Back To Brunette with Celebrity Colorist Sherry Ratay

Before and After

Ok, I’ve done many attempts to turn myself into a blondie and it had never worked for many different reasons, the last two, well let me tell you, ONE went from a simple ombré request to the mess of my life (lets not forget my hair was natural and long) I ended up having to cut off my hair very short because of the level of damage done trying to fix the disaster. The last attempt after having my hair short and back to natural got messed up again by this guy at this supposed to be secluded hair salon last September, he turned my hair into an orange cut in half with a machete! And the nightmare started AGAIN!! From another simple request, a light balayage to add some light to my face and only in the ends! Another mistake I made was to do it the day before taking off to Paris for fashion week.

 It took my regular hairdresser a month to fix the mess, from the color to the horrible harsh lines that divided ¾ of my hair from my natural hair color to this horrible orange. To correct these mistakes, had to go more invasive with the blond, exactly what I didn’t want to hear and see, why? Because as oppose from many girls, I don’t enjoy going to the hair salon or spending my money on giving high maintenance to my hair, I need to keep my life simplified and for a Latina keeping a hair looking blond and no orange its not an easy task.

 So when I heard that Sherry Ratay, an internationally acclaimed, celebrity colorist, Joico commercially artistic colorist, award-winning color expert and salon owner, was is New York I made my appointment with her at Sam Brocato Salon in Soho, seeking for a pro hand to go back to brunette with the less amount of difficulties as possible.

Here is how she did it:

In Sherry words

When looking at a color correction you first have to begin with analyzing the existing hair, skin and eye color. 

I began with a listening to the concerns of what was already on her hair; I heard that it was too brassy-orange.  And I must say I agreed 100% that what we were both looking at did not look good on her skin.  I discussed how when working with hair that is a deep/deeper shade of brown it is very difficult to create lightness without exposing a lot of the underlying pigments (ORANGE). We both also agreed that we would begin our color correction with taking her back to her natural hair color.

Step 1-Deepening and controlling the orange that was exposed…I did show her on my glove the color of choice as you could see the oxidation occur during the processing.  I used a select combination of yellow and blue which overall is green (the foundation of the color wheel)

Step 2-Now that the orange was controlled I needed to create depth. I then did a soft blend of brown, yellow and blue, as I still needed a dash more control of the orange and depth.

Step 3-The depth and the orange was control now it was time to create the final color, a deep chocolate cherry brown. Just a hue of red in the sunlight… BEAUTIFUL!  Honestly it looks and feels incredible.

To be a colorist it is vital to choose the proper color tool for each service.

And I couldn’t agree more with Sherry! For the first time I love the results after a hair color. Sherry made the process look so easy and clean.