One of the most common questions I get on this blog is “what is your color formula?”.

It’s like the “what’s your sign” of Hairdresser On Fire. Anyway, here are a few reasons I’ve never revealed my formula….

~I have no idea what it is.
~My colorist has no idea what it is.
~It’s complicated and impossible to do unless you are a professional

The way my colorist, Charlie, works is mostly visual. She doesn’t write anything down, and instead looks at the hair and decides what it needs based on the condition of it, the pre-existing color, and what I’m going for.  I like this because I never know how it’s going to turn out, I only know that I’m going to like it. I try to not guide her too much, and instead let her creative coloring mind and hands maul my hair in a good way. We generally do any and every variation of strawberry blonde there is, because it’s my absolute favorite color in the world to be, and I love that it turns out different every time.

Anyhair, I had a gloss the other day, and I had another colorist at my salon, Carla, do it. I finally got a wild hair and asked her what formula she was using for my strawberry/apricot/warm blonde*, and wrote it down for you. She layered two different glosses at the sink for me, here they are in order of appearance.

Eh hem..

First Layer:
1 oz. 9AA
1 oz. 9RB
2 Caps of O kicker
2 Caps of 8C
A dash of Clear gloss to dilute it.

Second Layer:
1 oz. 9RB
1 Cap of 9V
1 Cap of Red Kicker
A dash of Clear gloss to dilute it.

See why that basically requires a PHD in hair color to pull off?

For all you colorists/stylists out there, let me know if you try this and how it turns out! I’d love to hear back! And maybe I’ll start a trend of asking Charlie/Carla what formula they use each time and report to you here. Then we can laugh at how totally different it is every time. How’s that sound?

*If my haircolor was a food I would eat it.