So much of what we consume on a daily basis affects our choices when it comes to our hair. The beauty in this is that we have evolved from one cookie cutter image of “beauty,” to gracefully embracing bold colors, freeing our natural textures, and trying new things with our hair.
As a cosmetologist, the one thing that separates us from a self-taught, social media color guru is our education. Our clients see us not only for our skillful hand and our knowledge of fixing box color, but to also give them solid information when it comes to keeping their hair healthy.
The Foundation
First and foremost, we have to educate clients on the foundation of hair. At my salon, I won’t perform color services on hair I have not seen or touched. Performing a chemical service on damaged, dry or over-processed hair does a disservice to our clients which could later come back to bite us. The foundation of the service is everything, and it’s not always adding a few drops of Olaplex to mask the underlying damage. If there is damage within the hair strand, we risk the vibrancy of the color, the longevity of the blowout, or the efficiency of the chemical service.
Treatments
As a rule of thumb, if you will be a consistent client in my chair, you will commit to hair treatments and split end trims. It’s up to me to use my expertise to determine the treatments needed based on the hair texture and type. Should we incorporate more protein? Is the hair needing more moisture? Are the strands requiring a reparative mask? It’s super important to provide the hair with exactly what it needs so we achieve lasting results from beginning to end.
At Home Care
For cut and chemical services, it’s likely that we are only seeing a good majority of clients every 6-8 weeks for maintenance. It’s super important to stress that if we are using quality products on their hair in the salon, it’s just as vital to continue the regimen at home. A salon visit should not be the only time clients are using heat protectants, color extending shampoo, or alcohol-free products — our efforts should go hand in hand. Clients appreciate that you care not only about the physical appearance of their hair, but also enough to eliminate the frustration of the hair not cooperating at home.
We have a great responsibility to not just promote images of perfectly toned blondes and luscious protective styles on our feeds, but to emphasize the importance of maintaining the tresses at their core. Taking back our chair and educating clients on the importance of this will help them have great results all around and make them their own hair goals!
