The best ideas are often accidents. By accident, I mean that they aren't always planned. A while back, I had a client come in on a slow, Tuesday afternoon. She eagerly talked about how she wanted a fresh, new look for her new job position in San Francisco. She showed me several photos of rose gold balayage hair but kept going on about how much she loved all the bright, vivid colors she saw running around the salon. I had purple at the time, which happened to be her favorite color.
As a stylist, it is part of my job to pick up on small clues that clients send out via body language, conversation and tone in order to make a fantastic judgement call on what will make that person truly happy with their new look. For her, I felt that some well placed ribbon shaped pieces of purple would really make her day. Those pieces needed to be completely hidden for the most part as she was not sure how the new job would react to nontraditional hair colors. The process took some time and a bit of coaxing on my part but the "Ribboning" technique was born.
I had no idea what I had created at the time and initially didn't care much for the photos I took of her hair. Her and I both really loved the way the colors melted in person but I never posted any photos of it until almost a year later. I tossed the photo up on my instagram, @hairhunter , and within an hour, it had several hundred likes and was reposted eight times.
Hair Addiction Magazine happened to repost the photo on their Facebook page and to our surprise, it managed to stack up a whopping 16000 likes and 2500 shares. This prompted an article to be written about the look. To date, the photo (I have lovingly called it the "PBJ" hair for obvious reasons and...well...sometimes you just need a PBJ) has racked up over 500,000 shares, likes and comments between social media platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.
So you are probably thinking "okay..big deal. What's the point?"
Risk taking is a part of life. The risk takers are always the ones who get the things they want in this world. I took a risk by 1. placing ribbons of vivid color into someone's hair even though she wasn't completely sure she wanted them. 2. Posting a photo that I didn't think was good enough.
It was good enough. The risk paid off. Many people in this industry will tell you to only do techniques on clients that you have practiced on a mannequin head. I say that is old fashioned and for some things, you just need to go with it. If your client is comfortable and you have the artistic ability to comprehend how your placement will look, then by all means. Take that jump.
Take risks. Chances are, there isn't much to lose in the first place.
I plan to post a How To on this soon. Keep your eyes open for that.
Hugs and Sunny Surf,
Jess
Follow Me : @hairhunter
