Black Is Back At Believe

Jet black hair is making a comeback (we wonder if its all the vampire influences around these days?)

Whatever the reason, dyeing your hair black at home often ends up looking like you dumped a bottle of ink on your head (and might make yourself a candidate for the dreaded “chemical cut” which comers of improperly processing hair.)

Black hair also may not be the answer to your hair’s natural fading as you age. Black hair tends to make Caucasian women look older and harder ( if we only could age as gracefully as our Asian or African American sisters), but if you have your heart set on going black…here’s some rules of the road:

• Don’t do it yourself: (See ink-dumped-on-head reason above). Make an appointment to come see Lisa, a trained Master Colorist, or one of Believe's talented staff to handle the coloring for you.
• Try a temporary rinse first: Black hair doesn’t suit every type of skin. If you are fair with light eyes, the effect can either be sultry and dramatic or make you look like the undead. Don’t commit to so serious a color change until you see if you can live with it. Dark brown to black might not be so noticeable, but if you are light haired—be prepared for a shock.
• Avoid flat black: Highlights are the way to relieve the stark appearance of black hair and there are many different ways to go. (Come into Believe for a color consultation and we will take into account not only your skin and eye color, but your personality, too, in recommending what high (or low) lights you should consider. You don’t want to look washed out so as a general rule, if you have a cool skin tone you'll want to keep excess reds or gold out of your highlights. Use an ash color and go for a neutral medium brown color. If you're a warm-colored woman, do the exact opposite. Look for browns with a hint of red or gold to complement your skin tone.
• Types of High (Low)Lights: There are Natural highlights for the more demure among you –these are using colors that occur in nature as your highlighting choice; Contrasting colors make more of a statement or you can go Bold showing the world your wild side.
  
  Here are some suggestions:

• Natural shades are usually no lighter than three shades above the black—so subtle you might only notice the difference in the play of light on your hair (and so you don’t end up looking like a skunk). This may be one look you’ll wish to consider if you are trying to blend your grays into your new color.
• Caramel highlights may help avoid some of the fading and brassy red tones that may surface towards the end of the 4-6 week period when you get your hair colored.
• Bronze highlights can enhance black hair without being so bold, adding depth and texture to help avoid that matte look.
• Honey blonde highlights can look fabulous on short black hair, showing off a great layered cut (that we can also provide at Believe.)
• Colored high(and low) lights can bring out your inner rocker. Crayon colors from royal purple and magenta, to hot pink or deep blue can turn a few heads and add a little pizzazz to your look (Give them a try during the summer months. If you can’t let loose then, when can you?) Or go all Avril Lavigne and put black streaks in your blonde hair and then live up to the image—be bold, be brave and World, take notice.
• Take care of your new black color: First and foremost, always use a sulfate-free shampoo and conditioner like Aestelance After Color (that we sell at Believe.) Every other week, you might want to also use a purple shampoo and conditioner to prevent brassy tones. (Don't use them every day or you might actually turning your hair purple!)

Make your appointment now for us at Believe to show you that black really is beautiful (and call soon—as the weather heats up, so does our appointment book.)

Believe Clears The Air

My mother used to say, “You have to suffer for beauty” (she was usually dragging a brush through my tangled hair at the time). What she said still holds true—especially in the salon business. The truth is, the products we use to make your hair more beautiful could actually make all of us sick unless we cleared the salon's air of all those noxious smells and potentially harmful chemicals.

So we did! Believe Beauty Lounge is proud to announce we have installed the Restorer™ Salon Air Cleaner to make sure the air in our salon is clean, crisp and healthy.

The Restorer uses filters specifically designed to target particulates and the most harmful chemical and gas odors—like those that occur during processes like hair coloring, perms, highlighting and straightening. The Restorer pulls contaminated air through the bottom of the unit. Impurities are then replaced as the air passes through specialized filter media before it is released back into our salon. Simple, yet effective and it makes our stylists, our customers and even the local health department happy.

Here's why we installed a commercial grade air cleaner: Though we love our home air purifiers, they simply aren't strong enough, nor their HEPA filter large enough to do the job in our salon. You see, traditional filter media effectively captures airborne particles, but it doesn't reduce gases and odors. That's why our Restore unit uses activated carbon filter media that has been specially treated to adsorb gases. Adsorption (with a “d”) is not to be confused with absorption (with a “b”). During absorption (with a “b”), one substance is taken into another – for example, a sponge absorbs water. However, adsorption (with a “d”) involves collecting or drawing a substance to the surface – much like a magnet. By adsorbing gases, a specially treated activated carbon filter reduces the amount of gases in the air, along with their related odors.

Salons are a true little laboratory of gases like Formaldehyde – used in hair straightener and nail hardener, Phenylenediamine (PPD) – used in two thirds of all hair dyes, Sodium Hydroxide – used in hair relaxers and Ammonia – used in hair dye –a pretty noxious brew, but the Restorer gets rid of these potentially harmful pollutants.

Featuring a 360 degree exhaust, the Restorer uses a particulate filter, which removes 99.98% of airborne particles down to 0.1 micron, which is three times better than ordinary HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) designs and, best of all, the Restorer never sleeps—it works 24 hours a day to make sure out salon's air is as clean as a whistle.

Now at Believe, you won't suffer the side effects of pollutants you'll still find at most other salons-- like headaches, eye irritation, respiratory problems or drowsiness...and if you've got allergies to any of the chemicals used in the beauty industry, Believe is now even more welcoming. Make an appointment to stop by soon. You (and Mother Nature) will notice the difference immediately.