Spring Steel | Lavender Balayage

As you may already know, my mom has always been my go-to hair stylist and we’ve never ventured outside of brown and blonde shades. But when Wella Professionals offered me this amazing makeover, I knew I wanted to take a risk and do something drastic. I was feeling edgy and confident and ready for a new look, so I let Eric Lindsey, a Top Artist with Wella Professionals give me this cool new transformation. With some help from Wella’s Blondor Freelights and Instamatic by Color Touch products, Eric transformed my hair and I am so in love with the end result.

One thing that fascinated me about watching Eric work was that he measured out all of the products he used. I could instantly tell that I was going to have the best treatment for my hair. Eric used a coloring technique called balayage, which he described as a “herringbone” technique; where they focus on depositing the color in a back and forth motion from the mid-shaft to the ends of the hair. It’s very similar to ombré, but the end result is a much more natural and flowy look. The balayage technique of coloring has a great way of making the added colors blend into the hair in an organic way. He used the Blondor Freelights to create some blonde highlights in my hair that would pick up the lavender color.

After the blonde balayage highlights were set, Eric used the Instamatic by Color Touch to give me those touches of lavender in my hair. He brushed the demi-permanent color through the mid-shafts and ends of my hair to absorb into the blonde. The overall result is what he calls a “Spring Steel” look.

I was over the moon with the way my new color turned out! My hair looked so fresh, so cool, and the texture was amazing even after all of the color treatment. We just had to take to the streets of New York afterwards and take some fun pictures and show it off!

For what could seem like such a complicated process, the whole coloring experience felt like it took no time at all. I’m grateful to Eric at Wella Studios and ELLE Magazine for helping me take the plunge to incorporate a new color into my hair. Be sure to watch the video below to see how balayage works.