Decoding Hair Colour Tubes. What do the numbers really mean?

Something I have been asked a lot lately by other hairdressers and educators is how I help my online course students with formulas if I am a brand-free educator. I have been interviewed by other podcasters recently on their shows, including Jodie Brown on Hair Stylist Rising, Celeste Gonzalez on Beauty Business Mind Podcast, Crystal Green on Your Hair Mentor, to name just a few, chatting about niching down to Reds & all have shared this is something that makes them and their students nervous… Want to know what that is?

You are nodding your head up and down and saying YES, aren’t you?

A common fear of hairdressers is changing brands of colour and feeling like you don’t know what you’re doing again. It’s inevitable that you will change salons or brands at least once in your hair career. Probably many more times for many varied reasons. I don’t want you to feel like you cannot change brands easily and still be successful with colouring. In fact, in my junior colourist years, I only looked for employment in salons that stocked one colour brand because I was shit at haircolour without that brand.

Show notes for episode 134

Decoding colour tubes is something we assume we should know. We assume everyone else in the salon knows it and I think in fear of looking silly or stupid we don't ask for help with it. What do the numbers really mean?

Let me help you with this.

As a Hair Colour Specialist I have worked with many different salon professional hair colour brands and the decoding of tubes can be different from brand to brand, so let's dive into discussing how to read a colour tube and know what colour result you’re looking for.

PRO TIPS FOR DECODING HAIR COLOUR TUBE LABELS:

• To understand a hair colour,  just read the number from left to right.
• The number before the dot is the level and the number or letters after the dot or hyphen refers to the reflection or shade of the colour tube
• Single reflect refers to one colour being the tone
• Double reflect labels have two colour tones in the tube
• Copying a formula brand to brand does not work because you must formulate using your colour principles and your colour tube decoding strategy to ensure predictable results

Listen to episode 134 of the Colour Kristina Talks Podcast to know how decode haircolour tubes and understand what do the numbers in them really mean.