Mulberry Colored Foils

Q: Hi, my name is Hannah and I enjoy hair. At the moment it's black with blonde and brown streaks. To break the contrast of the black, I wanted to put a mulberry / burgundy lot of colored foils through. Will that take to the black? I know black is a very difficult color to work with. Even the blonde goes through so many stages over the black before you get a nice white. Thanks for your help.

A: Hannah, you can possibly get the mulberry color over the black in a single process if the color level of the mulberry color is within one or two levels of the black (level 10). You are correct in that black hair is the most difficult to color because in order to add a color that will be visible, you must lighten it past the level of the color you are adding. Otherwise, the best you can hope to achieve is a tinting of the black that becomes only visible in the shine of the hair.

If the color you are adding is within a couple of levels of black, you will need to use a 50-volume developer when mixing the color to ensure sufficient lightening of the hair. However, be very cautious when using this developer as it is very strong and can damage the hair if used improperly. Generally, I don't advocate using this strength of developer unless you are a professional.

If you don't know the color level of the mulberry color, or if it is a deposit-only color (see the package for this information), you will need to pre-lighten the hair first, and add the mulberry color in a second stage of the process. You do this by bleaching the hair first to the desired level, rinsing it thoroughly and drying it, then adding the color to the bleached hair. You don't specify the type of hair color you are using, so I am trying to give you what information that I can to help in the most likely situations.

The two-stage process with foils will require that you do the foils twice and will mean isolating the bleached hair into the second set of foils. You will probably need to have someone assist you in this as some areas of the head will be hard to see and reach on your own. An easier method would be to use a highlighting cap, which will allow you to keep the bleached hair separate through both stages of the coloring process without having to recollect the bleached strands.

©hairfinder.com

See also:

How to color hair

Hair bleaching

Highlighting with foils

Highlighting with a cap