something struck me. “Wouldn’t a Marilyn Monroe platinum blonde be more of a 10 than a random Scandinavian blonde? That is, isn’t an almost-white blonde considered blonder than a yellowish blonde?”
“Oh no, that platinum, almost-white color that you see on some celebrities—that is outside the 1-to-10 scale. It’s considered a 12, and those women are called Special Blondes,” Michael explained as she gave me autumnal highlights. She reminded me that the 1-to-10 range is for purely natural hair colors. That 1940s-style white blonde is certainly not a shade that occurs in nature, thus its categorization off the scale as Special Blondes or Special 12. This shade is the ashiest that you can go—it’s practically white. Modern-day examples of this include Gwen Stefani, Elisha Cuthbert, Christina Aguilera, and Michelle Williams.
“So if the range is 1 to 10, and you have Special Blondes that are 12, then what color is at 11? A blonde that is really light, but not quite ‘Special Blonde,’ but blonder than a natural blonde?” I inquired.
“There’s really no 11 on the official scale. Sure, you could make a color that I suppose is considered an 11, but it’s just not recognized in the system.” Huh. So this one doesn’t go to 11, unlike Spinal Tap’s amplifiers. 37
Special Blonde or 12 coloring often requires a double process, when the hair must be completely bleached to the scalp to remove all pigment. Oftentimes that process must be administered twice to achieve that platinum hue, thus the moniker “double process.” A single process is half of a double process (fun with fractions!), and it’s a way of achieving the wanted hair color with only one step. When a single process is done, all of the hair is painted with one solid color so the hair color becomes uniform and every piece of hair receives color. It’s mostly used with women who have red hair or dark hair, or are doing gray coverage. Technically, a single process can be done at home or in the salon, but the at-home application of one color all over is what I tend to think of when I think of single process. A double process, which is much more complex and dangerous, should not be done at home. Beware the double process because you might end up with a “chemical cut,” which is what happens when hair is so damaged and overprocessed that it simply breaks off because of the trauma. Sounds horrifying, huh? You go into the salon for some exciting color on your beautiful, long mane, and you emerge looking like G.I. Jane or buzz-cut-breakdown-era Britney Spears. I’ve definitely seen a few gals with chemical cuts, but I thought they just had exotic taste and fancied themselves Halle Berry look-alikes who could pull off such an unforgiving look. Turns
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