I colored my hair with a box of Feria in a shade of blonde that turned out to be too yellow for my liking. I was coloring a lighter shade of blonde over a slightly darker shade of blonde, which had sometimes worked for me but this must have been too much of a lighter color because hair colour cannot lift anther hair dye. My roots were a bit on the orangeish side but it wasn't anything horrible and would have ended up toning down in a few washes. I went to Total Image Salon in Jackson square and spoke with one of the girls there that offered a violet shampoo and conditioner. I used it once with good results, but it was going to take a few more washes with the stuff to get it the colour I wanted.
With that being said, I decided that I didn't want to wait until I'd washed it several times and went to Joseph's in Jackson Square on my lunch. I spoke with a nice woman at the reception area who said that they could probably just run a toner through it. She consulted with another woman who took a look at me and said that it would probably only need to sit with toner for about 15 minutes. (We were discussing what time I should come in after work.) Now, be advised that I had done research online and knew that the way to cancel out yellow is with it's opposite color, which is violet. So I would need a violet toner.
We decided on an appointment time and I returned after work. I spoke with one woman who advised that it "was way too yellow for a toner to work". Now, keep in mind that when people bleach their hair it turns out very, very yellow, which my hair was not. I asked about other options if a toner wouldn't work how about coloring over it maybe a darker shade of blonde, closer to my natural color. This woman then left and went to talk to another male stylist.
This guy came back and told me that my only options were to either bleach it (very damaging to the hair) or run very fine highlights through my entire head. Then he said "that might be costly though". I asked him how much the highlighting would cost and he said after a pause... "oh maybe around $100 to $150..." when I didn't balk at the price and responded with an "OK". All of a sudden the cost "could reach up to $200." When I asked him about colouring over it, he was hesitant, asked me what colour I wanted and how much darker I wanted to go. He gave me colour charts to look at with the hair samples. We talked about that for awhile and I was sent away to go find magazines with a colour that I would like to have.
At this point, I went back up to my office for about 10 minutes and then left to catch a bus. I ended up missing the bus and as I had about 15 minutes left to wait for the next one I decided to go back to Total Image Salon in Jackson Square to consult with them and see what they say about toning down my hair color.
On my way back into the mall, I ran into the guy from Joseph's that I spoke with. He was walking down and away from Total Image. When I arrived at Total Image, the lady there didn't even ask what had been done to my hair. She just said that the only solutions were to have a million expensive highlights run through or bleach my hair (which is already super light blonde). I suspect that the guy from Joseph's just came from Total Image after advising the lady that there was a potential $200 sale for him and let's make sure we tell her the same thing. Then she was shoving a business card in my hand and I left.
I went home and that night washed my hair with Joico's Violet shampoo and conditioner. Noticed that the colour toned down. Then washed it again this morning with the same voilet shampoo and conditioner and my yellow and slight orange has practically disappeared.
So, either Joseph's and Total Image have absoluetely no experience and knowledge in haircolor and/or color correction or they're both running a dishonest business. In all the research I have done, I have never seen a color correction done or retoning done by charging a client up to $200 for a head full of "fine highlights to blend out the yellow."
If a violet shampoo works, why wouldn't a violet toner work? read more
